Sugar-coated happiness: The affective politics of contemporary Asian American film posters

In the context of transmedia cultural production, this article explores how the design of contemporary Asian American film posters functions as an affective mechanism for transforming racial precarity into consumable happiness. It traces three key visual strategies in respective historical moments: erotic spectacle during the late Cold War period, multicultural reconciliation in the 1990s, and neoliberal luxury in the global consumerist era. It argues that these posters depoliticize ethnic trauma by translating it into universalist tropes of happiness. In doing so, the posters become part of a broader regime of emotional design that encourages alignment with dominant cultural scripts while obscuring structural inequalities. “Sugar-coated happiness” encompasses how the visuals operate as affective scripts that enable the global circulation of sanitized Asian American identities. This study contributes to ongoing debates on the role of design in shaping public affect, softening dissent, and mediating the visibility of minorities in transnational contexts.