Malaysia is a country in the Gap, one of the regions that Tom Barnett describes as “largely disconnected from the global economy and the rule sets that define its stability” (that is, the country is Muslim and/or African). Gap countries tend to be pretty bad places — bad governments, crazy laws, and all the violent bigotry that characterizes the bottom fifth of the world, it’s perhaps not surprising that the racist Malaysian government has decided to free her citiznes from the like of Mark-Paul Gosselaar
and Sara Brinsfield
Both Sara and Mark-Paul are “pan-asian,” the current term for miscegenated East-, Southeast- or South- Asian, often with Caucasian ancestry thrown in. Panasians are particularly attractive for advertisers, because they are recognizably Far-Eastern without being particular to any one group.
In the words of the Asia Sentinel:
Beauty now has joined that parade, particularly as a rising tide of mixed marriages, not only in Malaysia but across much of Asia, seems to be creating a new super race of beautiful women. Over the past couple of decades they have taken Asia’s modeling world by storm and changed the very definition of international beauty. They largely dominate magazine advertisements, fashion shows and catwalks from Singapore to Manila to Hong Kong. Some modeling agencies, like Elite Model Management of Hong Kong, have built their business on the faces of mixed-blood models.
But the racist and Gap Malaysian government is dedicated to putting a stop to this glorification of miscegenation:
The Malaysian modeling and advertising industries are in shock after the government announced it was reviving a ban on the multiracial Asian faces that dominate billboards and magazines.
Information Minister Zainuddin Maidin said yesterday that models with so-called “pan-Asian” features were not representative of Malaysian demographics.
“Using pan-Asian faces means downgrading local faces,” he said. “We have to give priority to models with local looks.”
Pan-Asians are popular in ethnically diverse Malaysia, where advertisers tend to use their neutral features to avoid alienating any customers. A prime example is model and actress Maya Karim, 27, who is of Malay-Chinese-German parentage and is the latest poster girl for L’Oreal Malaysia.
A ban on pan-Asian faces is already in force at two government-owned television stations that cater mainly for majority Malays, who form 60 per cent of the population.
The announcement on Sunday extended the ban to advertising carried by private television stations, the print media and billboards.
The minister said the ban would eventually cover all media, but it was unclear when it would take effect.
However, love triumphs over hate, and beauty triumphs over bias.
Joshua over at One Free Korea already has placed his bet on the eventual victor:
I, for one, welcome our new fembot overlords, and I’d like to remind them that as a trusted blogger, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves.
Pan-Asian Beauties: work with them now, or for them later.
