Having an Asian Bachelorette Is a Milestone. It’s Also About Power.
Li Zhou is a politics reporter at Vox, where she covers Congress and elections. Previously, she was a tech policy reporter at Politico and an editorial fellow at the Atlantic.
_____
Jenn Tran, a physician assistant student from Miami, Florida, will debut as the first Asian American Bachelorette in the show’s 21st season premiere this week.
That’s a notable milestone, and it’s also one that sends a significant message about power — and who’s allowed to have it.
Historically, Asian women have been portrayed in US pop culture as hypersexualized and objects of desire, rather than fully realized human beings with their own wants, interests, and demands. While one Bachelorette casting is far from sufficient to resolve these deep-seated tropes — and just how much the show rejects them will depend on how it’s edited — choosing Tran as the lead is a small step that pushes back against past stereotypes.
“It’s an opportunity to have Jenn Tran be a voice, in terms of being able to have agency in her own desires about love and intimacy,” says Stephanie Young, a communication studies professor at the University of Southern Indiana, who examines the intersection of race and pop culture. “We get to hear her speak, and these men are going to be competing for her affection and attention.”
Namely, by centering Tran as the star and key decision-maker, she’s framed as an empowered participant on the show who is driving relationships forward. As a lead, Tran will choose the men that she prefers each episode and dole out roses, which allow contestants to move on in the competition. And while there’s always producer intervention to contend with, Tran will be involved in calling the shots, a position that flips the script on how Asian women have broadly been depicted in relationships.
Past tropes have disempowered Asian women — with devastating consequences
Disempowering tropes of Asian women go as far back as the 1800s, when the Page Act of 1875 barred the entry of immigrants coming to the US for “immoral purposes” including prostitution. Though the text of the law doesn’t specifically call out Chinese women, politicians — including the bill’s architect, California Rep. Horace Page — did. In remarks at that time, Page explicitly said the bill was meant to “end the danger of cheap Chinese labor and immoral Chinese women,” echoing a racist viewpoint popular among lawmakers of that era.
In approving this law, the US government effectively solidified the idea that Asian women were a threat to the country because of their sexuality.
Since then, countless films and television shows have reaffirmed this idea. Works created throughout the 19th and 20th centuries like Madame Butterfly, Memoirs of a Geisha,and Miss Saigon all featured Asian female characters who were diminutive, self-sacrificing, and objectified.
Collectively, they helped calcify the most prevalent tropes now assigned to Asian women, including the “lotus blossom,” which portrays them as submissive and eager to please, and the “dragon lady,” which portrays them as cunning figures who weaponize their sexuality. “In both cases [Asian women are] the sex object,” filmmaker Renee Tajima-Peña previously told the Washington Post.
These stereotypes were further entrenched following the US military’s occupation of parts of Asia including Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Japan. In many of these places, sex work was one of the only means that some women had to make a living. US soldiers’ interactions with sex workers — and the Hollywood depictions they spawned — fueled the perceptions of Asian women as vehicles for white male sexual gratification.
“Me so horny. Me love you long time,” a Vietnamese sex worker infamously says to a group of US soldiers in Stanley Kubrick’s 1987 film Full Metal Jacket.
“I think these images tend to proliferate, especially in the aftermath of World War II and the Cold War,” says Judy Tzu-Chun Wu, a UC Irvine professor of Asian American Studies.
In these depictions, Asian women are frequently robbed of their agency in the romantic relationships they’re in. They’re dependent on the choices of the men they encounter, and they’re shown as catering to them rather than centering their own needs. In Miss Saigon, for example, the Vietnamese lead waits for years for a white American soldier to return for her, and ultimately kills herself so her son is able to go to the United States.
Such objectification of Asian women has had real — and devastating — consequences.
Specifically, it has contributed directly to violence against Asian women, a problem that was thrown into stark relief during the pandemic when six Asian women were killed by a shooter in Atlanta, Georgia. At the time the shooter said he felt compelled to kill the victims because he wanted to eliminate the sexual temptation they represented. Recent instances of rape by US servicemen stationed in Okinawa, Japan, have put this problem in the spotlight as well.
Asian women are “objectified in ways that dehumanize,” says Young. “If there’s any type of violence, it’s justified because they’re not seen as human.”
That’s also evident in data from the National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV). According to the NNEDV, “41 to 61 percent of Asian women report experiencing physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner during their lifetime,” a rate that “is significantly higher than any other ethnic group.”
“We’re seen as vulnerable,” Helen Zia, an Asian American activist previously told the New York Times. “You know — the object that won’t fight back.”
How much can this season of The Bachelorette help?
Casting an Asian person as a reality show lead is not a panacea for these issues, and any alterations The Bachelorette can make to existing, racist narratives will hinge heavily on how producers treat this season, and how they portray Tran.
In the past, after all, The Bachelor franchise has faced heavy criticism for failing its leads of color and engaging in problematic storylines that harp on racial stereotypes.
For instance, Rachel Lindsay, the first Black Bachelorette, has called the show out for how it edited her season and has said she felt like she was presented as an “angry Black female.” Previously, the franchise was also criticized by audience members for an absentee father storyline it emphasized during Matt James’s season, when he was the first Black Bachelor.
This season, some concerns have already emerged. Tran’s rollout was seen as anticlimactic by some fans, who felt the announcement of her as lead was overshadowed by the focus on other contestants. Every season, the franchise typically announces its next lead during the finale. In that episode, The Bachelor seemed to invest far more screen time with other contenders, like Daisy Kent, one of last season’s finalists. Fans critical of the choice felt it made Tran’s debut feel like an afterthought, and that it had them questioning whether the show was setting another lead of color up for failure.
Viewer speculation that Tran was a third-choice pick for the show — which she’s pushed back on — has only added to these concerns. As has the noticeable dearth of Asian American men cast this season, something many viewers considered a missed opportunity.
The franchise’s historical failure to explicitly call out racism among its fan base, and its contenders, has been scrutinized, too. Last season, Rachel Nance, an ICU nurse of Black and Filipino descent, described the vehement racism she faced from some fans after she was chosen to advance in the competition over another popular white contestant. While Nance brought up fans’ comments during the airing of the “Women Tell All” episode that season, host Jesse Palmer quickly pivoted to ask more broadly about “hate” different women experienced rather than dealing with her specific challenges.
Tran’s casting is one effort that could help change the narratives around Asian women by featuring her as the main character on the show and not someone who is there to simply acquiesce to another person’s desires.
As Bachelorette, Tran will make decisions that reflect her own interests and preferences. She’ll determine who gets time with her, who gets sent home, and who could ultimately be a serious partner outside the show. Since she’s the star, the show is set to be oriented around her story — and not anyone else’s.
Although it’s still uncertain how the franchise will navigate her time in the role, Tran’s casting as The Bachelorette, in and of itself, marks some progress.