their compassion and their guts, we won’t stop unraveling. We will always be the collapsible woman.
The Princess and the Prankster
Two Performers Take on Art, Ethnicity, and Sexuality
Karen End / FALL 2002
IT’S SUCH A TRUISM, IT’S BORING. TYPE A PHRASE AS INNOCUOUS as “Asian woman” into a web search engine, and hundreds of sites featuring undressed Asian cuties to suit every sexual taste materialize; elsewhere, web-based mail-order-bride services tout the benefits of the legendary Asian disposition. Personally, when not making snarky remarks about it, I prefer to ignore the ubiquity of Asian-lady porn, if not out of exasperation then just to stay sane. Artists Kristina Sheryl Wong and Gennifer Hirano, however, feel differently. Wong’s website, Big Bad Chinese Mama ( www.bigbadchinesemama.com ), corners web surfers looking for porn and confronts them instead with hilarious and gross mail-order brides who bite. Hirano’s work, some of which can be seen at www.asianprincessartifacts.com , explores the dynamics of sexual assault through photography, writing, and performance. Her Asianprincess character is an Asian cowgirl in pink braids, bikini top, and thong who often sings “Coal Miner’s Daughter” while giving an Asian man a lap dance. Some would call these women’s Venus-flytrap approaches to consciousness-raising politically incorrect, even potentially destructive. But Hirano and Wong, in choosing to embrace rather than avoid the exhausted myths of Asian female sexuality, turn the tables on the oppressor—and on the groupthink of the oppressed.
Though they met only in the last year, the two have led somewhat parallel lives: Both are from Asian-friendly, progressive San Francisco, and both
came of age in a time when the popularity of Margaret Cho, Giant Robot, Pokémon, Bollywood, Hong Kong action films, and other Asian products began edging Asian-American subcultures closer to the mainstream. And while neither woman’s work could be considered conventional, both take an accessible, pop culture approach to Asian-American politics, as have contemporary entertainers like the comedy troupe 18 Mighty Mountain Warriors and actor/comedian Kate Rigg (of the one-woman show Kate’s Chink-O-Rama ) . Using a surefire sales tactic—sex—Hirano’s and Wong’s alter egos commodify and then topple expectations about Asian women’s sexuality, luring in and confronting those who need it most (not just men who fetishize Asian women but also fellow Asian Americans complacent in their ideas of political correctness). Both women explore the possibility of reclaiming porn as a vehicle for probing identity, sexual expression, and self-portraiture, and both dose their politically charged art with unapologetic humor. The results have jangled nerves, provoked arguments, and raised plenty of eyebrows—and they wouldn’t have it any other way.
The Prankster: Kristina Sheryl Wong
Go to Big Bad Chinese Mama and you’ll be greeted by images of an Asian woman in a long blue Chinese dress inviting you to check out the “demure lotus blossoms … the geishas … the Oriental sluts”—“whatever you had imagined in your patriarchal, colonialist longings.” Click on the angry Hello Kitty icon and you’ll come face-to-face with the Big Bad Mama herself, clutching a bag of Chee-tos and mugging as hideously as she can. “Hi there,” says the greeting. “I am the Big Bad Chinese Mama. As you can tell, I am a sweet and lovely lotus blossom. This is just like many [mail-order] sites you have seen before but better … I have gathered lovely ‘Oriental Creatures’ from all over the world, who are just as sweet and pretty as me. They will show you just how demure Asian women really are.”
The motives behind BBCM are complex. Wong’s primary goal is “to catch the oppressor in the act of oppression and use my personal sense of humor as a political force,” as the site’s manifesto states. “I wanted to
The Princess and the Prankster
Two Performers Take on Art, Ethnicity, and Sexuality
Karen End / FALL 2002
IT’S SUCH A TRUISM, IT’S BORING. TYPE A PHRASE AS INNOCUOUS as “Asian woman” into a web search engine, and hundreds of sites featuring undressed Asian cuties to suit every sexual taste materialize; elsewhere, web-based mail-order-bride services tout the benefits of the legendary Asian disposition. Personally, when not making snarky remarks about it, I prefer to ignore the ubiquity of Asian-lady porn, if not out of exasperation then just to stay sane. Artists Kristina Sheryl Wong and Gennifer Hirano, however, feel differently. Wong’s website, Big Bad Chinese Mama ( www.bigbadchinesemama.com ), corners web surfers looking for porn and confronts them instead with hilarious and gross mail-order brides who bite. Hirano’s work, some of which can be seen at www.asianprincessartifacts.com , explores the dynamics of sexual assault through photography, writing, and performance. Her Asianprincess character is an Asian cowgirl in pink braids, bikini top, and thong who often sings “Coal Miner’s Daughter” while giving an Asian man a lap dance. Some would call these women’s Venus-flytrap approaches to consciousness-raising politically incorrect, even potentially destructive. But Hirano and Wong, in choosing to embrace rather than avoid the exhausted myths of Asian female sexuality, turn the tables on the oppressor—and on the groupthink of the oppressed.
Though they met only in the last year, the two have led somewhat parallel lives: Both are from Asian-friendly, progressive San Francisco, and both
came of age in a time when the popularity of Margaret Cho, Giant Robot, Pokémon, Bollywood, Hong Kong action films, and other Asian products began edging Asian-American subcultures closer to the mainstream. And while neither woman’s work could be considered conventional, both take an accessible, pop culture approach to Asian-American politics, as have contemporary entertainers like the comedy troupe 18 Mighty Mountain Warriors and actor/comedian Kate Rigg (of the one-woman show Kate’s Chink-O-Rama ) . Using a surefire sales tactic—sex—Hirano’s and Wong’s alter egos commodify and then topple expectations about Asian women’s sexuality, luring in and confronting those who need it most (not just men who fetishize Asian women but also fellow Asian Americans complacent in their ideas of political correctness). Both women explore the possibility of reclaiming porn as a vehicle for probing identity, sexual expression, and self-portraiture, and both dose their politically charged art with unapologetic humor. The results have jangled nerves, provoked arguments, and raised plenty of eyebrows—and they wouldn’t have it any other way.
The Prankster: Kristina Sheryl Wong
Go to Big Bad Chinese Mama and you’ll be greeted by images of an Asian woman in a long blue Chinese dress inviting you to check out the “demure lotus blossoms … the geishas … the Oriental sluts”—“whatever you had imagined in your patriarchal, colonialist longings.” Click on the angry Hello Kitty icon and you’ll come face-to-face with the Big Bad Mama herself, clutching a bag of Chee-tos and mugging as hideously as she can. “Hi there,” says the greeting. “I am the Big Bad Chinese Mama. As you can tell, I am a sweet and lovely lotus blossom. This is just like many [mail-order] sites you have seen before but better … I have gathered lovely ‘Oriental Creatures’ from all over the world, who are just as sweet and pretty as me. They will show you just how demure Asian women really are.”
The motives behind BBCM are complex. Wong’s primary goal is “to catch the oppressor in the act of oppression and use my personal sense of humor as a political force,” as the site’s manifesto states. “I wanted to
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