CNN host Lisa Ling was a guest on this week’s new episode of the Archetypes podcast with Meghan Markle, and as their conversation caught the internet’s eye, she posted some praise for Markle on Instagram. Ling shared a photo of herself and Markle together with a handful of compliments for the Duchess of Sussex. After they discussed racism and sexism against women of Asian descent, the podcast went somewhat viral.
“So enjoyed talking to Meghan Markle for her podcast Archetypes,” Ling wrote. “She is such a bright and compelling conversationalist and I hope people take the time to get to know her beyond the often insidious headlines.” Ling, a journalist and author, may have been speaking generally about the headlines that have plagued Markle ever since she began dating Prince Harry – especially in the U.K. However, the headlines surrounding this particular podcast were biting as well.
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Markle, Ling, comedian Margaret Cho and sociologist Nancy Wang Yuen discussed the media trope known as “the dragon lady,” which typically depicts women of Asian descent as oversexualized and violent, with the connotation that they are scheming and malicious. They noted that, while other harmful racist stereotypes have fallen by the wayside in recent decades, this one has hardly been deconstructed and has even continued to show up in mainstream media at times.
Still, some headlines made it sound like Markle was simply condemning certain movies for doing something wrong, and in that sense, her choice of examples came into question. Markle said: “Movies like Austin Powers and Kill Bill – they presented these caricatures of women of Asian descent as oversexualized or aggressive. This toxic stereotyping of women of Asian descent… this doesn’t just end once the credits roll.”
Of course, Kill Bill does a lot of meta-textual work to deconstruct the trope of the femme fatale and flip the role of women in action movies, while Austin Powers is a parody of those tropes. However, Yuen points out that many viewers do not take away those deconstructions, and ultimately those movies simply end up reinforcing harmful tropes for them. As an example, she remarked on how a catchphrase from Full Metal Jacket was made into a racist catcall later by shows like South Park.
“I myself have been propositioned in an airport in Atlanta of all places by a stranger who said, ‘Me so horny,’ just yelled it out to me,” she said. “I knew why because I looked around and I thought and I saw that I was the only Asian woman in that area. I knew he was talking to me, even though I don’t even know if he’d [ever] seen Full Metal Jacket.”
Archetypes is on its fifth episode, but it doesn’t seem to be airing on a regular schedule. The show is available exclusively on Spotify.
