In episode 5 of the webseries They’re All So Beautiful, they attempt to answer the question “What about marriage and Yellow Fever?” Looking beyond personal ad profiles and first dates, how do cross-cultural relationships with or without the “tarnish of ‘yellow fever'” work in the long term? Interviews with interracial couples, as well as experts and those on the hunt for love reflect on what it takes for initial attraction to evolve into real and lasting commitment. One couple — an Asian American husband with a Caucasian wife — agree that “race has never been significant” in their relationship, but “culture gets in the way”. A Thai immigrant says she can “tune to the same channel” with her white American husband, yet also confesses their marriage is still a secret to her potentially disapproving parents. Owner of a dating site and Chinese Yenta, Julia Ma, reflects on the difficulties of finding marriage (with Asian women) in a high-speed Silicon-valley life where people don’t have time to get to know each other. Communication in a cross-cultural relationship is key, she states, but does anyone penetrate their stereotyped expectations before experiencing an actual relationship? Circling back to our original interviews, various men with “yellow fever” declare how much they dream of marrying an Asian woman. At the end of this sequence, we meet Steven (the main character of Seeking Asian Female and) one of the many men with “yellow fever”, who stumbles over his Freudian slip: “I’m looking for a mate and looking at Asian women to be that mate — one mate. I only want one mate.”
Previous episodes:
They’re All So Beautiful Episode 1
They’re All So Beautiful Episode 2
They’re All So Beautiful Episode 3
They’re All So Beautiful Episode 4
Talking head commentary from experts and everyday Asian/Americans, as well as interviews with patrons of Asian fetish forums spell out the implications of race-based romantic preferences with honesty and humor, making They’re All So Beautiful provocative while politically agnostic. It promises to surprise viewers with its thoughtful look at modern love and relationships, just as with Lum’s award-winning documentary, Seeking Asian Female, which provides the thematic basis of They’re All So Beautiful.
Weekly webisodes will air online leading up to the national broadcast of Seeking Asian Female on Independent Lens on Monday, May 6, 2013 at 10:00 p.m. ET on PBS (check local listings).
They’re All So Beautiful Episode 5
More about They’re All So Beautiful
They’re All So Beautiful is a six-part web series directed by Debbie Lum and co-produced by Maikiko James. The short online documentary episodes are designed to stimulate discussion on yellow fever – a unique but in many ways ubiquitous predilection Western men have for women of Asian descent. Each video starts with a question:
Episode 1: What is Yellow Fever?
Episode 2: Do you have to be white to have Yellow Fever?
Episode 3: What do Asian men think of it?
Episode 4: What about White Fever-Asian women who seek out white men?
Episode 5: What about marriage?