I'm sure most white guys in Asia don't look like George Clooney or Brad Pitt either.
I also want to point out that the West exports more of its culture out to other countries of the world than do Asian cultures out in the West, so that also creates more desirability for Westerners.
My relatives in China know who Tom Cruise, Michael Jackson, and Brad Pitt are, but I doubt anyone in the US knows anyone who's famous only in Asia.
I wouldn't say that's true. Rain is a (famous) exception in this regard, but most Korean entertainers get blepharoplasty[0], a surgery that makes Asian eyes look more Western.
Moreover, why is it that Korean popular culture has succeeded in such a big way in the West when Japan did not in the 70s/80s, when it was a rising economic star? Well, Japan is a much bigger country and so the entertainment industry is more than content to appeal to only domestic tastes, since they can make a decent living off of that. Even the most rabid Koreaboo would not go for popular Japanese styles in men, such as this[1].
Korea, OTOH, has strived to display more internationally appealing (read: Western) characteristics in their entertainers, because they're a smaller country and the rate of IP infringement is much higher (OTOH, Japan has one of the lowest rates in the world). They need foreign interest in their entertainment industry to turn a decent profit. They initially aimed to have pan-Asian appeal, but that has (luckily, but unintentionally for them) morphed into global appeal.
You're absolutely right that Hollywood actors do not represent the average white guy. But I've been to Japan and seen white guys who look nothing like Clooney or Pitt, guys who are total geeks ("Charisma Men"), get treated like royalty by the local women.
Could you ever see the reverse happening in the West? No, all those Koreaboos are rudely awakened when they find out that most Asian guys don't look like their favorite Korean drama actor. And the statistics back this up.
The export of culture from the West to Asia definitely plays a role in all this, and could very well be the primary reason for this phenomenon. Western views of masculinity and femininity are exported to the rest of the world and shape Asian views of what is attractive in men and women.
In fact I honestly think (with enough grooming and styling) you can get more fit Asian guys looking like those two examples you gave than you could get white guys to look like them. So just because of that, it's probably benefitting Asian guys more that they're being flaunted as sexy.
As for Japan, they didn't have a well-developed live-action film industry (not sure of the reason why), which according to what I read on Wikipedia, is why they developed a big Anime industry. I'd imagine cartoons would have a harder time to catch on in the West with adults, but it did catch on with kids (Digimon, Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh).
Absolutely, dyed hair is almost universally present amongst celebrities. Usually brown or red, but sometimes blonde.
You'll also see other surgically obtained Western facial features, such as a more elongated face and larger noses, in Korean celebrities. I'm not a facial structure expert so I can't scientifically enunciate it, but they don't look anything like your average Korean. For example, I wouldn't be surprised if they're modifying their foreheads too, to look like Tom Cruise in that picture you linked.
> In fact I honestly think (with enough grooming and styling) you can get more fit Asian guys looking like those two examples you gave than you could get white guys to look like them.
Oh, of course. No matter what you do, you'll never truly bridge the gap between races.
A good recent example of this is Cloud Atlas, which has drawn a lot of controversy for one of its story arcs, which is set in a futuristic "Neo-Seoul". Whereas the female actresses are Asian (Bae Doona of Korea and Zhou Xun of China), they used "yellow-face" to make male white actors look Asian, instead of using Asian actors.[0] Predictably, it's not at all a convincing makeover and has drawn harsh criticism from Asian American advocacy groups for the continued discrimination against/marginalization of Asian men by Hollywood.
> So just because of that, it's probably benefitting Asian guys more that they're being flaunted as sexy.
Right, and that's definitely the case. If you look at the expat blogosphere for Korea, what was dominated by men a few years ago is now dominated by women who write about their fairytale romances in Korea (no idea how true a lot of it is, but there you go)[1]. Either way, that's still a very small percentage of a very small percentage (remember that women like to blog about dating a lot more than men). And I'm just saying that obtaining Western features played a big role in the hallyu spreading to the West.
> As for Japan, they didn't have a well-developed live-action film industry
This is not exactly true. A lot of foreigners think that Japanese adults all read manga and watch anime, and while it is common to see salarymen reading manga on the train, its certainly not a widespread pastime the way that TV is in the West.
Japan does have a live-action film industry, but it's pretty shitty. The production values aren't nearly as high as in Korea (the sets look grungy, the background music isn't as good), the actors/actresses don't use as much plastic surgery/makeup, and they're not going for international appeal. Not to mention the acting/writing is even worse than in K-dramas, if you can believe that.
0: http://nerdreactor.com/2012/10/26/cloud-atlas-gets-heat-for-...
1: http://imnopicasso.blogspot.com/2010/10/myth-part-iv-awakeni...
This might be because the current definition of attractiveness/manliness in males is still a Western look so. Eventually, if they keep pushing it towards the Asian look, those modifications might slowly disappear.
Apparently they also do this in Japan: http://izismile.com/2012/09/26/donut_head_freaks_from_japan_... But I don't think that's inspired by Westerners.
Compare this to a story I saw on AC360 the other day - there's a salon in San Francisco that rejuvenates your skin by punching and slapping you. Imagine a Japanese person reading about that and thinking "wow, Americans are so weird!" That's the same position you're in with that donut head thing.
That's entirely possible, but that's why I mentioned the fact that it occurs in all Asian countries, regardless of wealth. Even in Japan, a first world country, you will find this exact same phenomenon. In fact, China's adversarial relationship with the West and general social conservativeness means that it's probably more so in Japan than in China. Either way, it's not just for money (assuming that's what you meant by "status").
> Plus wasn't there a survey that said Asian women preferred their own race more than any other type of women?
From this chart[0], it's actually the exact opposite for Asian women in America. Notice how the ratio of Asian men marrying women of other races to Asian women marrying men of other races is lower than for any other race, while the reverse is observed among blacks (black men are much more likely to marry someone of another race than black women):
> Gender differences are most pronounced among blacks and Asians. Black men marry someone from a different group twice as often as black women do, while among Asians, the gender pattern is reversed.
My personal theory as to why this disparity exists is that Asian physical characteristics are seen as feminine, while African physical characteristics are seen as masculine. So Asian men are seen as effeminate, which reduces their attractiveness to women of any race. Similarly, black women are seen as masculine, which reduces their attractiveness to men of any race.
However, there have been some anomalies. For example, through the hallyu and the internet, Korean pop and dramas have gained great popularity amongst a significant number of white, black, and Hispanic women over the last 5-10 years. This has created a lot of non-Asian women with a so-called "Koreaboo"[1] fetish for Asian men. This is largely an illusion though, as the vast majority of Asian men don't look like Rain[2] or Song Seung Heon[3].
0: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/01/29/us/20110130mix...
1: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=koreaboo
2: http://i.imgur.com/0K7JF.jpg
3: http://i.imgur.com/7oAGm.jpg