Wednesday, May 4, 2022 — 5
Michigan in Color
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

The cartoonishly-evil women characters of 
Asian entertainment

One-dimensional is an 
understatement 
when 
it 
comes to the majority of 
female characters in East 
and 
Southeast 
Asians 
movies and TV — if they are 
even present at all. 
Of course, we are all too 
familiar with the doe-eyed 
damsel in distress with her 
dyed caramel locs getting 
scooped up, fireman-style, 
by her love interest in soapy 

dramas. If this Mary Sue 
were not a helpless orphan 

waiting to be rescued by her 
mythical hero, her mother 
would be strict, but loving 
nonetheless. 
And 
then 
there is her best friend, who 
is quick-witted and sharp-
tongued, providing comedic 
relief in scenes where the 
main protagonist is too 
much of a proper lady to do 
so. Aside from these three 
core female characters, in 
an average Asian movie or 
TV show, you can find a 
slew of women who can be 
described as plot devices 
at best, and misogynistic 

caricatures at worst.
To 
me, 
the 
binary 

between 
the 
perfectly 
angelic main protagonist 
and the other cartoonishly 
evil women who serve as 
mere plot devices in these 
films revealed some deeply 
ingrained cultural attitudes 
toward women. 
First of all, rarely, if ever, 
are these “evil” women 
in Asian media written 
as fleshed-out characters 
with 
personalities, 
background 
stories 
and 
moral grayness akin to 
real 
life 
women. 
Take, 
for example, the “other 
woman” who is competing 
against 
the 
protagonist 
for the male love interest. 
She is often depicted as 
a seductress who wears 
an above-average amount 
of 
makeup, 
revealing 
clothing and excessively 
loud 
jewelry. 
Even 
the 
demeanor of this particular 
archetype remained almost 
unchanged 
throughout 
the 
emergence 
of 
entertainment 
industries 
in Asia: They curled their 

lips, 
hurled 
snarky 
but 
nonetheless 
dispositional 
insults and seduced the 
male love interest with 
almost comical overtness. 
Of course, their intention 
behind 
approaching 
the 
male love interest is almost 
always for money or some 
other reason to serve the 
plot. Aside from the “other 
woman,” there is also the 
caricature of the cruel, 
often bourgeoisie mother-
in-law who disapproves of 
her daughter-in-law’s every 
move, believing her son 
to be deserving of a better 
partner. There is also the 
genius yet arrogant female 
classmate who vocalizes 
passive-aggressive remarks 
to the academically inferior 
protagonist. And finally, 
who can forget the peer 
who 
is 
jealous 
of 
the 
protagonist’s beauty and 
therefore tries to sabotage 
her many pursuits?

ZOE ZHANG
MiC Columnist

I am my mother’s child, or at least I hope to be

Throughout 
my 
life 
I’ve 
experienced two types of love. There’s 
the love you get from friends and the 
people you meet. It’s the type of love 
you can speak about and describe 
your feelings with words and actions. 
It’s a beautiful feeling created just 
by you and the other person. A bond 
that just you two share, that only 
you two know about. It’s a love that 
consists of random “i love you” texts 
and “text me when you get home” 
reminders when they’re leaving your 
place. It’s a happy birthday Snapchat 
post and a comment on every one of 
their Instagram posts. It’s a check-
in text or a four-hour-long Facetime 
call. It’s non-stop conversations at the 
library when you both have an organic 
chemistry exam the next day. This 
type of love is beautiful and fulfilling, 
and it’s enough to get you by. 
But then there’s the second type of 
love. The love you don’t realize until 
you’re 19 years old sitting in your dark 
bedroom alone on a Tuesday night, 

or in a random conversation with 
your roommates all talking about 
your futures. It’s a love I’ve been 
lucky enough to experience from the 
very minute I was born, only getting 
stronger every day. It’s the love I’ve 
realized my mother holds for me. 
But it’s more than motherly love. 

