Meghan Markle blasts Hollywood for ‘sexually tokenising’ Asian women in her Archetypes podcast return
The Duchess of Sussex turned her fire on Hollywood yesterday, accusing the movie industry of promoting Asian stereotypes.
On her Spotify podcast, she criticised the Austin Powers films starring Mike Myers and Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill: Volume 1 for caricaturing Asian women as “oversexualised or aggressive”.
Meghan, 41, made the comments in The Demystification of Dragon Lady, the fourth episode of her lucrative 12-part Archetypes series, which returned after a four-week hiatus following the death of the Queen.
She criticised the 2002 Austin Powers film Goldmember, which features one-dimensional Japanese female characters, for “sexually tokenising” Asian women.
And she said Kill Bill, which came out in 2003 and features Lucy Liu as a crime gang leader, was an example of the “harmful Dragon Lady Asian stereotype”.
Liu has defended the film, saying her character was one of four female professional killers in it, all of different ethnicities.
Meghan, who was joined in the podcast by comedian Margaret Cho, sociologist Nancy Wang Yuen and journalist Lisa Ling, said: “Movies like Austin Powers and Kill Bill presented these characters of Asian women as often times over-sexualised or aggressive. And it’s not just those two examples, there’s so many more.
“The Dragon Lady, the East Asian temptress whose mysterious foreign allure is scripted as both tantalising and deadly. This has seeped into a lot of our entertainment. But this toxic stereotyping of women of Asian descent, it doesn’t just end once the credits roll.”
Meghan spoke about her affinity with Asian culture, including a slightly cringeworthy account of being taken to a Korean spa by her mother as an adolescent.
“It’s a very humbling experience for a girl going through puberty because you enter a room with women from ages nine to maybe 90 all walking around naked,” she said.
“All I wanted was a bathing suit, which you’re not allowed. And once I was over that adolescent embarrassment, my mum and I, we would go upstairs, we would sit in a room and we would have a steaming bowl of the most delicious noodles. Now that was a part of the Asian American culture, that I knew.”
Meghan’s guests provided examples of racist stereotyping they have experienced.
Ling told how an anonymous colleague drew “slanted eyes” on a picture of her which had been ripped from a magazine – an experience she described as “devastating”.
Meghan ended by urging listeners to be their “best and true self”, adding: “You want to be weird or be sponge-like, be silly or fierce, be curious, or even self-doubting or unsure some days and strong and brave on others.
“Whatever it is, that’s up to you. Just be yourself no matter what any societal framework or archetype or loud voice coming from a small place tells you that you should be.”
Archetypes is billed as a podcast “where we investigate, dissect and subvert the labels that try to hold women back”.
The Duchess of Sussex turned her fire on Hollywood yesterday, accusing the movie industry of promoting Asian stereotypes.
On her Spotify podcast, she criticised the Austin Powers films starring Mike Myers and Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill: Volume 1 for caricaturing Asian women as “oversexualised or aggressive”.
Meghan, 41, made the comments in The Demystification of Dragon Lady, the fourth episode of her lucrative 12-part Archetypes series, which returned after a four-week hiatus following the death of the Queen.
She criticised the 2002 Austin Powers film Goldmember, which features one-dimensional Japanese female characters, for “sexually tokenising” Asian women.
And she said Kill Bill, which came out in 2003 and features Lucy Liu as a crime gang leader, was an example of the “harmful Dragon Lady Asian stereotype”.
Liu has defended the film, saying her character was one of four female professional killers in it, all of different ethnicities.
Meghan, who was joined in the podcast by comedian Margaret Cho, sociologist Nancy Wang Yuen and journalist Lisa Ling, said: “Movies like Austin Powers and Kill Bill presented these characters of Asian women as often times over-sexualised or aggressive. And it’s not just those two examples, there’s so many more.
“The Dragon Lady, the East Asian temptress whose mysterious foreign allure is scripted as both tantalising and deadly. This has seeped into a lot of our entertainment. But this toxic stereotyping of women of Asian descent, it doesn’t just end once the credits roll.”
Meghan spoke about her affinity with Asian culture, including a slightly cringeworthy account of being taken to a Korean spa by her mother as an adolescent.
“It’s a very humbling experience for a girl going through puberty because you enter a room with women from ages nine to maybe 90 all walking around naked,” she said.
“All I wanted was a bathing suit, which you’re not allowed. And once I was over that adolescent embarrassment, my mum and I, we would go upstairs, we would sit in a room and we would have a steaming bowl of the most delicious noodles. Now that was a part of the Asian American culture, that I knew.”
Meghan’s guests provided examples of racist stereotyping they have experienced.
Ling told how an anonymous colleague drew “slanted eyes” on a picture of her which had been ripped from a magazine – an experience she described as “devastating”.
Meghan ended by urging listeners to be their “best and true self”, adding: “You want to be weird or be sponge-like, be silly or fierce, be curious, or even self-doubting or unsure some days and strong and brave on others.
“Whatever it is, that’s up to you. Just be yourself no matter what any societal framework or archetype or loud voice coming from a small place tells you that you should be.”
Archetypes is billed as a podcast “where we investigate, dissect and subvert the labels that try to hold women back”.
