Re-thinking Media Representations of Asian Masculinities in Sport – An Interview with Dr Michelle Ho and Dr Wesley Lim

Interview by Dr Indigo Willing

There are advantages to move away from Western theories of masculinity and Western knowledge production, especially when scholars are working on non-Western contexts.

Since 2020, Dr Michelle Ho (NUS) and Dr. Wesley Lim (Australian National University) have been collaborating on the project, “Asian Masculinities in Figure Skating.” The project explores Asian masculinities in the performances and media representations of elite male figure skaters, including Nathan Chen and Yuzuru Hanyu. Their published work on this topic includes in Dance Research (2023) and Media, Culture and Society (2023).

Their work creates a vital fresh vantage point and angle of inquiry and reflection as typically, Asian Australian diasporas devote considerable attention and pride towards Asian authors, actors, film directors, academics, performing artists, culinary professionals, politicians, doctors, scientists, and entrepreneurs yet rarely embrace sporting figures. Asian men are often overlooked and under-represented in the media, community events and related awards and speaking engagements. Part of this neglect may be due to the traditional exclusion they have had in the (White) public imagination of traditional sports that are mythologized such as hyper-masculine, such as football. In Western, colonial-settler societies, Asian men are also often represented in quite narrow ways that also reflect stereotypes in mainstream Hollywood films since the 1980s. That is, not particularly athletic nor sexualised (through a heteronormative lens) as conventionally desirable.

There are exceptions that include actors like Christoph Pang and skateboarders such as Christian Hosoi. Jeremy Lin has also drawn positive attention in basketball. Olympic sports also appear to offer some room for Asian men to receive recognition and to break stereotypes. Moreover, in the world of figure skating, Asian men are achieving gold medals and world class results.  And, while countries like China and Japan are strong Olympic contenders, even the Philippines, which lacks many facilities, have a representative in Michael Christian Martinez with hopes for Paris 2024.

In this interview, Dr Ho and Dr Lim were invited to discuss what were some of the key themes on Asian masculinity in this sport they were able to identity and what types of insight do they feel are transferrable to other sports and contexts?

AAFFN:

What led you both to look at the traditionally White athlete dominated sport of figure skating to explore Asian sporting masculinities rather than say, basketball or other sports read as hypermasculine?

Wesley: My reasons stem from personal interest as an Asian-American. I began figure skating as an 11 year old in Texas and religiously watched skating championships on television since 1992. After I finished my Ph.D. in German Studies in 2012, I realized that the cultural studies, dance and performance theories and approaches I used in my research could also apply well to figure skating, which I had never written about at the time. I actually first became familiar with Michelle through her article on Midori Ito and Mao Asada.

Michelle: I have done work on Japanese athletes like Midori Ito, Mao Asada, and Naomi Osaka. A couple years later, Wesley received a grant to do research in Singapore and just wrote to me to see if I wanted to meet up. We ended up realizing that his expertise in dance and performance studies could combine well with mine in critical race, gender, sexuality and sports studies. And coincidentally, Nathan Chan and Yuzuru Hanyu were performing the most technically astounding quads with sophisticated artistry. We thought that this must be a new trend in Asian masculinity and wanted to see where we would go with it. We started to co-write the two articles you mentioned, which began as an experiment that is now making its way into our book project.

AAFFN:

Your article describes Asian sporting masculinities as “alternative constructions of masculinities that complicate monolithic understandings of masculinity in or congruous with the West…[and] as a capacious term for diverse masculinities departing from Western models of sporting masculinities and are located in specific Asian contexts” (Ho and Lim, 2023). What are some of the key differences between diasporic Western constructions of men figure skaters and ones in Asian nations like Japan?

Ho and Lim:

Since figure skating has historically been such a White sport, both diasporic Asian skaters growing up in the West (like the US or Canada) and Asian skaters from Japan or China often skated to Western music and choreography (predominantly ballet and other forms of dance). The judges, a majority of whom come from Western countries, prefer to see skating to Western themes. One key difference now is that Asian skaters feel more compelled to express themselves more as individuals. Instead of necessarily being dictated by Western music and choreography, they instill the help of other Asian influences. The boom in skating shows and commercial appeal that happened in the West in the late 90s and early 2000s, has now moved to Asia. This positive trend is also related to what some scholars (e.g. Lee and Tan 2019) have called the “Asian turn” in sport, in which not only is there more emphasis on sport in Asian nations, but also an increase in fandom and the sport industry. We feel the Asian turn helps to shape how male figure skaters are starting to embrace their Asian difference in a historically White sport.

AAFFN:

What advantages are there for sport scholars (and Asian Australian researchers) to perhaps move away from anchoring studies to Connell’s hegemonic masculinity and shifting attention towards the idea of ‘inclusive masculinity’ (Anderson quoted in Ho and Lim, 2023)?

Ho and Lim:

There are advantages to move away from Western theories of masculinity and Western knowledge production, especially when scholars are working on non-Western contexts. Numerous scholars including Kam Louie have discussed why this move is important, especially so that we don’t treat Asian subjects as objects to apply Western theory to. We wouldn’t recommend shifting to “inclusive masculinity” necessarily because it is a similar issue of applying Western theory to Asian subjects. Of course, we realize it is nearly impossible to publish any kind of scholarship in the English language without citing Western theories and certainly we are expected to cite Connell’s hegemonic masculinity in all our work on Asian masculinities. We are merely highlighting these EuroAmerican-centric expectations.

