UCLA Center for the Study of Women

Within hours of the Virginia Tech tragedy, the late Seung Hui Cho identified as the school shooter, became the most “famous” Asian American with his images, digital films, and stories on every website, television news program, and radio segment transnationally. While mainstream newspaper articles on Cho provoked specific discourse around mental health, gun control, and ethnicity; a critical lens of race, sexuality, and ethnicity was seemingly absent from the media blitz. Analysis of mainstream newspaper articles will demonstrate how dominant media discourse tread the line between Oreintalist fantasies of Asian American masculinity and contestations by Asian American agents using violence and gender performance. Moreover, these representations illuminate the complicated relationship of power and agency through Cho’s self authored works and acts of violence which constitute a specific kind of media spectacle. This study will incorporate extensive analysis of media representations of Cho through five mainstream newspapers, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and The San Francisco Chronicle from April 14, 2007 – May 14, 2007. Further analysis will be contextualized through Cho’s own self-authored works through popular blogs, magazine editorials, and message boards. Adding to the existing literature on representation of Asian American masculinity written by scholars Yen Le Espirtu, Darrell Y. Hammamoto, and David L. Eng, the critique of Cho’s representations will complicate and reshape preconceived notions of Asian American masculinity, sexuality, and agency.