Describing it as such reduces the love 
to something that is expected from 
every mother, when my mother’s 

love surpasses the bare minimum 
a mother should hold. It puts a box 
around her love, labeling it, defining 
it as something able to be defined. It’s 
not motherly love, it’s stronger and 
deeper. It’s emotional, healing, curing, 
adoring and warm. It’s a deadly love. A 
heartbreaking love and a devastating 

one. 
My parents were alone when 
they came to the U.S. It was a time 

my mother described as filled with 
curiosity and excitement, but one I 
know was masked by the extreme 
feeling of fear and loneliness from 
navigating a country by themselves 
with no family. My mother kept these 
feelings secret so I would never worry 
or feel bad for her. And although she 
tries to hide it, I know that I’m one 
of the only reasons she has not gone 
back to India to be surrounded by her 
mother and her sisters, the people she 
hasn’t been able to see for longer than 
two and a half months at a time in over 
25 years. 
Growing up, my mother and I had 
a rocky relationship. It was one filled 
with accusations, anger and arguments 
that turned into yelling matches over 
simple misunderstandings. It was one 
filled with resentment stemming from 
my willful ignorance for my mother’s 
situation and spiteful words on my 
end for no legitimate reason. These 
were all actions that would normally 
push the people that love you away, 
something I have consistently done 
for reasons I don’t understand, but 
she never budged. With everything 
she’s endured both from me and the 

situation, her love for me only grew 
deeper. Her love for her kids is the 
strongest love I’ve ever felt. 
Her love is so powerful that it can 
be felt miles and miles away. I feel 
it when I come home after a hard 
week, when my mother immediately 
senses something is wrong when 
no one else could. I feel it when she 
texts me to remind me to take my 
vitamins every night. I feel it when 
I realize how upset she was that I 
didn’t text her that week, and when 
I found out she keeps my room door 
closed every time I leave for college 
because it pains her to go in it from 
how much she misses me. I felt it when 
she hugged me the one night I was at 
my lowest, immediately sending me 
into a melting puddle of tears on her 
lap. When she stayed up that entire 
night comforting me without a single 
complaint. When she spent every 
second of her deserved winter break 
from work searching the depths of the 
internet on ways to help me. When she 
begged for appointments with fully 
booked professionals for me. 

ROSHNI MOHAN
MiC Columnist

Soy el dueño de mi 
propia vida

Masking 
parts 
of 
my 
identities 
felt 
like 
dying 
from 
lack 
of 
oxygen. 
Transferring as a junior 
from a conservative college 
in Grand Rapids, I felt that I 
had to conceal parts of who I 
was to fit the status quo of my 
university. However, once I 
arrived at the University of 
Michigan, I felt that I could 
breathe again. I remember 
my first day of French class, 
when the professor went 
over the core curriculum and 
mentioned how we would 
be 
discussing 
LGBTQ+ 
topics. LGBTQ+? Is that even 
allowed here? Won’t they be 
fired? These questions might 
seem odd to the average U-M 
student, but for someone 
like me who came from a 
conservative institution, I 
felt that I was given a rare 
opportunity to start fresh 
and define who I wanted 
to become on my own 
timeline.

Coming 
from 
a 
marginalized 
background, 
I still marvel at how I even 
got to such a prestigious 
university in the first place. 
Being the first in my family 
to attend college, my brothers 
and 
sisters 
have 
always 
looked up to me as an image 
of success, even though the 
pressure to succeed often 
comes at the expense of my 
mental 
health. 
Growing 
up Latinx and Queer felt 
like 
a 
daily 
challenge, 
as I had to navigate the 
heteronormativity from my 
own Hispanic culture while 
also navigating the white-
centric 
presence 
within 
my own Queer community. 
Balancing these two sides of 
my identity continues to be 
one of the biggest struggles 
of my life. 
I 
joined 
student 
government 
with 
the 
purpose of redefining what it 
means to have intersectional 
identities. 

BRANDON DE MARTÍNEZ
MiC Contributor

ROSHNI MOHAN/MiC

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