These two stereotypes are from a Western view. In Asia these would not exist. We think around the early 2000s until the mid-2010s, many diasporic Asian and Asian skaters still felt the need to perform forms of white, hegemonic masculinity: the distinguished gentleman (harking back to the 18th-century, European upper class white male), rock and roll (Elvis-style program), prehistoric warrior; these are just a few.

AAFFN:

Your study critiques the stereotype of Asian masculinities being positioned as both “passive, feminized and emasculated’ and, ‘sexual threats to white women’”. In what ways have these stereotypes been perpetuated or challenged by figure skating that allows and gives space for inclusive masculinity?

Ho and Lim:

These two stereotypes are from a Western view. In Asia these would not exist. We think around the early 2000s until the mid-2010s, many diasporic Asian and Asian skaters still felt the need to perform forms of white, hegemonic masculinity: the distinguished gentleman (harking back to the 18th-century, European upper class white male), rock and roll (Elvis-style program), prehistoric warrior; these are just a few. When the US American skater Johnny Weir began skating in the early 2000s, this lithe body and frilly outfits (drawing strongly from Russian skating costuming influences) and androgynous appearance very much celebrated and queered the male skating body. He was also vocal and outspoken on many topics, but nonetheless, created a strong personality off the ice: giving legitimacy to more individuality. As such, many male skaters began skating in a less hegemonically masculine way. We believe his work has allowed the return to artistic skating and for Asian and diasporic Asian skaters to perform in a more inclusive ethos.

Scholars seemed genuinely interested in our focus and understood why it was important to look at Asian masculinity in sport. What caught us by surprise perhaps was the reception from fans of certain figures like Yuzuru Hanyu for instance. Unexpectedly these fans became readers of our work and we found ourselves wanting to do more to write about him in academic scholarship.

AAFFN:

How can journalists and writers in the Western context like ‘Australia’ be more aware of and avoid gender stereotypes in sport that affect Asian men?

Ho and Lim:

There needs to be coverage of more Asian athletes and their stories (through interviews and reportage) to individualize them beyond stereotypes. In many ways, coverage on elite athletes does tend to favor those who are at the top and only those in certain sports. In Australia, figure skating does not get picked up much in the media as much as swimming, rugby and cricket, possibly because of the lack of Australian skating stars. Media coverage could also include amateur athletes as well. And importantly, the voices of Asian journalists and writers (not just White ones) need to also be heard.

AAFFN:

You have presented this work internationally and in Australia. How has the feedback for your papers been in terms of people being open to studies of Asian men in sport? What’s a good takeaway that you remember?

Ho and Lim:

We would describe the reception so far as positive overall. As in, scholars seemed genuinely interested in our focus and understood why it was important to look at Asian masculinity in sport. What caught us by surprise perhaps was the reception from fans of certain figures like Yuzuru Hanyu for instance. Unexpectedly these fans became readers of our work and we found ourselves wanting to do more to write about him in academic scholarship.

Michelle remembers one time after presenting at a large international conference how an established gender and sports scholar (who didn’t work on the Asian context) was enormously excited to hear about this project and wanted her to send them a copy of their publication when it was out. It was likely this scholar wanted to cite or teach on this subject, which we found a very encouraging sign to our work.

AAFFN:

What are some books or theorists who have been important to your own work on Asian sporting masculinities?

Ho and Lim:

Mary Louise Adam (began important research on masculinity in figure skating)

Kam Louie (central to starting a discourse on Asian masculinities)

Kuan-Hsing Chen (while he did not discuss masculinities per se, his notion of “Asia as method” was helpful for doing inter-Asia referencing)

Garry Whannel (we found his work on media representations of men and sport, albeit in the U.S. context, helpful for thinking about Asian figure skaters in the media)

AAFFN:

Are there any films and documentaries that have addressed some of the themes in your research that you would recommend?

Ho and Lim:

We cannot think of any so far, which is wild, and perhaps this reflects how Asian men in sport are either absent or depicted as hegemonic masculine (think Kungfu or martial art movies).

There is one documentary on Takahashi’s life, and Chen recently had his biography come out, but we’re thinking that’s not what you meant, right?

AAFFN:

Where to next? How can people interested and studying Asian men in sport follow you and your future work?

Ho and Lim:

Twitter – @WesleyGrafWald @michellehsho

https://researchers.anu.edu.au/researchers/lim-w

michellehsho.com

Our work is usually uploaded on Academic.edu and ResearchGate. This means readers can download them as PDFs for free. See the following:

https://anu-au.academia.edu/WesleyLim

https://nus.academia.edu/Ho

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Michelle-Ho-22

We are also always happy to be contacted for our work.

References:

Lim, Wesley and Michelle H. S. Ho. 2023. “Hyperathletic Artistry: Nathan Chen and Yuzuru Hanyu Performing Asian Masculinities.” Dance Research 41(1): 1-18. 

Ho, Michelle H. S. and Wesley Lim. 2023. “Asian Sporting Masculinities in Figure Skating: Media Representations of Nathan Chen and Yuzuru Hanyu as Rivals.” Media, Culture & Society 45(3): 561-577.

Lee, Jung woo and Tien-Chin Tan. 2019. “The rise of sport in the Asia-Pacific region and a social scientific journey through Asian-Pacific sport.” Sport in Society 22(8): 1319-1321.

Interviewer: Dr Indigo Willing

Twitter @indigowilling