Off the airwaves

Pop quiz: name at least three Asian American actors who are
regular characters (appearing in about eight out of 10 episodes) on
a prime-time television show.

It’s a hard task, considering the lack of roles for Asian
Pacific Islander Americans, at least according to a new study
compiled by five doctoral candidates in the UCLA sociology
department. In fact, only 2.7 percent of all regular character
roles on television today are filled by APIA actors.

The study, commissioned by the National Asian Pacific American
Legal Consortium, examined not just the numbers of APIAs on
prime-time television, but also the types of characters they
portray. Nancy Yuen, the lead researcher, and Christina Chin, Meera
Deo, Jenny Lee and Noriko Milman recorded two weeks of shows from 8
p.m. to 10 p.m. (with an exception of “MADtv,” which
airs at 11 p.m.) and randomly sampled one episode ““ sometimes
two, because no APIAs appeared in the first sample ““ to watch
and study.

According to the report, except for NBC, all of the
networks’ (ABC, UPN, WB, Fox and CBS) depictions of regular
APIA actors were less than half of the U.S. percentage of the APIA
population.

“Television networks will claim that there is less of a
pool of APIA actors, or that they have less talent and
experience,” said Chin. “But it’s a catch-22,
because if they aren’t given a chance, then they won’t
gain any experience.”

These numbers are especially troubling given that the shows are
set in locations that have high population percentages of APIAs,
according to the study. For example, the WB’s
“Charmed” regularly uses images of the Golden Gate
Bridge to highlight its setting in San Francisco, a city where 31.3
percent of the citizens are of Asian decent, but none appear as
regulars on the show. Moreover, APIA actors were only found in
one-hour dramas, with the exception of Bobby Lee, who plays
multiple humorous characters on the sketch comedy show
“MADtv.”

Instead, all of the actors with identifiable occupations play
characters that exemplify a “model minority,” which the
report identifies as an individual who holds a job that emphasizes
his or her intelligence: doctors, police officers or the
“brainy” student. Although this is often a flattering
stereotype, it creates only one image of Asian Americans in the
audience’s mind.

The study also found that of the six identifiable multiracial
APIA actors found in prime-time television, only one is identified
as an APIA. Out of the other five, three portray white characters,
and two are ethnically ambiguous. One of these actors, Mark-Paul
Gosselaar (the former bleach-blond “Zach” from
“Saved by the Bell”), who is Dutch and Indonesian in
real life, stars on “NYPD Blue” as John Clark Jr., a
character of European decent.

“How the APIAs are represented on TV is how people see
them, and when we’re not represented as our own race,
that’s a concern,” Deo said.

Hope for breaking such stereotypes and stipulations comes in the
form of hit shows such as “Lost” and “ER,”
according to the panel. Shows like these should be commended for
including an ethnically diverse list of cast and characters with
comparatively higher screen time. One of the main problems with
representations of APIA characters the report found was the lack of
depth their characters often receive.

“It’s not enough for the networks to just say they
have APIA characters; it’s the quality of the characters that
counts,” Yuen said.

NAPALC is currently planning to meet with the major networks and
cite this study as evidence that APIAs are underrepresented in
prime-time television. While its effects are yet to be determined,
the students are already planning on repeating the study next fall,
given the right funding. Their goals include trying to understand
the reasons why APIAs are scarcely represented.

“Hopefully someone will hear about the study and say,
“˜Are there shows that have APIA characters? Hey, there really
aren’t any.’ Raising awareness is really
important,” Chin said.

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