Speaker 1: All right, Kyla, welcome to the show. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for coming on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: So tell me about your book. It Fetishized or Reckoning
Speaker 1: with Yellow Fever, feminism and beauty. It talks about pop
Speaker 1: culture and the way it both it fetishizes Asian women
Speaker 1: as well as how that's tied into colonization. It's a fascinating,
Speaker 1: fascinating book.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So the book is called Fetishize. It's about the
Speaker 2: fetishization of Asian women and my personal experiences with it.
Speaker 2: So it's a memoir and it's like a series of
Speaker 2: essays covering a lot of the media that influenced me
Speaker 2: growing up that was fetishy. It turns out like memoirs
Speaker 2: of a geisha, super problematic, hairs Yuku Girls, the Fast
Speaker 2: and Furious series. So yeah, I delve into different media.
Speaker 2: And my personal background with it is that I used
Speaker 2: to be a pin up model like decades ago, and
Speaker 2: I kind of played into the fetishization or like objectification
Speaker 2: of women for the male gaze. So the book kind
Speaker 2: of is a reckoning of my own like just questioning
Speaker 2: some of my choices and some of the cultural influences
Speaker 2: that shaped me at the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're I was reading some of the promo copy
Speaker 1: and it says, no one has fetishized you more than
Speaker 1: you can you explain expound upon that well.
Speaker 2: So growing up in I grew up in a city
Speaker 2: called Upland, California. It's a very small suburb in like
Speaker 2: forty miles east of Los Angeles, and I was like
Speaker 2: nerdy and the boys didn't pay attention to me, and
Speaker 2: like I didn't get asked to any dances, and I
Speaker 2: just I really was boy crazy and boys were interested
Speaker 2: in me, in me at all, they didn't find me
Speaker 2: attractive or whatever. So I think during that age, I
Speaker 2: just really had a hunger for acceptance because I felt
Speaker 2: invisible when Another influence growing up is the fact that
Speaker 2: there were no Asian female influences when I was in
Speaker 2: elementary school. I can't even really name one. This was
Speaker 2: before Lucy Lou, so I don't even know who was, Like,
Speaker 2: you know, there wasn't a superstar before her. And then
Speaker 2: I didn't have any role models. And I discovered this
Speaker 2: playboy model online named Sunghi Lee, beautiful Korean woman, and
Speaker 2: all the boys were in love with her, and I
Speaker 2: was like, oh, that's who I want to be like
Speaker 2: that kind of brings me to representation. Like if I
Speaker 2: had more choices of people to look up to, maybe
Speaker 2: I would have pursued something different. But I decided I
Speaker 2: wanted to be a playboy model, and then I ended
Speaker 2: up objectifying myself because I I wanted the male gaze.
Speaker 2: I didn't have the male gaze whatsoever, Right, so I
Speaker 2: I just fully played into it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so let's talk about pop culture. Because I
Speaker 1: was born in eighty two, My memories of seeing Asian
Speaker 1: women are you know, very one note up until even
Speaker 1: you know, not very recently you talk, I mean, when
Speaker 1: you go back to even like the Rush Hour movies,
Speaker 1: those are in you know, the two thousands, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's just like you mentioned, you use the word
Speaker 1: a lot where when you talk about fetization, it's about
Speaker 1: dehumanization as well as how it makes people less human.
Speaker 1: And when I look back on a lot of media,
Speaker 1: it's very clear Asian people weren't treated as human in
Speaker 1: Western media until very very recently, shockingly recently.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, yeah, the Rush Hour series was just
Speaker 2: kind of like I was pursuing acting at that time,
Speaker 2: and every role was like you had to pretend you
Speaker 2: had a broke in English accent, which I'm really bad at,
Speaker 2: so I never got any of those auditions, and then
Speaker 2: like the rest were for massage parlor girls or prostitutes
Speaker 2: or kung fu fighters, so those were like the only options.
Speaker 2: And the massage parlor seeing I bring up also in
Speaker 2: my book in Rush Hour because it's like Chris Tucker
Speaker 2: is just referring to the women as a buffet basically,
Speaker 2: and he's like, I'm so excited for this, I'm going
Speaker 2: to choose that one, that one, that one, that one,
Speaker 2: and that kind of just embodies what the stereotype of
Speaker 2: Asian women like objects that could be disposable and interchangeable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's also bizarre because it's like there's this desire,
Speaker 1: but there's also the same criticism of the very features
Speaker 1: of Asian ness in the women as well. Not to
Speaker 1: jump ahead of twenty thirty years when it comes to
Speaker 1: pop culture, but Love Island there was a controversy because
Speaker 1: one of the contestants was using an a Asians, a
Speaker 1: slur for Asian people to describe her body features, and
Speaker 1: it's you know, directly about the bodies of Asian women,
Speaker 1: and the response for a lot of people was this
Speaker 1: isn't a slur, there's nothing wrong with saying this, And
Speaker 1: you wrote about this for uh was it a vogue.
