On Physical 100: Asians Are…
If you’re chronically online, like my roommates and I, you’ll know that Physical 100 – a gameshow where Korea’s 100 fittest athletes come together to challenge their strength and athleticism - is the new Netflix show taking the world by storm. In the opening scenes of the show, the audience is introduced to all 100 contestants – via headless busts of their physiques. As the contestants are introduced one-by-one, the faces that belong to each bust are revealed. Naturally, as this show is shot and produced in Korea, a large majority of the contestants are Korean. Korean national team athletes, military officers, mountain rescue crewmembers, firefighters, bodybuilders and CrossFitters are among the types of athletes in the competition.
TBH, a lot of these contestants are super attractive. Personally, my favorite contestant is Yun Sung-bin, the 2018 Olympic gold medalist in skeleton – you might remember him by his iconic Iron Man helmet. My roommate Hope’s favorite? MMA fighter, Choo Sung-hoon. After I got past how good looking everyone was, I thought about how the show actually challenges a lot of stereotypes about Asian people – how many Americans would have guessed that any of those busts belonged to Asian faces?
I’m currently doing research for my senior capstone on the Asian American experience in sports and athletics. As a sociology student, I’m exploring the ways in which our identities, and our relationships to our identities, impact our feelings of belonging in athletics and on sports teams. As a former athlete and an Asian American woman myself, I thought it was important to look deeper into our experiences within sports since we aren’t really talked about in those spaces. Because my Asian teammates and I faced so many subtle forms of racism that shaped my experiences in sports, it felt necessary to uncover more of why and how this happens.
Sports in the US exists within a Black-White binary. This means that the institution of sport – everything from professional sports leagues, sports media, amateur sports communities, and more – has historically recognized Black athletes and White athletes, but tends to ignore, or straight-up doesn’t know what to do with, athletes that fall outside of those racial categories. Including, but not limited to, Asian and Asian American athletes. This is a consequence of structural and institutional racism – when you think about the quintessential athlete, who do you think of? Simone Biles? Michael Phelps?
When examining the role of the Black-White binary of sport in the erasure of Asian American athletes, it is crucial to acknowledge the model minority myth. The model minority myth is the idea that Asian American folks are the “ideal minority” – that Asian Americans are quiet, don’t rock the boat, are hard-working and intelligent but aren’t leaders or trailblazers. These stereotypes don't exactly match up to our popular conception of an athlete. We don’t look at Serena or Simone and think, “oh, she’s quiet and submissive.” We don’t look at LeBron or MJ and question their masculinity. I’ll also note that the model minority myth doesn’t just work to create stereotypes and minimize the oppression of Asian Americans – it also works to pit Asian Americans against Black Americans. The myth tells us, “The Asians did it right – they put their heads down and worked, look how accomplished they are now! Black people need to follow suit and stop complaining about this ‘race problem.’”
These stereotypes against Asian people become most clear when we look at media representations of Asian athletes. For example, with NBA player Jeremy Lin, the media talked about his Harvard education just as much as his Linsanity performance. Michael Chang’s success was attributed more to his hard work and intellect than his athletic ability. Figure skater Yuna Kim was often exoticized with her James Bond themed program and portrayed as a young girl being lifted to success by her White, male coach, Brian Orser. While media representation isn’t the only indicator of the model minority myth in sports, it’s the most obvious to those who aren’t participating in sports themselves.
But Physical 100 challenges the model minority myth and shows us that powerful and athletic Asian people do exist. That Asian people can be strong leaders. That Asian people can be sexy! Sure, the show isn’t going to solve anti-Asian racism or eradicate the model minority myth from our collective minds. But it’s a step towards reimagining a world where stereotypes of all kinds (even the “positive” stereotypes, like Asians are good at math) aren’t so salient to young Asian Americans. In conversing with my project participants, friends, and family, it’s clear that stereotypes about Asian people do impact our lives in some way – whether it’s explicit or not. So, while there’s still a lot of anti-racism work to do, I’m excited that Physical 100 may usher in a new age of seeing Asian people as more than just model minorities. And I’m gonna enjoy my Yun-Sung Bin content too.
Want to learn more about the Asian American experience in sports? Here are some good books to check out: Asian American Sporting Cultures by Stanley Thangaraj and Crossing sidelines, Crossing Cultures: Sport and Asian Pacific American Cultural Citizenship by Joel S. Franks.