Asian Efficiency
24
Aug/2009
One of the best books I’ve read in ‘09 is Digitizing Race by Lisa Nakamura. In her essay The Social Optics of Race, she writes that
the racio-visual logic of…science fiction films that depict interface use set up distinct roles for particular races, and distinct ways of conceptualizing the racialized body as informational property… [and that] Asians and Asian-Americans function as the material base for technologies of digitized vision….
I was reminded of it when seeing this Palm Pre commercial from Modernista! in which masses of Asian bodies signify supreme technology. While I doubt that this was overtly outlined as such, I do think it is a product of Western subconscious.
HT:Sociological Images for the clip and Erin Lamberty for noting it.
Comments:
Aug 24, 2009 at 1:09 pm
I think that Palm Pre commercial is being misrepresented.
Aug 24, 2009 at 1:15 pm
I think the concept of perfection is more based on ideas (or myths) since the Japanese became tech giants post-WWII.
When you have relatively few natural resources to export, perfection and attention to detail are the byproducts.
Aug 25, 2009 at 12:18 pm
clearly the chinese are worshiping the alien white lady
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