Quote:
"[Helen Lee's] work identifies sex as that which binds Asian Women but also sets them free within the realm of experience and representation. She presents the Asian Woman in the sex act, but refuses to subsume her subjectivity entirely within sexuality. In her own words, Helen Lee says: 'There is that image of Asian women in the mode of servitude, which can also apply in terms of a sexualized image—sexual servitude. Or as the stereotypical dragon lady. Both are very charged, hyper-sexualized images, the implication being that we have secrets or skills that aren't available to other women. At the same time, I want to present strong Asian female characters, where their sexuality isn't completely uninflected by these matters, that acknowledges the popular lineage of the lotus blossom/dragon lady stereotypes without buying into them.'"
-- Celine Parreñas Shimizu

Source:
Parreñas Shimizu, Celine. "Recognizing the Asian Woman in the Sex Act: Fetishism and Self-Fashioning in Films by Helen Lee." In "Making Woman Asian: Racialized Sexuality on Screen and Scene." PhD diss., Stanford University, 2001. (pp. 236-237)