More recently, the Dragon Lady stereotype was embodied by Ling Woo, a fictional character in the US comedy-drama "Ally McBeal" (1997–2002), whom the American actress Lucy Liu portrayed. Ling is a cold and ferocious bilingual Chinese American lawyer, who is fluent in both English and Mandarin and is well-versed in the arts of sexual pleasuring unknown to the American world. At the time, she provided the only major representation of East Asian women on television, apart from news anchors and reporters. Because there were no other major Asian American celebrity women whose television presence could counteract the Dragon Lady stereotype, the portrayal of Ling Woo attracted much scholarly attention.