I am half Japanese and half Chinese. Born in Japan, raised within a US air base, and later raised in the United States of America(California). Even though I was raised primarily as an American, I also keep in touch with Asian culture, both traditional and modern.
As a creator on Second Life, something that has always bothered me with the way east Asians are portrayed in the west is that many people believe them to have squinting, sharp, and angular eyes. These features are much like non-Asians with Down Syndrome, ancient paintings, and Bratz dolls.
Is it really that hard for so many people to see that the eyes of Asians is no different in angle from that of Caucasians? Can they really not notice that the cause of difference is the eyelid fold itself?
According to what I have seen floating around with no criticism, yes.
An avatar titled, "Asian Beauty".
A child with Down Syndrome.
(You don't know long it took to find a picture of one with eyes nearly as slanted as the avatar above on Google.)
These creators seem to ignore one rule of art. Observation.
Anyone who took the time and effort to just zoom into a real Asian person's face, would notice that their eyes are not Down Syndrome-shaped, but that the fold of the eyelids is different. While people with Down Syndrome likely also have similar eyelids, their eyes are usually abnormally angled, while Asians have about the same angularity as a healthy white person.
Meanwhile, some believe they must look like complete aliens...
An "Asian avatar" from Second Life.
An alien from Avatar.
It's not surprising that all of the horrifyingly "Asian" faces are made by non-Asian creators, most likely those who have never had contact with real Asians, besides watching Disney's Mulan or seeing a few classical Chinese paintings.
While east Asians, namely Japanese, do have their own stereotypes for European faces, they are much like what western-made cartoon caricatures and comics depict.
Now, I can understand those who simply do it as a form of exaggerated caricature for laughs, or cartoon style, but when it comes to realistic 3D human shapes... just no.
I'm also not talking about Kabuki makeup, or anything legit like that. Even if it were just make up, it would not affect the actual shape of the face at all, unless it's a mask.
I believe one of the factors for letting this... abomination of "Asian
Beauty", go on, is the lack of Asian American presence, those who are
even willing to speak up about it being wrong and disgusting. There's also the fact that of all the Asians in America, you have to realize not all of them are Mongoloid/East Asian. There are Asians from say, India or the middle-east. Those are the Asians who do not usually have the particular facial features that most of those from the eastern countries such as China, Japan, and Korea have.
It also would not be farfetched to theorize that it could be an influence in the plastic surgery craze of east Asia(coughSouthKorea), where many get surgery done to achieve a more "westernized" look, the most common being eyelid surgery which gives them a double-eyelid closer to Europeans or west Asians. Of course, there's been no study to my knowledge about the correlation to westerner's distorted view of Asian beauty and plastic surgery, so this is just a guess and speculation at best.
Do you see his eyes as slanted or Down Syndrome-like?
I don't think so.
Do you see their eyes as slanted or Down Syndrome-like?
I don't think so.
I apologize for the lack of males, by the way. It's very hard to find good example photos of males, due to the sheer lack of variety of them in Second Life.
What are your thoughts? Have anything to add? Feel free to comment.
