It's Asian Heritage Month, according to my Human Resources (although a search of it online brings up a lot of different months for 'Asian Awareness'), and after killing some time in front of the TV last night, watching some VH-1 Classic, I was thinking about Asian video vamps that came out in the 80s.
My definition of a video vamp is the female 'object of desire' in a music video - think Jessica Hahn in Sam Kinnison's 'Wild Thing' or any of those girls that those NKOTB boys were chasing around the graveyard for 'The Right Stuff.'
Anyways - I caught John Waite's video, 'Missing You' and never realized that the girl that he's obsessing about, in the video, is Asian. Or at least she looks like she's got some Asian blood in her. Add that to the only other two token Asian females I can remember from that time period that lit up the music video world - the Asian woman with the long nails and the 'piggish' nose in David Bowie's, 'China Girl' and of course, who can forget the Asian lady strutting her stuff and letting George Michael (presumably 'straight' or 'confused' at this time) write 'Monogamy' on her thigh in 'I Want Your Sex?' (Or did he write polygamy? After all, sex is best when it's one on one...according to the song.)
What happened to those girls? Where are they now? I could've sworn that I read, not too long ago (maybe in the last 2-3 years) that the woman in the David Bowie video was dating him at the time but now she's living in Europe somewhere - living a very, nice life.
As for Georgie's lady? Couldn't tell you. Do I care to do the research to look her up? Probably not.
Other than these videos, you didn't really see a lot of Asians in the 80s - and if you did, it was the stereotypical nerd-type Asians in movies...which is kind of a shame since we're not all like that. Shout out to Data, Long Duk-Dong and Takashi!
Happy Asian Heritage Month.
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Thanks for reminding me of "our" special month! I will have to check and see when Union Square is having their Asianfest this year.
ReplyDeleteWould you believe that the asian woman in George Michael's video was his girlfriend?! She did look a little mannish...so it may not be so far fetched that he'd be with her given what we know about his preferences today.
Last but not least...you forgot to give a shoutout to Harold and Kumar!
When I was about 10, I thought that "You Might Think" was the greatest video EVER! Of course, this is not really on point, as I am reasonably certain that Paulina Porizkova is not at all Asian.
ReplyDeleteStill - Yay 80's videos!!