Community: Michelle Krusiec as Mai Wu- ''Yellow Fever"

By Guadalupe R.


The episode, “Competitive Wine Tasting,” of the TV series: Community, displays Gender bias, “Yellow Fever,” and social stereotypes that involve Asian Americans and other ethnicities. In this episode, the social stereotypes and “Yellow Fever” phenomenon is displayed by Asian American actress named, Michelle Krusiec(as Mai Wu), and Caucasian male actors Jeff Winger (Joel McHale) and Pierce Hawthorne (Chevy Chase). In this episode Jeff and Pierce see an Asian American female (Krusiec) and immediately attempt to seduce her and date her because of her Asian beauty. Unfortunately for Jeff, Mai and Pierce, got engaged after meeting each other and that is where the direct social stereotypes come to play. Jeff assumes that the only reason why Mai would be interested in marrying an old man, like Pierce, is because she is interested in obtaining a green card and / or financial help, since she is Asian. Gender bias is portrayed throughout the episode by portraying Mai Wu as a submissive, respectful, and gold digging woman; the typical role- in which American society places Asian women. Society assumes that all Asian women are submissive and that they search for husbands for economic dependency. But, that is not always the case. In the end, all gender bias and social stereotypes are proved wrong because Mai Wu turned out to be the complete opposite. She was not submissive or respectful; she was a corporate spy. However, the “Yellow Fever” phenomenon did not end. In the end, Pierce and Mai decide to continue to date despite their racial differences.

This episode reminded me, in a lot of ways, of the documentary film, “Seeking Asian Women,”  that we watched in class because Mai Wu, a young attractive Asian female- like Sandy in “Seeking Asian Women,” gets engaged to an elderly Caucasian man. Also because the stereotypes that surrounded Sandy in the documentary were similar to Mai’s stereotypes in the TV series – Community; both Asian females were stereotyped and criticized for being in a relationship with an elder man outside of their ethnic race to obtain legal status and / or economic stability. And finally, toward the end of the documentary and the episode, we see the increase of the “Yellow Fever” phenomenon- where different ethnicities, in this case Caucasian, are becoming more and more interested to date or marry Asian females.