Olivia Rodrigo's Sour: Subverting Asian Stereotypes
Oliva Rodrigo’s debut album Sour has served as the soundtrack for heartbreak since it’s release. Sour, which broke the global Spotify record for the biggest opening week for an album by a female artist, probes pop punk textures in juxtaposition with poignant ballads.Rodrigo, who wrote 'Sour ' alongside producer Dan Nigro, has been praised with critical acclaim for her lyricism which illustrates an accurate portrait of adolescent female emotions. The album’s striking appeal stems from Rodrigo’s vulnerability as she explores emotions such as anger, jealousy, and unhappiness. However, many critics have overlooked the racial undertones that characterize Sour. Rodrigo, who is of Filapina descent, transgresses traditional representation of Asian Women. Portrayals of Asian women in American media are often subjected to two distinct categories: “Dragon Ladies' ' and “Lotus Blossoms”. The term “Dragon Lady”, first coined by cartoonist Milton Caniff, is the stereoptical portrayal of East Asain Women who are opportunistic sexual beings or predatory gold diggers. In direct contrast, “Lotus Blossoms'' depicts Asian women as shy, virginal, passive, and subservient figures that exist to serve white men. Stereotypes of this type function to sustain the binary image of Asians as the yellow peril or the model minority which sequentially function to exclude Asians from white American Society. However, through Olivo Rodrigo’s autonomous storytelling Sour subverts the stereotypical archetype of the Lotus Blossom that is prevalent in Western narratives.
The most emblematic example of “Lotus Blossom'' is the stereotypical characterization of Cio-Cio San from the Italian Opera Madama Butterfly. The opera follows Lieutenant B. F. Pinkerton is an officer stationed in Japan from the U.S Navy. Pinkerton who marries Japanese native Cio-Cio San for convenience. Cio-Cio San is struck by tragedy when Pinkerton leaves for the United States. She spends years pining for him and waiting for his arrival. When Pinkerton eventually returns, Cio-Cio San discovers that he has taken an American wife. Heartbroken Cio-Cio San takes her own life. In these portrayals Asian women are taken as lovers by white men until a more “suitable” relationship with a white woman is developed. Thereafter, the Asian love interest is discarded. “The long-suffering wife, the left-behind lover; the hostage, the victim, the betrayed and forgotten. The Lotus Blossom is patient in her doomed love and passive to her predestined fate — which is to be abused, abased, exploited, and ultimately destroyed by or sacrificed for the man she loves and serves” (Kim, 2014) .A more modern example is the portrayal of Cho Chang in J.K Rowling’s Harry Potter series.This sentiment is echoed in the alleged love triangle between Joshua Bassett, Olivia Rodrigo, and Sabrina Carpenter that inspired Sour. In ‘Driver’s License’, Rodrigo expresses the feeling of loss she felt after Bassett's rejection and his favor for the more Eurocentric Carpenter. “And you're probably with that blonde girl. Who always made me doubt. She's so much older than me. She's everything I'm insecure about,” Rodrigo sings. This emotion is also carried through the song ‘Traitor’ in which Rodrigo explains that she played a submissive role in order to keep Bassett around. “Brown guilty eyes and little white lies. Yeah, I played dumb but I always knew. That you'd talk to her, maybe did even worse. I kept quiet so I could keep you.” (Traitor) However, Rodrigo channels her emotions of inadequacy into scorn, an attitude that directly challenges the emotions of a “Lotus Blossom '' in her song ‘Good 4 U’.
‘Good 4 U’s narrative must be taken in conjunction with it’s music video. The video opens with Rodrigo playing the part of the self obsessed cheerleader, a character that has been customarily reserved for blonde white women. In the video Rodrigo seeks revenge on the boyfriend who wronged her by setting fire to his bedroom. Rather than taking her own life or wallowing in her pity, Rodrigo takes action against the man who wronged her. In the song she acknowledges the stereotype of women being overly emotional, but contends that her lover’s apathy is much worse. “Good 4 U” was shot by famed photographer Petra Collins. Collins asserts hyper-femininity into her visuals and works to shoot through the “female gaze “- a way of looking at the world through the eyes of a woman. Collins puts Rodrigo’s emotions at the forefront of the video as she reeks havoc and acknowledges the downfalls of her lover in her lyrics. Rodrigo steps into a more assertive role that “Lotus Blossoms” are not allowed to hold.
Rodrigo subverts the “Lotus Blossom” narrative by holding certain aspects and challenging others. However, it is unclear whether Rodrigo had intentions of subverting the narrative that surrounds Asian women or these ideas have become so naturalized in our culture that Rodrigo makes a note of them unconsciously. Nonetheless, Sour is a rare glimpse of a three dimensional Asian adolescent woman in American media.
