Book
Fetishized : a reckoning with yellow fever, feminism, and beauty / Kaila Yu.
"A deeply personal memoir-in-essays, reckoning with being an object of Asian fetish and how media, pop culture, and colonialism contributed to the oversexualization of Asian women -- from Kaila Yu, former pin-up model and lead singer of Nylon Pink"-- Provided by publisher.
Record details
- ISBN: 9780593728017 (hardcover)
- Physical Description: x, 242 pages ; 22 cm
- Publisher: New York : Crown Publishing, 2025.
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| Genre: | Biographies. Autobiographies. Personal narratives. |
Available copies
- 1 of 1 copy available at Tsuga Consortium.
Holds
- 0 current holds with 1 total copy.
Show Only Available Copies
| Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Status | Due Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lakeshore Branch | 782.42166092 Yu | 31681010431146 | NONFIC | Available | - |
- Baker & Taylor
In this memoir-in-essays, a former model unpacks how media, colonialism and internalized stereotypes fueled her self-objectification, exploring the trauma of fetishization and her path toward reclaiming identity, self-worth and healing as an Asian woman. - Baker & Taylor
"A deeply personal memoir-in-essays, reckoning with being an object of Asian fetish and how media, pop culture, and colonialism contributed to the oversexualization of Asian women--from Kaila Yu, former pin-up model and lead singer of Nylon Pink"-- Provided by publisher. - Random House, Inc.
A âraw and lyricalâ (New York Times) memoir-in-essays from former pinup model and lead singer of Nylon Pink Kaila Yu, reckoning with being an object of Asian fetish and how media, pop culture, and colonialism contributed to the oversexualization of Asian women.
AN NPR AND DEBUTIFUL BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
No one fetishized Kaila Yu more than she fetishized herself. As a young girl, she dreamt of beauty. But none of the beautiful women on television looked like her. In the late '90s and early 2000s Asian women were often reduced to overtly sexual and submissive caricaturesâthe geishas of the book-turned-film Memoirs of a Geisha; the lewd twins, Fook Mi and Fook Yu, in Austin Powers in Goldmember; Papillon Soo Sooâs sex worker character in the cult Vietnam War movie Full Metal Jacket; and pin-up goddess Sung-Hi Lee. Meanwhile, the "girls next door" were always white. Within that narrow framework, Kaila internalized a painful conclusion: The only way someone who looked like her could have value or be considered beautiful and desirable was to sexualize herself.
Blending vulnerable stories from Yuâs life with incisive cultural critique and history, Fetishized is a memoir-in-essays exploring feminism, beauty, yellow fever, and the roles pop culture and colonialism played in shaping pervasive and destructive stereotypes about Asian women and their bodies. Yu reflects on the women in media who influenced her, the legacy of U.S. occupation in shaping Western perceptions of Asian women, her own experiences in the pinup and import modeling industry, auditioning for TV and film roles that perpetuated dehumanizing stereotypes, and touring the world with her band in revealing outfits. She recounts altering her body to conform to Western beauty standards, allowing men to treat her like a sex object, and the emotional toll and trauma of losing her sense of self in the pursuit of the image she thought the world wanted.
Candid and intimate, Fetishized is a personal journey of self-love and healing. Itâs both a searing indictment of the violence of objectification and a tender exploration of the broken relationship so many of us have with beauty, desire, and our own bodies.
