Bling Empire perpetuates dehumanization and emasculation of Asian men

I didn’t want to write this or draw more attention to this reality show on Netflix, but many people have been asking about my skincare routine — I mean, my opinion of the show, and I also see it’s been in the top 10 of Netflix shows recently, so here we are. People are consuming the content. It is one of maybe 2/3 reality shows about Asian Americans in US media (there are more Asian, as in, from Asia, reality shows in US media). It’s important to gain perspective on the content people are consuming.

This won’t be as in depth as other things I’ve written and I’m giving myself 15 minutes at most to write this.

The show was overall deeper than I thought. It explores issues of abandonment from parents (adoption, for example), and abusive relationships (Andrew is awful) which are important topics I’m glad they explored. However, I’ll focus on something that frustrated me the most:

It seems that with white producers involved, way too often they won’t allow Asian men to be at the center of the story without them praising white men and/or insulting Asian men. They often choose people they won’t deem to be a threat to them. Praising and uplifting white men unnecessarily happens way too often with any stories that are not centered on white men (among many examples, even in the supposedly female empowering Wonder Woman, the protagonist spends the entire movie pining after Chris Pine’s character.) This needs to change. White men have to learn to be ok…