WORD NERDS: this is NOT your nanay's blog

Oh, Tila Tequila.

How else can we think about the hype and her personality? At first, I just didn't understand how so many people could fall into her. And how millions of people would add her on MySpace, go so far as to leave a comment and then leave a sexually suggestive one, at that.

This is about more than just witnessing America develop its Asian Fetish. And yes, I do think that Americans have an Asian Fetish deriving from Orientalist perceptions. Orientalism is to other, to create Other-ness and also determine lands now known as Asia and the Middle East as far away, exotic locations. To 'Other' is as if to 'Third-World' a nation. To label land and the people seemingly tied down to it as Others, less than, lower, unworthy compared to the comparer. Or to inadvertently exclude a people that are perceived to be a part of a nation, or of a certain land. Nation doesn't necessarily mean land. And I'm not tryna get all Ethnic Studies (which is also problematic!) on folks, I'm being foreal. Othering takes place all the time.

To call an Asian woman exotic means to call her strangely attractive. Therefore, exotic, is an oxymoronic compliment (or comment, rather). This is triggering, detrimental to the image and representation of the Asian woman. This kind of attraction is skin deep and the sores run under the surface. To call an Asian woman exotic implies judgement based on shallow and superficial assumptions. Tila Tequila represents white America's proclamation of an Asian Fetish. Their obsession with her body, their creation of her new Flavor-Flav-like dating show and their emphasis on bisexuality further appropriates America's allowance and perpetuation of the Asian Other. And not just Other, but Woman.

Stemming from the sadly stereotyped hypersexual Asian female, rebirthed from the early 20th century Asian prostitute, then twisted into a sexual being and actively made to be the inscrutable staple character to which the white imagination masturbates. Asian women are left to retrogress. We waiver, attempt to take strides racing against Other races. This is gender. This is sexuality. This is race. This speaks to the regard in which Asian women are essentialized!

With the presence of an Asian woman on-screen, America can pat itself on the back for diversifying the variety found on TV guide. When in reality, a reality show is like ten steps back into for Asian American actresses who work hard against being cornered into an oversimplified role taken from Asian American history. Asian Americans are continually excluded from real opportunity but made to work for a system that privileges money-making over self-respect. Tila is popular for her body. For dressing in scantily clad outfits, and for being Asian while meeting white standards of beauty (and I'm especially noting the hair). It's not mere coincedence that an Othered woman is used to explore herself through sexual means.

I don't want to be any type of surprised (even if it's un-surprised) by what makes good television, or by what intentionally is leftover for people of color in the entertainment industry, or by what subordinate positions are pre-determined for marginalized identities.

America, fuck you for your Asian Fetish.

x_magsalita.