The Big Short: The Chinese 'Quant'

The Big Short - Working For or Against Racism?

                               
                                 Exact Time of Scene - https://youtu.be/QpsI_Gvn7C8?t=1m54s

Here is a scene from 'The Big Short' where Jared Vennett introduces his Chinese 'Quant'. It is a very short scene and very well produced so please watch it before you read the rest of this post.

In this scene we see his character utilize a racial stereotype to reinforce confidence in his argument.

-> Everyone knows Chinese/Asians are good at maths. Therefore my calculations about the housing market are correct.

What is interesting to note is that in order for this to work, his audience must be aware of this racial stereotype. It takes me back to the days of FTVMS 100 where we learnt that in order for a codified message to be received correctly, it must also be decoded in the way intended by the encoder.
The point here is that most overt racial stereotyping relies on a group understanding of that stereotype in order for it to have power.

More interesting than that is the second half of the scene where Ted Jiang (the 'Quant') addresses the audience and these racist remarks directly. He highlights the fact that he can speak English perfectly and articulates himself in a way that lessens the impact of Jared's racist remarks.

The question this poses is whether this scene reinforces racist stereotypes or challenges them.

One the one hand, the characters are actually influenced by this little display of stereotyping. - Reinforcing.

On the other hand, the Asian character proves the stereotyping to be false and forces you to think about the racism you just heard. - Challenging.

I would be interested to hear feedback on whether you think this kind of display works for or against racism.