This eye-opening video shows the world how Asian-American men struggle with Western beauty standards and just how sexy the can be anyway.
Buzzfeed’s latest video project was a move towards empowering Asian men, especially those living in western countries, to be more confident about themselves and their self-worth.
One of the main issues Buzzfeed was attempting to tackle in this video was the portrayal and representation of Asian men in western media. If they are shown at all, Asian men on the big and little screens tend to be used to reinforce the stereotype of the short and nerdy Asian man. They are very rarely the protagonist of any story and are not usually portrayed as particularly confident or masculine.
Interestingly, one of the professionals interviewed in the video made it clear that while he thinks K-Pop’s growing worldwide popularity may help the visibility of Asian men on a large scale, it’s not doing anything for the average Asian-American man in middle America. Whether it’s because K-Pop remains a niche interest or because the typical K-Pop star embodies a look that is not average, the average Asian-American male remains under-represented.
In light of the lack of Asian-American representation, Buzzfeed’s Eugene hosted this video that put average Asian-American men in iconically sexy, visible positions by having them recreate famous underwear ads. The results turned out to be empowering for the 4 individuals involved and the video will hopefully help to increase the discussion around the visibility and understanding of Asian men of all shapes in America.
Check out Buzzfeed’s video below:
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