A Shot at Half-Exposure: Asian Americans in Reality TV Shows

Abstract

While reality TV programs open up a space for greater representation of racialized minorities, they also adhere to, and authenticate, racialized narraand stereotypes by embodying them in the characters of “real” people. Through an analysis of Top Chef and Project Runway, this essay reveals how the narrative of the Asian “technical robot” has emerged as a stock character for Asian Americans in reality TV programs, flexibly applied to a range of fields where Asian Americans threaten to achieve success. By focusing on Asian Americans who have won reality TV competitions, this essay analyzes how supposedly neutral concepts such as talent and skill are racialized in the reality TV format specifically and in the contemporary U.S. context broadly. Such representations illustrate the very narrow ways that racialized minorities are allowed to integrate into the U.S. For the allegation that Asian Americans are technicians who lack creativity is a barrier that not only helps keep them from trantheir racialized labor niches but also serves as an explanation for why people of color cannot make it to the top of their professions.