The rise in reality television docusoaps featuring affluent Asian Americans builds from longstanding assumptions of Asian American economic prosperity, capitalizing on the success of the 2018 feature film Crazy Rich Asians. Yet the genre of docusoaps emphasizes melodramatic and messy emotional scenarios, allowing Asian American casts to reveal an array of new narratives—including around personal and familial failures. Through a textual analysis of Bling Empire and House of Ho as exemplars of this format, this article explores how narratives of failure within Asian American affluence media can disrupt conventional views of the Asian immigrant family and undermine the logics of racial capitalism.
DhingraPawan. 2023. “Precarity and Privilege: Racial Capitalism, Immigration Law, and Immigrants’ Academic Pursuits.” In Disciplinary Futures: Sociology in Conversation with American, Ethnic, and Indigenous Studies, edited by KimNYDhingraP, New York University Press.
5.
DominguezAlessa. 2015. “I'm Very Rich, Bitch!: The Melodramatic Money Shot and the Excess of Racialized Gendered Affect in the Real Housewives Docusoaps.” Camera Obscura: Feminism Culture and Media Studies30 (1): 155–83.
6.
GatesRacquel. 2015. “Activating the Negative Image.” Television & New Media16 (7): 616–30.
7.
GrayJonathan. 2008. Television Entertainment. Routledge.
8.
HalberstamJack. 2011. The Queer Art of Failure. Duke University Press.
NelsonKim Park. 2016. Invisible Asians: Korean American Adoptees, Asian American Experiences, and Racial Exceptionalism. Rutgers University Press.
12.
NinhErin Khuê. 2011. Ingratitude: The Debt-Bound Daughter in Asian American Literature. New York University Press.
13.
SoChristine. 2007. Economic Citizens: A Narrative of Asian American Visibility. Temple University Press.
14.
TyEleanor. 2017. Asianfail: Narratives of Disenchantment and the Model Minority. University of Illinois Press.
15.
WangGrace. 2010. “A Shot at Half-Exposure: Asian Americans in Reality TV Shows.” Television & New Media11 (5): 404–27.
16.
WarnerKristen J.2015. “They Gon' Think You Loud Regardless: Ratchetness, Reality Television, and Black Womanhood.” Camera Obscura: Feminism Culture and Media Studies30 (1): 129–53.
17.
WarnerMichael. 1991. “Introduction: Fear of a Queer Planet.” Social Text29: 3–17.
18.
WuEllen. 2014. The Color of Success: Asian Americans and the Origins of the Model Minority. Princeton University Press.
