Back in the late '60s when I was a student at UCLA studying martial arts under Bruce Lee, he spoke often and passionately about the harmful way Asian Americans were portrayed on television shows and in movies.
How having characters like Hop Sing (Bonanza) and Hey Boy (Have Gun Will Travel) shuffling about happily serving their white bosses gave the impression that Asian males were grateful, sexless servants.
Asian women were generally beautiful, demure, sexy servants in need of protection from the gun-toting white males. Bruce did his best to destroy those stereotypes by becoming the virile action hero in Hong Kong movies that Hollywood wouldn’t let him be.
Read more on hollywoodreporter.com