Speaker 2: For a teen vogue Vogueeah? Yeah, it's crazy. So many
Speaker 2: people don't think that it's a slur, aren't aware, and
Speaker 2: I think that has to do with like Asian American
Speaker 2: history is not taught in school, so like they're simply ignorant.
Speaker 2: I'm not mad at them for like not knowing, but
Speaker 2: it's interesting because like maybe five years ago, there was
Speaker 2: a trend on TikTok, the fox eye trend, where everyone
Speaker 2: was trying to have Asian eyes, and then there was
Speaker 2: controversy because the girls, uh, like I think it's Bella
Speaker 2: Hadid and some other some Kardashian or something, they were
Speaker 2: like doing the pulling eyes thing. That's a racist gesture actually,
Speaker 2: But then in that sense and then this gets into
Speaker 2: cultural appropriation, which I think sometimes has been taken too far.
Speaker 2: But it's just like women who are not Asian can
Speaker 2: come and say, oh, I choose that feature. I like
Speaker 2: it right now, but they don't have to deal with
Speaker 2: any of the like racism that we've had to face
Speaker 2: about our eyes. But they can like pick and choose
Speaker 2: the features they want to highlight or take for themselves.
Speaker 1: Yes, I see a lot of this in pop culture,
Speaker 1: a lot of path to congratulate my Asian brothers and sisters,
Speaker 1: because there used to be just a pop singers will
Speaker 1: go through a black phase, but now there are also
Speaker 1: some of them are going through an Asian.
Speaker 2: Definitely. I mean, I think Gwen Stefani is really kind
Speaker 2: of one of the prime examples of that probably, and
Speaker 2: I cover her in the book They Harris Yuku Girls
Speaker 2: because I loved them growing up because there were no
Speaker 2: Asians on MTV, so it was so exciting, like even
Speaker 2: though they were bowing down to Gwen Stefani and they
Speaker 2: weren't allowed to speak, like at least they were in
Speaker 2: cool outfits and they were dancing at the MTV Movie Awards.
Speaker 2: You know, I see four Japanese girls.
Speaker 1: Oh god, they might be my inspiration.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that might be my inspiration. You're feeling them
Speaker 2: or something like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it works wonderfully.
Speaker 2: Thank you. How do you feel it's coming? She seems happy.
Speaker 1: I remember seeing them on TV. It's like like, this
Speaker 1: is interesting, there's Japanese people on TV. Shame they aren't
Speaker 1: speaking or say anything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but they they were so stylish and their makeup
Speaker 2: was so good, and you know, like they they were cool.
Speaker 2: But yeah, uh and I don't think Gwen Stefani actually
Speaker 2: do kind of believe her that she is trying to celebrate,
Speaker 2: but she's she's not, I guess maybe willing to listen
Speaker 2: to criticism.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, yes, Okay, So let's talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about Fast and Furious. So you were actually in Tokyo
Speaker 1: Drift version as a import model, and that's a job
Speaker 1: that's something you did in a real life as well.
Speaker 1: So actually, let's back it up. What is import modeling?
Speaker 1: Because I feel like it was something that was very
Speaker 1: big for a while. Maybe it's not so prominent in
Speaker 1: the culture now, but I also but I also like
Speaker 1: how you kind of document the women who were in it,
Speaker 1: because I think that's something important because they were a
Speaker 1: part of culture and their history should be document Yeah.
Speaker 2: Import models just basically are models that model with Japanese
Speaker 2: import cars or Asian import cars, because I guess every
Speaker 2: Asian knows what an import model is, but most people
Speaker 2: who are not have no idea what an import model is. Yeah,
Speaker 2: during the early two lesands. There was just a huge scene.
Speaker 2: Asians had no real community, I guess, and then car
Speaker 2: shows became a place where they could gather at home.
Speaker 2: They would the men would fix up their cars and
Speaker 2: then bring them to the shows and like compete in
Speaker 2: competitions and races, and these took place all across the country,
Speaker 2: and then the models became really popular at the shows,
Speaker 2: and this very subculture and I think a lot of
Speaker 2: people don't know this inspired the Fast and Furious franchise.
