Since Wednesday's discussion on stereotypes and how each serves an ideological function in society, I’ve been thinking about stereotypes about the Asian/Asian American community that remain today. In “What Happened to the Women? Chinese and Indian Male Migration to the United States in Global Perspective,” Sucheta Mazumdar explores how, despite the need for labor from 1870 to 1920, white-collar jobs in the U.S. were rarely open to married immigrant women and so many ended up stuck at home as domestic workers. Specifically addressing the Chinese immigrant community, Mazumdar talks about how: “For Chinese women, if they were married and had a sliver of space to spare, taking in boarders was a primary occupation” (Mazumdar 62). This was the first time I had ever read anything that seemed to give a historical background to the “Chinese landlady” stereotype. This immediately made me think of the recent “Modern Family” episode “Slow Down Your Neighbors.” In this episode, the gay couple Cameron (Eric Stonestreet) and Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) befriend their wacky new neighbor Barry (James Marsdan), only to find out after talking to their landlady Mrs. Ko that he is not a new tenant, but has been squatting in their daughter Lily’s play castle. While Mrs. Ko has a very small part in this episode, it stuck in my mind because the daughter of the actress who plays Mrs. Ko (names omitted for privacy) is a Scripps student. Mrs. Ko’s character is the stereotypical heavily-accented Chinese landlady who, after becoming visably agitated by her husband’s car honking, tells him “You two so lucky they don’t let you get married.” I’ve still been unable to figure out what function Mrs. Ko serves in this episode besides just being a stereotype. The actress who plays her is in fact Japanese American, and so it is puzzling to me why the creators of the show decided Mrs. Ko should be portrayed as an unhappily married, heavily-accented Chinese woman, instead of just allowing the character to be an American woman, as the actress is herself. It seems to me that this stereotype is no longer relevant in today’s society, and so it makes me wonder why the creators of “Modern Family” decided to feature it in the episode. Thoughts?
Saturday, February 26, 2011
The Chinese Landlady Stereotype in "Modern Family"
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Mrs. Ko is kind of in the grand tradition of Mrs. Kim on Gilmore Girls, who is also a non-Japanese (Korean) immigrant character played by a Japanese-American woman. And she herself follows in the footsteps of Mickey Rooney in yellowface in Breakfast at Tiffany's, screaming abuse at Audrey Hepburn. Something about the older Asian immigrant figure who doesn't understand the culture or the flighty youth of today is clearly still serving a societal function. It might just be the vicious comedy. If I had to guess, though, I'd say it might be grounded in a process of othering immigrants in a nonfearmongering way. There are similar figures of the Jewish landlord and the Greek landlord that occasionally still crop up today but are even more present in earlier times when they were more common "nonthreatening" immigrant categories.
ReplyDeleteCourtesy the Angry Asian Man: there's a new sitcom coming out called Two Broke Girls featuring "an Asian character named Han Lee, described in the script as 33, Korean Born, Lovable, Thin Man; Thick Accent. And it's pretty much downhill from there." He performs a lot of the same functions, but isn't the landlord or the laundromat owner. Maybe Mazumdar's article is salient to that; since he's a man, his employment options, even as a stereotype, are wider.
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ReplyDeleteMrs. Ko isn’t the only character being stereotyped by her race. Gloria is a Colombian American woman who marries a wealthy and much older White American. Although Sofia Vergara, the actress who plays Gloria, has an accent, the show emphasizes her role as a Colombian woman and stereotypes her in many ways. It is interesting to look at the portrayal of Gloria and her son, Manny, because they incorporate many Colombian traditions and customs in the episodes. First, in the episode, “Coal Digger,” Claire Dunphy, Gloria’s husband’s daughter, calls Gloria a gold digger. Even though Gloria loves Jay, her husband, the Dunphy family still stereotypes her as a gold digger. Perhaps this is because Gloria is portrayed as a beautiful and exotic woman who wears revealing clothes and isn’t the stereotypical mother. Later, in the episodes, “Run for Your Wife” and “Undeck the Halls,” Gloria tries to incorporate many Colombian traditions into her family’s lives. She wants her son to wear a Colombian poncho to school and during Christmas she wants to celebrate with fireworks and practical jokes. In both cases, Jay is upset that Gloria wants to practice these Colombian traditions. This furthers the idea that immigrants are being suppressed of their culture in the United States. Lastly, in “Halloween,” Jay and Manny correct Gloria when she mispronounces words or says English phrases wrong. This offends Gloria and she tries to Americanize herself by speaking in an “English” voice. Instead of celebrating her accent, she feels the need to change herself to fit in with her family.
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