The American and Canadian media have always treated East Asian people unfairly. We have been the butt of many unfunny jokes, whether they're about the variety of food that we eat, the rich cultures to which we belong, the way that we look, or our languages. We have always been portrayed as cringeworthy stereotypes that force us to adopt internalized racism or into silence. Despite the myriad problems surrounding East Asian representation in white-dominated media, one of the most harmful portrayals regards sexuality.

Asian women are often portrayed as being hypersexualized, while Asian men are asexualized. Asian women are seen as sexy props that don't speak or exercise thought, but rather, exist to fulfill exotic and Orientalist white male fantasies. On the other hand, Asian male sexuality is completely ignored and degraded. Asian men are almost never portrayed as being sexy or strong or romantically-capable beings, but are instead relegated to the world of being virginal and awkwardly intelligent.

Lucy Liu's character Alex in Charlie's Angels is an example of Asian women being fantastically oversexualized. She plays a sexy ninja who specializes in martial arts to fight bad guys in this action thriller movie. The 'Dragon Lady' trope of Liu's character is an example of clear misrepresentation in which the producers of the film have taken certain elements of Asian culture that they find appealing and distorted them to please white male fantasies. In creating this character, the filmmakers have hugely satirized and misconstrued the culture of a group that is already quite underrepresented in Hollywood strictly for the purpose of mainstream entertainment.

This implies that the ways in which people in the media are typically portrayed are not only sexist , but also racist. The white male gaze, or the idea that that the audience experiences media through the lens of white heterosexual men because they are able to influence and control how media is produced, skews the way that Asian men and women are shown because we represent something unfamiliar and foreign. This kind of racism hides from judgement because it's usually packaged as off-colour or controversial humour. Racism in the U.S. and Canada has evolved in such an insidious and adaptive way that we laugh at the expense of others, without knowing that what we're doing is implicitly propping up racist structures.

There's nothing funny about families having to abandon everything they know to take a chance and move to another continent, to learn a new language and lifestyle, to find a job to support their family, and to try to stay sane at the same time. Jokes about Korean people owning convenience stores or laundromats are unfunny and uncreative - and to be honest, untrue. Humour and entertainment can be used as silencing mechanisms when those who are in positions of power and privilege make light of the hardships of those who are historically oppressed and marginalized.

Racism has evolved to enforce new and creative means of punishing those who do not belong to the dominant white culture. These means are more subtle and insidious than historically racist structures, such as the Chinese Immigration Act of 1923 (otherwise known as the Chinese Exclusion Act), which banned most Chinese immigrants from entering Canada. These new yet equally harmful ways of punishment are passive on a medium to which everyone has access: TV and film. This historical racism has fed American fears of East Asian expansion into business and culture, and manifests by cutting down Asian identities in the U.S. and Canada. They're so afraid of our booming economies, advanced technology, and rich culture and food, that they portray us as dehumanized satire for their own entertainment.

Tropes have not improved, because I still see Asian folks being portrayed as dehumanized, alien characters whose only purpose is to serve as comic relief. For example, in the movie Pitch Perfect, Hana Mae Lee plays the character Lilly Okanakamura, a bizarre girl who rarely speaks throughout the whole film, and who only opens her mouth to say things like, "I set fires to feel joy," and "I was born with gills like a fish!" She also makes snow angels in her friend's vomit, showing us that the makers of Pitch Perfect think that Asian people don't even deserve to speak or act like normal human beings.

Even 'progressive' shows like Community depict Asian people as non-human caricatures. Ken Jeong's beloved Ben Chang is shown as an nutty Spanish teacher who is constantly bullied by the main cast. When he ends up having sex with Shirley, one of the main characters, in a moment of desperation, everyone reacts in a disgusted manner, and it's clear that she regrets the act. Although Community may be trying to expose the very stereotype that it uses by giving Jeong's character a humanizing storyline in later seasons, it's extremely harmful to depict Asian male sexuality as disgusting and repulsive. Also, the trend of naming Asian characters 'Chang' is terrifying, as the latter sounds like the racial slur 'ching chong.'

Showing complex, multifaceted Asian characters should be the norm, not the exception, but we shouldn't just be satisfied when Asian people are simply depicted as human beings. Underrepresentation is still a huge issue and shouldn't be forgotten; Alison Brie's character Diane Nguyen on BoJack Horseman - an animated TV show - is a stellar example of this. Although she is a groundbreaking character because she gets to be a real, complex person who isn't oversexualized or undersocialized as an Asian woman, she is still voiced by a prominent white actor. This is insulting considering the various talented Asian actors in Hollywood that could have been hired. Although Nguyen is witty, smart, cool, and awkward all at once, and we get to see her experience self-discovery, we still face the problem of underrepresentation. It's difficult to stereotype or generalize Nguyen's complexity, but the fact remains that Asian actors are not empowered because they are not allowed to play diverse roles or even participate in writing their own characters.

The dichotomy between the hypersexualization and asexualization of East Asian people, regardless of what gender identity they identify with, is an arbitrary illusion created by white-dominated media. Asian women are not necessarily sexy ninjas or Japanese dolls who can't speak English, and Asian men are not nerds who lack social skills or awkward boys who have never been kissed. The media must stop forcing these harmful stereotypes on us.

It must be noted that Asian women and men who choose to adopt these sexual identities should not be shamed for it. Instead, the onus should be on those who are in positions of power, and who force these sexual identities upon people without their consent, to realize the harms they are creating. There is nothing wrong with choosing to be a hypersexual or asexual person, but we must be cognizant of the element of consent and power that exists.

Still, agency is the most important factor in empowering people who have otherwise not been able to control their own narrative. Allowing Asian people to realize their own sexual identities directly combats these stereotypes and allows others to portray us as human beings with complex diversity. Is it too much to ask to be treated like a real person?