Speaker 2: Like the first one, they consulted with our j Devera
Speaker 2: de la Vera, who is like a prominent member in
Speaker 2: prominent import scene person and other people they consulted with
Speaker 2: people from this scene. And then eventually as the series
Speaker 2: has gone on, they've like gone in a totally different direction.
Speaker 2: But I kind of wanted to highlight, Yeah, they're in space.
Speaker 2: It is what everybody points out now, So I don't
Speaker 2: think they really have to do with cars. It's like
Speaker 2: a crime fighting show or movie now. But I just
Speaker 2: don't want it to be forgotten, like where the roots are,
Speaker 2: because it is like the biggest franchise Universal Pictures has
Speaker 2: ever had.
Speaker 1: So you talk a lot about different pop culture on
Speaker 1: your TikTok feed, which is amazing. I highly recommend people
Speaker 1: check it out as a great preview for your book. Fetishized,
Speaker 1: available everywhere on August nineteenth. But one of the things
Speaker 1: you mentioned about, you know, the street racing culture, you're
Speaker 1: actually in a video game and it brings us back
Speaker 1: to fetticization. You're in a video game as a girlfriend
Speaker 1: that you can win in that. Yeah, in street racing,
Speaker 1: Street racing, Sindica Condicutt.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this was a show. There's a video game
Speaker 2: that was out on Namco, I believe, and it was
Speaker 2: kind of based on like need for speed, except like
Speaker 2: you could win girlfriends. So like every time you win
Speaker 2: a race, I think you can unlock a girlfriend. It's
Speaker 2: just basically we were told as a models. I think
Speaker 2: there were like twenty models to show up at the
Speaker 2: shoot and we had to dance against a green screen.
Speaker 2: You would start off in like jeans and a crop
Speaker 2: top and then go to like jeans and a minisk
Speaker 2: or mini skirt and like crop top and then a
Speaker 2: bikini so you could unlock all these videos of your girlfriends.
Speaker 2: But the goal was to collect as many girlfriends as possible.
Speaker 2: And I was just like why can't you just win
Speaker 2: one girlfriends like you haven't hear them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that actually is fairly common in video games and
Speaker 1: players like that, picking one.
Speaker 2: To Yeah, you win the princess, like the Mario Brothers
Speaker 2: wins the princess at the end. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So, Kylie, you also talk about some of the
Speaker 1: really negative and tragic consequences of fatization and how it
Speaker 1: could have some really serious consequences for actual Asian women.
Speaker 1: You were friends with a woman named Felicia Tang and
Speaker 1: True crime fans may know this as the Horrific Tied
Speaker 1: chapter known as the porn Star and the Preacher, right,
Speaker 1: and you've written about how that Kyle, besides being offensive
Speaker 1: just outright offensive, was also not true and part of
Speaker 1: you know, this fetization of Asian women. And you personally
Speaker 1: knew Felicia.
Speaker 2: I believe, Yes, yeah, I knew her like acquaintances. We
Speaker 2: weren't close friends, but we were very friendly and I
Speaker 2: really liked her and she was very sweet. But yeah,
Speaker 2: the whole thing is like calling Felicia a porn star
Speaker 2: is like calling Pamela Anderson a portn star. Neither of
Speaker 2: them are porn stars. But I think, like, I don't
Speaker 2: know in her death, it just felt like they were
Speaker 2: reaching for the headlines and like treated her again as
Speaker 2: disposable and dehumanized her, and like how it must have
Speaker 2: been for her family to read these kind of headlines
Speaker 2: and like for people to search for that decades later
Speaker 2: and still be able to find those headlines, And she
Speaker 2: shouldn't be remembered like that because she's simply was not
Speaker 2: a born star.
Speaker 1: We're still seeing this do humanization even in very popular
Speaker 1: things today, White Lotus the most talked about seeing from
Speaker 1: I Believe, Season three featured Sam Rockwell I Believe, an
Speaker 1: Oscar winning actor, given a speech about how he went
Speaker 1: to Thailand as a sexual tourist and slept with thousands
Speaker 1: of women, so many that he felt like he wanted
Speaker 1: to become an Asian woman and sleep with himself.
Speaker 2: This is a very strange conclusion. Yeah, but I think
Speaker 2: the show did a good job of bringing more awareness
Speaker 2: to this issue because it introduced me to terms I've
Speaker 2: never even heard of. Like there's a term in South
Speaker 2: Asian countries, Southeast Asian countries called loser back home, and
Speaker 2: it refers to like these old men, usually white, I guess,
Speaker 2: who go to Thailand and they could never get a
Speaker 2: hot girl in their own country, they're not wealthy enough
Speaker 2: or whatever. But you know these are sometimes third world
Speaker 2: countries they're going to, so the dollar goes really far.
