Who matters in Asian American movies? A content analysis of subgroup and intergroup representations

Audiences may learn and integrate information about racial groups and intergroup dynamics from entertainment media; however, this depends on the portrayals that are available to inform real-life perceptions. With a purposive sample of 53 U.S. movies centering Asian American characters across a 30-year timespan, this content analysis examined Asian American subgroup representation and Asian American characters’ intergroup interactions with other racial groups. Results showed that East Asians were significantly overrepresented across movies, characters, and actors, whereas nearly all other Asian subgroups were underrepresented. Additionally, Asian characters’ interactions with White characters were substantially more frequent and exhibited greater sentiment diversity than their interactions with all other outgroup characters. Such findings demonstrate that, despite the potential benefits of learning from entertainment media, opportunities for mediated intergroup contact may be constrained by uneven patterns of available media representations.