Of Mail-Order Brides and ‘Boys’ Own’ Tales: Representations of Asian-Australian Marriages

Asia is increasingly entering into the Australian imaginary as the nation grapples with the issue of ‘Australian identity’. This article examines two instances in which the idea of Asia has been taken up in debates about marriage and relations between men and women. Asia is a site of fantasy for men in an era when they feel that ‘traditional’ values of male pre-eminence in the family are being undermined. In this fantasy, ‘Asia’ is known through stereotypic representations, the stereotypes underlying the nature of the response in the popular media.