twenty-something

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Somehow I missed this "humor piece" from Details magazine last April (I must've let my subscription to this rag lapse), as well as the controversy that followed. In this one page, the magazine manages to use gay and Asian stereotypes to make readers both laugh and become offended.

Maybe I work and live in too-P.C. of a place, but after a slight chuckle in spite of myself, I found myself fairly offended -- but more so, interested in learning more about this particular controversy. In my undergrad, I did some work in media studies, particularly relating to images of gay people and Asian people, and especially the intersection of both. So I'm finding this subject quite facinating.

The Advocate has an interesting piece in it's March 15 '05 issues by John Caldwell called "Invisible no more: It's been a year since an offensive feature in Details inspired unprecedented activism and visibility among gay and lesbian Asians. So how much has really changed?" It's well done and really through provoking. An excerpt:

That invisibility is one reason both gay and straight Asians were outraged by Details magazine's "Gay or Asian?" stab at humor. When Wong first saw that April 2004 feature he was offended but not surprised by the sarcastically captioned photograph of a young, spiky-haired Asian man dressed in metallic shoes and a V-neck T-shirt. Portrayals of Asian men as sexually ambiguous or purely feminine are still quite common, he says: "This is an issue that the gay Asian community has faced time and time again. There's so much ignorance."

Nearing the one-year anniversary of the Details article, Wong says little has changed for gay Asian people. Yes, studies have been done and pro-Asian programs implemented, "but there's still a lot of work to be done. We need to really speak out on our own invisibility."

Glenn Magpantay, cochair of Gay Asian and Pacific Islander Men of New York and a staff attorney with the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, agrees. He helped organize a high-profile protest outside the Details office in Manhattan that resulted in a full-page apology from the magazine. "[But] we are still finding homophobic articles in the Asian-language press and anti-Asian caricatures in the gay media," he says.

The Details controversy did shed light on the pervasive stereotypes and general lack of positive representation that Asian men continue to face. Despite the success of gay Asian stars like Alec Mapa and B.D. Wong, "gay Asian men are still not perceived to be popular," says Lee, who has featured young gay Asian characters in his independent films Drift and Ethan Mao.

The full article is here.