The first time I saw a sexy Asian man on TV, he was doing kung fu. In my world, he was the only mainstream famous Asian man, a belief reaffirmed by strangers who would call me by his name: “Hey, Jackie Chan!” Before I could comprehend the prejudice behind those words, I was proud to be compared to someone so iconic.
Growing up, I began to see other Asian men on TV, but they were decidedly less sexy. I grew up on Ken Jeong’s characters in “Community” and “The Hangover.” Although hilarious, his Asian maleness always felt like part of the joke. Hollywood has a long and ugly history of portraying Asian men from all corners of the diaspora as weak, undesirable, nerdy and asexual tropes that are perpetuated everywhere, from dating apps to porn sites.
While the 2010s gave us “Crazy Rich Asians,” the rise of K-Pop and “Shang-Chi,” it still felt like Asian men in movies and TV existed in sexual extremes. They were either fetishized — declared sexual demigods like Henry Golding and Simu Liu — or deemed sexually irrelevant. The full spectrum of humanity simply did not exist for Asian American men.
Then came Season 2 of “The White Lotus,” which was the first time I saw an Asian male on screen that was equal parts captivating and sexually complex. A month after the latest season wrapped up, I couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t stop thinking about Ethan Spiller’s character and why he resonated so much. And then it hit me. Finally, here was an Asian male character that was sexually nuanced.
Despite being on vacation in picturesque Italy, for much of the season, Ethan, played by Will Sharpe, seems uninterested in having sex with his frustrated wife, Harper, played by Aubrey Plaza. At one point, Harper finds Ethan mid-jerk off and tries desperately to create the circumstances for him to have sex with her, to no avail. Whatever your opinion of Ethan, to see an Asian man pursued, to be simultaneously horny but not horny enough to have sex with…
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