This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Ouroboros: Woah some of these examples don't fit. Amy Wong for a start is just a slut, she's rich yes but not that much of The Libby or a bitch. And Jubilee, beautiful? She's never been presented as more than vaguely pretty, far from beautiful, nor was she a mall rat so much as a homeless girl who lived near a mall after her parents had been murdered.
Matthew The Raven: It's apparently any dumb Asian character now. Now any Western depiction of Asians is officially racist. Stupid? You're calling Asians inferior. Smart? You're stereotyping Asians as nerds. Ugly? You're a racist. Beautiful? You're fetishising Asians. Completely average? What, why can't the Asian character be heroic?! It's not derived from the Dragon Lady trope, for one thing. The Dragon Lady is a particular class of villainess, dating to the Yellow Peril trope. The Dragon Lady's villainy comes from her exoticness, her inscrutable nature, and treachery, your classic Sax Rohmer-grade horse shit. The Asian Airhead is dumb, beautiful, and sometimes rich. These are traits associated with rich women across all races in American culture, and there's nothing exotic or inscrutable about her - the treachery, yeah, but that's associated with The Rich Bitch and The Libby, once again, across all races. If you actually compared this depiction to rich and/or beautiful White women, rich and/or beautiful Black women, and rich and/or Hispanic women, you'd find the same traits.
18-Till-I-Die: we had this argument on the YKTTW too, the conclusion we came to was actually there were FEW characters who were Black or Hispanic that were actually Libbies or Rich Bitches, and even fewer who were stupid and pretty. I asked, when what you said was also said there, if more than six Hispanic Libbies or Black Rich Bitches could be named and the response was "no". In fact it was one of the reasons why support was given to this trope—because except for Whites, it's fairly unique in terms of how often it happens. Now if that angers you or something, I'm sorry, but don't get butthurt because you think I'm "reverse racism-ing" you because frankly we went through all of this on the YKTTW and I don't feel like re-hashing it for no reason. I'm willing to compromise on the Ty Lee issue (though you're reasoning is rather suspect...the fact other asian characters EXIST in the series is, at best, only tangentially relevent to the character in question but whatever) but if you want to get into some edit war, I'd rather you not but, I have all the time in the world if you want to go there. Or you could try and get it cut I guess, if you're really that upset over it, but really does it bother you that much? For the record, yes it IS racist and so is Asian and Nerdy, Black and Nerdy and...every OTHER race trope. The very notion one group or another will or wont act in a certain way because of their race is the actual definition of racism. If that really bothers you, sorry, but that's an actual fact and not up for debate—I didn't define the terms, people who came up with them did. I'm using the term "racism" in a way perfectly in line with it's actual meaning not the pop culture PC bullshit that it's usually used for.
Matthew The Raven: I'm not upset at all over this, I'm certainly not "butthurt", and I'm not complaining about "reverse-racism." I'm not really even white. Don't resort to ad hominem attacks. It makes you sound immature, especially when you're insults come from 4chan. I'm not bothered, it's just that many examples seem to be shoehorned in, like Amy Wong and Ty Lee. What I was saying is, it seems now that any depiction of any Asian character can be slotted into one of the racist depiction categories that we currently have if we don't use a bit of levelheaded judgement, because racist depictions are always contradictory, as I pointed out. Just look at how many contradictory racist depictions there are of Jews and Mexicans, and now black, since we the Black and Nerdy trope. Still, I think that if there is a racist trope here, it's Fetished Asian Beauty rather than dumb, beautiful Asian.
The Six Hispanic libbies thing and Six Rich Bitch characters who are black problem is a bit harder. I'll give you that. But not many tropers seem to watch sitcoms with a largely black cast.
My objection to Ty Lee is, first of all, she's just a beautiful airhead, and doesn't fit any of the other criteria for the trope, in a cast made up entirely of Asians. If you really want it, keep it in.
I don't get why you need to say this isn't the typical "pop culture PC bullshit," because it is, and there's nothing wrong with that. This is the type of examination of blind, subtle cultural racism that's part of the PC culture. It's a good thing, and you don't have to denigrate it.
Scottbert: Not posting this in the main page because it's been ages since I read it and she may have recieved some character development since, but isn't the kitsune girl from Talesof MU an example of the first type (and her catgirls possibly an example of the second), or is she managing to stay in Dragon Lady territory?
Jason: I'm not sure I agree with this post at all. I don't think Trixie Tang is even Asian for one. The Ulimate Universe Wasp was a scientist who met Hank in college. As for Dust, Afghanistan may officially be in Asia, but it's people aren't considered Asians.
- Traitorfish: That has more to do with North American convention than true definition; in Europe, where there are far more people of South and West Asian descent, the non-prefixed form is assumed to refer to such people, while "East Asian" heritage is almost always specified as such. Which simply goes to show the ambiguity and so questionable functionality of the trope title.
Xi Whoeverski: I went ahead and streamlined the trope description, plus fixed a few minor grammatical errors.
