Dragon Lady. At the time, she was the only significant representative of Asian women on television in the United States (besides news anchors and reporters), leaving no one else to counteract this prominent stereotype. She remains the most memorable Asian TV character of the 1990s. Character Ling Woo's character has been described as the antithesis of Ally McBeal's. For example, Woo is portrayed as evil, McBeal as good; Woo growls, McBeal purrs. At the same time, Woo's verbal assaults present a fantasy of authority that appeals to even McBeal, who says, "She's my hero, she's vicious, I disagree with almost everything she says, she treats me like dirt, and somehow she's my hero." The character's main function was to inject into the show "sensuality, promise, terror, sublimity, idyllic pleasure, intense energy" - elements long associated with the Orient in Western culture, according to Orientalism author Edward Said. Woo embodies stereotypes of the geisha, the unreadable Oriental, and the dragon lady. Describing her as "fearsome, devouring, vicious, cool," and with an "exotic sexuality", Georgia State University professor Greg Smith sees Woo as a stereotype of Asian women, a "Dragon Lady". Her character was frequently used to examine matters related to gender definition and topics. Woo is the only major character in Ally McBeal who does not have an origin story for her particular neurosis, and is exempt from the psychoanalytic focus given to others in the series, which Smith attributes to her Asian "mysteriousness". Cold and vicious Woo is cast as a villain, underscored by her frequent appearance to the theme music that accompanied the Wicked Witch of the West in the Wizard of Oz. Unlike a melodramatic villain such as J. R. Ewing, Woo was cast as a remarkably heartless character until well into her second season (Season 3 of the show), when she begins to befriend other characters. She harasses and belittles people with disabilities. When visiting a hospital, Woo accidentally collides with a man in a wheelchair, and shouts, "Watch where you are going! It's bad enough that you people get all the parking spots!" To an individual with Tourette syndrome, she says, "I think Tourettes is so cool. It would be great to be able to annoy people like that. You get to whoop and twitch. Any other good ones?" A passing blind man accidentally taps her with his cane, and Woo cries, "OW! They're not weapons!...I