Speaker 2: And you see these like past midly pass for others
Speaker 2: like dating these like nineteen year olds who are extremely beautiful,
Speaker 2: but they just go and do what Sam Rockwell did.
Speaker 2: I think, just like go through as many women as possible.
Speaker 2: It's like they'll sign up for tours. I think there's
Speaker 2: tours available, like sex tourism tours. I could jump into
Speaker 2: like what the history of colonialism is, well.
Speaker 1: Yes we got to do that, yes, yes, yes so,
Speaker 1: and of course that sexual tourism ties into how all
Speaker 1: of this ties to colonialism and how you address that
Speaker 1: in your book, because that's kind of what the thing
Speaker 1: that really got to me is, like, oh, this is
Speaker 1: all tied together. This is not you know, separate. What's
Speaker 1: happened because you Minch is mentioned like Full Metal Jacket
Speaker 1: and the Vietnam War and how the literal colonization of
Speaker 1: that country led to featherization of Asian women even in
Speaker 1: anti war films.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely so. Yeah, the sex tourism industry today in
Speaker 2: some of those countries has its origins in war because
Speaker 2: the government had a program where when soldiers were done fighting,
Speaker 2: they would be sent to rest and restitution, which basically
Speaker 2: meant getting sent to like another Asian country where there
Speaker 2: were prostitutes available. So that was kind of in a
Speaker 2: way there rereward, like not formally, but that was basically
Speaker 2: how it was set up. And it was the soldiers
Speaker 2: I think would joke that it stood for rape and
Speaker 2: restitution or like they used to call Filipino women who
Speaker 2: could be bought for the price of a cigarette back then,
Speaker 2: little brown fucking machine powered by rice, and that was
Speaker 2: like an acronym that they would put on T shirts
Speaker 2: that everybody knew what this was referring to. Yeah, the
Speaker 2: fact that the sex tourism industry is still thriving today,
Speaker 2: I feel like I don't know the figures off the
Speaker 2: top of my head. It's been millions and millions of
Speaker 2: dollars of like single mail generated sex tourism is still
Speaker 2: going to Thailand.
Speaker 1: Oh, let's see. So you talk. You talk in your
Speaker 1: book about how you personally struggle with this, and I
Speaker 1: love in your writing how vulnerable you are, how you
Speaker 1: talk about how like these messages still bother you and
Speaker 1: still get to you sometimes how you and I want
Speaker 1: to just ask you, like, as someone like as a model,
Speaker 1: you know, how it makes you feel being fetishized constantly
Speaker 1: in the industry. How to make you feel about yourself
Speaker 1: and how your body and how your relationship with that,
Speaker 1: how you kind of deal with that on a personal level.
Speaker 2: Well, Honestly, for a young woman back then who was
Speaker 2: felt invisible and powerless, that attention was very powerful and
Speaker 2: addicting because when you're in your early twenties, you're taught
Speaker 2: that like youth and beauty are your superpower in a
Speaker 2: patriarchal society. That's like how it's built. The only thing
Speaker 2: that you don't realize is that this is only like
Speaker 2: a temporary past. There's always a new freshure model behind you.
Speaker 2: And as a very temporarily like it doesn't really I
Speaker 2: just had a deep sense of need for like self
Speaker 2: worth and love, and that validation felt like it was
Speaker 2: filling that, but it did not. You know, it was
Speaker 2: only a temporary thing, and ultimately I still had to
Speaker 2: go and like discover my own self love and yeah,
Speaker 2: that that kind of attention is never deeply fulfilling.
Speaker 1: It's temporary awesome message Feathershot. Bye, Kylie you thank you
Speaker 1: so much for coming on Struggle Session. I really appreciate
Speaker 1: talking with you about this. You have a fascinating story
Speaker 1: of fascinating book, please check out. I recommend everyone check
Speaker 1: out your TikTok page as well, because you put a
Speaker 1: bunch of cool stuff on there every day. Where can
Speaker 1: people find you and where can you find the book?
Speaker 2: So yeah, my name's Kayla Yu and you can find
Speaker 2: me by my name on all platforms and my website,
Speaker 2: and the book will be dropping on August nineteenth at
Speaker 2: all bookstores, so you could just find it anywhere. Audiobook
Speaker 2: also available.
Speaker 1: All right, folks that was Struggle Session, have a good one. Peace,