Discussion History Main / PurpleProse

This may be somewhat unrelated, but does anyone else think that it may not be a good idea to treat this trope as \\\"any romantic pairing of a European-descended man and an Asian-descended woman\\\"? Most of the examples are of works that involve Unfortunate Implications (the typical rugged White Übermensch, submissive Asian woman pairing). That\\\'s all well and good, since that\\\'s the trope and is in accordance with the first descriptive sentence, which gives the definition. However, a few do not mention any such undertones, or even indicate that the example does not have any of the stereotypical elements. For instance, we have the example from Troublemaker and Other Saints, which says that one daughter is in a relationship with a Black man and another with a White man, no further description given. Or the example from 1632, which says that a character married a Vietnamese woman he met during the war, no description of their character archetypes given; ReGenesis (says that a Vietnamese woman dated two White men, no further description). Maybe these are straight examples, but it is not clear. The example of the Iron Fist is particularly glaring here, because while Danny could arguably sort of fit one half of the stereotype (wealthy White businessman knowledgeable about Eastern mysticism), Colleen does not come close to fitting the rest of it (rather than being any sort of submissive or laid-back, she is a driven, no-nonsense karate teacher with a personal enmity with the Hand).

It seems to me that without any stereotypical elements in a portrayal, it\\\'s just People Sit On Chairs—some men of European descent have dated women of Asian descent, and vice versa and equivalently for all different combinations of genders.

This may be somewhat unrelated, but does anyone else think that it may not be a good idea to treat this trope as \\\"any romantic pairing of a European-descended man and an Asian-descended woman\\\"? Most of the examples are of works that involve Unfortunate Implications (the typical rugged White Übermensch, submissive Asian woman pairing). That\\\'s all well and good, since that\\\'s the trope and is in accordance with the first descriptive sentence, which gives the definition. However, a few do not mention any such undertones, or even indicate that the example does not have any of the stereotypical elements. For instance, we have the example from Troublemaker and Other Saints, which says that one daughter is in a relationship with a Black man and another with a White man, no further description given. Or the example from 1632, which says that a character married a Vietnamese woman he met during the war, no description of their character archetypes given; ReGenesis (says that a Vietnamese woman dated two White men, no further description). Maybe these are straight examples, but it is not clear. The example of the Iron Fist is particularly glaring here, because while Danny could arguably sort of fit one half of the stereotype (wealthy White businessman knowledgeable about Eastern mysticism), Colleen does not come close to fitting the rest of it (rather than being any sort of submissive or laid-back, she is a driven, no-nonsense karate teacher with a personal enmity with the Hand).

It seems to me that without any stereotypical elements in a portrayal, it\\\'s just People Sit On Chairs—some men European descent have dated women of Asian descent, and vice versa and equivalently for all different combinations of genders.

This may be somewhat unrelated, but does anyone else think that it may not be a good idea to treat this trope as \\\"any romantic pairing of a European-descended man and an Asian-descended woman\\\"? Most of the examples are of works that involve Unfortunate Implications (the typical rugged White Übermensch, submissive Asian woman pairing). That\\\'s all well and good, since that\\\'s the trope and is in accordance with the first descriptive sentence, which gives the definition. However, a few do not mention any such undertones, and even indicate that the example does not have any of the stereotypical elements. It seems to me that without any stereotypical elements in a portrayal, it\\\'s just People Sit On Chairs—some men European descent have dated women of Asian descent, and vice versa and equivalently for all different combinations of genders. If the trope is interpreted to include all such pairings, it loses explanatory use, insofar as it could easily become mostly a trivia list of an ever-larger number of examples, while possibly promoting the negative idea that all such couples are noteworthy and \\\"tropeworthy\\\" in a way that \\\"monoethnic\\\" couples are not.