Having an Asian Bachelorette is a milestone. It’s also about power.

In the 21st season premiere of the show this week, Jenn Tran, a physician assistant student from Miami, Florida, will make her debut as the first Asian American Bachelorette.

That is a significant milestone that also conveys a significant message regarding who is permitted to have power.

By and large, Asian ladies have been depicted in US mainstream society as hypersexualized and objects of want, as opposed to completely acknowledged people with their own needs, interests, and requests. While one Single girl projecting is a long way from adequate to determine these well established figures of speech — and exactly how much the show rejects them will rely on how it’s altered — picking Tran as the lead is a little step that stands up against past generalizations.

Stephanie Young, a communication studies professor at the University of Southern Indiana who studies the relationship between race and popular culture, states, “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.” “It’s an opportunity to have Jenn Tran be a voice,” she says. These men will be vying for her affection and attention as we listen to her speak.

Specifically, Tran is presented as an empowered participant on the show who is driving relationships forward by being the star and key decision-maker. As a lead, Tran will pick the men that she favors every episode and give out roses, which permit hopefuls to continue on in the opposition. In addition, despite the fact that there will always be producer intervention to contend with, Tran will be involved in making decisions, a position that rewrites the narrative regarding how Asian women have typically been portrayed in relationships.

Asian women have been disempowered by past stereotypes, which have had devastating effects. In the 1800s, the Page Act of 1875 prohibited immigrants from entering the United States for “immoral purposes,” such as prostitution. However the text of the law doesn’t explicitly get down on Chinese ladies, legislators — including the bill’s draftsman, California Rep. Horace Page — did. Page explicitly stated in those remarks that the bill was intended to “end the danger of cheap Chinese labor and immoral Chinese women,” echoing a racist viewpoint that was popular among lawmakers at the time.

The US government effectively solidified the notion that Asian women posed a threat to the country due to their sexual orientation by passing this law.

Numerous motion pictures and television shows have since supported this idea. The Asian female characters in works written in the 19th and 20th centuries like Madame Butterfly, Memoirs of a Geisha, and Miss Saigon were all small, selfless, and objectified.

The “lotus blossom,” which depicts Asian women as submissive and eager to please, and the “dragon lady,” which depicts them as cunning figures who weaponize their sexuality, are two of the most common stereotypes of Asian women today. According to what filmmaker Renee Tajima-Pea previously stated to the Washington Post, “[Asian women] are] the sex object in both cases.”

These generalizations were additionally dug in following the US military’s control of parts of Asia including Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Japan. Sex work was often the only way for some women to make a living in many of these places. The portrayals of Asian women as vehicles for white male sexual gratification were fueled by US soldiers’ interactions with sex workers in Hollywood.

“I’m so sexy. In Stanley Kubrick’s 1987 film Full Metal Jacket, a Vietnamese sex worker famously tells a group of US soldiers, “Me love you long time.”

Judy Tzu-Chun Wu, a professor of Asian American studies at the University of California, Irvine, asserts, “I think these images tend to proliferate, especially in the aftermath of World War II and the Cold War.”

Asian women are frequently denied agency in their romantic relationships in these depictions. They are shown as catering to the men they encounter rather than focusing on their own needs because they are dependent on their choices. In Miss Saigon, for instance, the Vietnamese lead hangs tight for a really long time for a white American trooper to return for her, and at last commits suicide so her child can go to the US.

This kind of objectification of Asian women has had real, terrible effects.

More specifically, it has played a direct role in the violence against Asian women, a problem that came to the forefront during the pandemic when a shooter killed six Asian women in Atlanta, Georgia. The shooter stated at the time that he felt compelled to kill the victims because he wanted to end the sexual temptation they represented. This issue has also gained attention in light of recent rapes committed by US service members stationed in Okinawa, Japan.

Young asserts that Asian women are “objectified in ways that dehumanize.” Because they are not regarded as human, any violence is justified.

The National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV) data also show this clearly. The NNEDV states that “significantly higher than any other ethnic group,” “41 to 61 percent of Asian women report experiencing physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner during their lifetime.”

“We’re viewed as powerless,” Helen Zia, an Asian American dissident recently told the New York Times. ” You know, the thing that won’t respond.

How much can The Bachelorette’s current season assist?

The Bachelorette’s ability to alter existing racist narratives will largely depend on how producers treat this season and how they portray Tran. Casting an Asian person as a reality show lead is not a solution to these problems.

Before, all things considered, The Lone wolf establishment has confronted weighty analysis for bombing its leads of variety and taking part in dangerous storylines that harp on racial generalizations.

For instance, Rachel Lindsay, the first Black Bachelorette, has criticized the show for the way it edited her season and said that she felt like an “angry Black female” was shown to her. An absentee father storyline that was emphasized during Matt James’ season, when he was the first Black Bachelor, was another criticism leveled at the franchise by viewers.

Several concerns have already surfaced this season. Some fans thought that Tran’s rollout was a bit of a letdown because the focus on the other contestants overshadowed the fact that she was named lead. The series usually announces its next lead during the season finale. The Bachelor appeared to spend significantly more time with other contestants in that episode, including Daisy Kent, one of the finalists from the previous season. Critics of the choice said that it made Tran’s first appearance seem like an afterthought and made them wonder if the show was setting up another black lead for failure.

These concerns have been exacerbated by viewer speculation that Tran was a third-choice choice for the show, which she has denied. This season’s noticeable lack of Asian American men in the cast was also seen by many viewers as a missed opportunity.

The franchise’s inability to explicitly address racism among its fans and competitors has also been examined. When Rachel Nance, an ICU nurse of Black and Filipino descent, was chosen to advance over another popular white contestant in the previous season, she described the vehement racism she encountered from some viewers. During that season’s “Women Tell All” episode, Nance brought up comments from fans; however, host Jesse Palmer quickly changed his question to focus more broadly on the “hate” different women experienced rather than addressing Nance’s specific challenges.

Tran’s projecting is one exertion that could be useful to switch the stories up Asian ladies by including her as the fundamental person on the show and not somebody who is there to submit to someone else’s cravings essentially.

As Single woman, Tran will settle on choices that mirror her own advantages and inclinations. She will choose who spends time with her, who goes home, and who might one day be a good partner outside of the show. The show will focus on her story and not anyone else’s because she is the star.

Tran’s casting as The Bachelorette is a step forward in and of itself, despite the fact that the franchise’s approach to her time in the role is still up in the air.