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Notion of AllLookSame (Alllooksame.com by dyske )
Notion of alllooksame (ALL LOOK SAME) can be a joke, but its unintended impact is neither innocuous, nor negligible. WE all should rethink the site, and ask ourselves if we can be free of racism by mocking and joking about other races that we don't belong to.
Here is a good article on the concept of alllooksame (alllooksame.com).
Source, in case you wonder, is Here.
[Please compare to alllooksame.com]
Notion of alllooksame (ALL LOOK SAME) can be a joke, but its unintended impact is neither innocuous, nor negligible. WE all should rethink the site, and ask ourselves if we can be free of racism by mocking and joking about other races that we don't belong to.
Here is a good article on the concept of alllooksame (alllooksame.com).
Source, in case you wonder, is Here.
melissa said:Generally I am opinionated, but I don't think that my opinions make me an "expert" on anything and everything Asian American. Especially not something like this.
I took the test finally and I only missed a few-- what that says about me, I don't know. I also find the site amusing, but it does worry me that some people might take it seriously.
In any case, I haven't been able to find the article online (I am at the airport, so I'm not trying too hard to look), but here's the article from the Montreal Gazette. Enjoy:
Montreal Gazette
Wednesday, November 3, 2004
Page: A19
Section: News
Byline: MISTY HARRIS
Source: CanWest News Service
Among young Asian-Canadians, it's wryly called the yellow man's burden. In Hollywood movies like Rush Hour, it's the punchline for any number of
jokes.
Now the notion that all Asians look alike is the basis for a Web site.
AllLookSame.com, a controversial site that asks "what's the difference?" when it comes to Asian faces, has already attracted more than 1.3 million visitors.
But experts question whether AllLookSame - headed by a Japanese American - is not actually encouraging the stereotypes it sets out to parody.
"What's offensive is the idea of detaching race from ethnicity, identifying people in the absence of ways of speaking, acting or dressing," says Thomas Lamarre, professor of East Asian studies at McGill University.
"There are real physical differences between people; they just don't correspond with national categories neatly. Certain Japanese may look Chinese, whatever that means, and certain Chinese may look Thai because the borders don't correspond with ethnic groupings."
The centrepiece of AllLookSame is a quiz in which 18 photographs are shown and the user must determine who is Korean, Japanese and Chinese.
According to the site's Webmaster, Dyske Suematsu, the quiz is "ultimately a joke," but at the same time is designed to be "a celebration of the similarities and the differences among Asians."
In North American society, "publicly admitting that you cannot tell Asians apart comes across sounding racist or prejudiced," writes Suematsu, a graphic designer based in New York. "But with this site, knowing it was created by an Asian man, (Westerners) finally felt safe to admit what they had been feeling."
Suematsu defines two categories of visitors to AllLookSame: those who can't tell Asians apart and feel badly about it, and those who are convinced they can tell Asians apart by comparing them to images in such films as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
Lamarre's concern lies not in those specific distinctions but in the selection of the 18 photos used to typify each nationality.
"Who decides what Chinese looks like? Some scientists somewhere could do research and come up with statistical measurements of cranium or different kinds of epicanthic folds. But in this case, it's just someone somewhere deciding that there are these general distributions."
Sean Metzger, an Asian pop-culture expert and lecturer at Duke University, thinks the very existence of AllLookSame raises important questions about racial paradigms. But in not following up on those key issues, he says the site fails to make its point.
"Whether your intention is to dismantle a stereotype or not, just by invoking it, you immediately perpetuate it," Metzger says. "(The site) doesn't talk about how the stereotype emerged historically, what type of power dynamics keep it in place - all of the things needed to be useful anti-racist education."
Melissa Hung, editor-in-chief of the Asian-American magazine Hyphen, is amused by the popular site, worrying only that "someone could take the test, score terribly, and go away thinking that all Asians do look alike."
She reads Suematsu's site as pure parody, with the underlying message people can't accurately be judged by outward appearances.
"I'd like to see a site with white people and see if anyone can tell the difference between Germans, Brits, the French, and white Americans," Hung jokes. "Frankly, all those frat boys in their khakis and polos look kind of the same."
[Please compare to alllooksame.com]