Meghan Markle Calls Out "Toxic" Stereotypes in First Podcast Episode Since Queen's Death

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Prince William & Kate Middleton Reunite With Prince Harry & Meghan Markle

She's back.

On Oct. 4, Spotify released the 4th occurrence of Meghan Markle's podcast Archetypes, the archetypal to driblet since she and hubby Prince Harry attended the funeral of his grandma Queen Elizabeth II on Sept. 19. On the show, titled "The Demystification of Dragon Lady," the Duchess of Sussex and personage guests Margaret Cho and Lisa Ling sermon the "archetypes that effort to bounds and specify Asian women." Meghan notes 2 fashionable movie franchises to exemplify her point.

"Movies like Austin Powers and Kill Bill, they presented these caricatures of women of Asian descent arsenic oversexualized oregon aggressive," she narrates connected the podcast. "And it's not conscionable those 2 examples."

On the show, a clip is played from the 2002 comedy Austin Powers successful Goldmember, successful which Mike Myers' rubric quality meets Fook Yu and Fook Mi, played by Dancing With the Stars judge Carrie Ann Inaba and Diane Mizota.

In an interrogation that twelvemonth with Lollipop magazine, Mizota said, "I truly marque cautious choices not to perpetuate Asian American stereotypes. I was disquieted astir the Asian American community's absorption due to the fact that they tin beryllium beauteous vigilant astir specified things. But past I looked astatine it successful context."

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She continued, "[Director] Jay [Roach] and Mike are some large fans of Japanese anime, and that's benignant of wherever the look of our characters is from. People person already remarked, 'Oh, you don't person an accent. You were truthful convincing.' I'm an actor. I'm American and this was a fun, amusive portion to play. I don't deliberation you tin truly instrumentality thing in Austin Powers that seriously. It's a precise hard movie to instrumentality discourtesy to. If these characters were successful a antithetic movie, I could wholly spot that they mightiness beryllium interpreted arsenic violative oregon stereotypical."

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Also during her podcast, Meghan discusses the stereotype of the "Dragon Lady" connected screen. "The East Asian temptress, whose mysterious overseas allure is scripted arsenic some tantalizing and deadly," the duchess says connected the episode. "This is seeped into a batch of our entertainment. But this toxic stereotyping of women of Asian descent, it doesn't conscionable extremity erstwhile the credits roll."

The occurrence besides features a clip from the 2003 film Kill Bill: Vol. 1, which stars Lucy Liu as antagonist O-Ren Ishii. A 2021 Teen Vogue effort titled "Hollywood Played a Role successful Hypersexualizing Asian Women" alleges that the character constitutes a "contemporary example" of the "Dragon Lady" trope, 1 who is "cunning and deceitful" and "uses her sexuality arsenic a almighty instrumentality of manipulation, but often is emotionally and sexually acold and threatens masculinity."

But Liu challenged this notion successful a Washington Post op-ed. "Kill Bill features 3 different pistillate nonrecreational killers successful summation to Ishii," she wrote. "Why not call Uma Thurman, Vivica A. Fox oregon Daryl Hannah a dragon lady? I tin lone reason that it's due to the fact that they are not Asian."

The histrion continued, "If I can't play definite roles due to the fact that mainstream Americans inactive spot maine arsenic Other, and I don't privation to beryllium formed lone successful 'typically Asian' roles due to the fact that they reenforce stereotypes, I commencement to consciousness the walls of the metaphorical container we AAPI women basal in."

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