Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power is an expanded form of Nina Menkes’ presentation Sex and Power: The Visual Language of Oppression. While feminist pioneer Menkes doesn’t focus on Asian stereotypes in her film, the points she brings up are important in the analysis of minorities in films.
Menkes gives an example of a Black man objectified in a way similar to how women are commonly treated. Asian Americans will likely remember that more than three decades ago, in 1988, playwright David Henry Hwang suggested that the so-called Orient and people perceived as Oriental were considered the subordinate weaker part of humanity. In the yin-yang or the East-West dichotomy, the Orient is the feminine side of nature and is contrasted by the powerful, wise, and intellectually superior masculine side of nature represented by Western nations, and particularly Western White men.