Some Questions for 28 Kisses tackled the issues of the portrayal of Asian women in the media, their neglect of Asian men, and the topic of interracial dating. From the 28 films he finds, each includes a Caucasian male with an Asian female, each acting in a romantic fashion. These films depict Asian females in stereotypically exotic roles such as sultry masseuses and as seductive slaves. Fulbeck also outlines the fact that the media and many films exclude Asian males. He made the point that it is rare to see an Asian male with a Caucasian female, unlike the media s acceptable archetype of an Asian female with a Caucasian man. This can also be considered a hyperkinetic exploration of asian female/white male pairings in mainstream media and its effect on gender relations. Simultaneously, Fulbeck scrolls questions regarding a stereotypical Asian on the bottom of the screen to add perplexity and to show the common misconceptions Americans have with Asians.
Representations of Asians in film have to do with the relations of “power/knowledge” of Americans. In Saussure’s terms, the signifier in the film would be the word or image; subtitles, for example, the Asian woman scrubbing the Caucasian man’s back. The signified would be the concept of the signifier such as interracial couples and sexual objectification.
Asian men have been historically portrayed as effeminate, meek, or they were seen as abominably evil. Asian women were also weak, but they were sexually submissive and sexually enticing. There is a higher visibility of Asians in the visual media, which can potentially lead to a better representation of Asians in general. Even with progress of representation of Asians in the media, there are still residual effects of the stereotypes and new limits are being built around image of Asians. However yet again the one-dimensional portrayal of Asians is the prevailing characterization of the manner in which the mass media has decided Asians are to be presented to the rest of the world.