Duchess Meghan: She criticizes the "Dragon Lady" label

Duchess Meghan (41) reported back after the death of Queen Elizabeth II (1926-2022) with her Spotify podcast "Archetypes".

Duchess Meghan: She criticizes the "Dragon Lady" label

Duchess Meghan (41) reported back after the death of Queen Elizabeth II (1926-2022) with her Spotify podcast "Archetypes". In the latest issue, she criticizes US films such as "Kill Bill" (from 2003), "Austin Powers" (from 1997) and "Full Metal Jacket" (1987) for "toxic stereotypes" of Asian women. In particular, it is about the so-called "Dragon Lady".

"Movies like 'Austin Powers' and 'Kill Bill' portrayed the characters of these Asian women as overly sexualized or aggressive," Meghan said, referring to the characters Fook Yu and Fook Mi in Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002). and Lucy Liu's (53) hyper-violent O-Ren Ishii in the two "Kill Bill" films.

She noted that such characterizations date back at least to 1924, when Chinese-American actress Anna May Wong (1905-1961) became a scheming Mongolian slave alongside then-US star Douglas Fairbanks Sr. (1883-1939) in starred in the silent film The Thief of Bagdad (1924). "This toxic stereotyping of Asian women... it doesn't just stop when the credits roll," the Duchess of Sussex said.

As an example, she introduced the Taiwanese-American sociologist Nancy Wang Yuen, who wrote about the dragon lady stereotype in her book Reel Inequality: Hollywood Actors and Racism.

Yuen shared on the podcast how, while traveling to an academic conference, she was approached by a man with a line from "Full Metal Jacket." "I myself got hit on at an Atlanta airport by a stranger who just shouted at me, 'I'm so horny,'" Yuen said. She continued: "I knew why because I looked around and I saw that I was the only Asian woman in that area. I knew he was talking to me, although I don't even know if he was 'Full Metal Jacket' had seen."

Yuen also shared the line's enduring popularity, which has been featured in rap group 2 Live Crew's hit song 'Me So Horny' (1989), "shows like 'South Park' and movies like 'The 40 Year Old Virgin'" is mentioned.

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