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Asian Stereotypes in Cinema Explored by Enlightening Expose
Film Review by Kam Williams
Asians have been portrayed just as unfairly as blacks
by filmmakers, and also right from the inception of the movie industry.
While many might think of D.W. Griffith’s “The Birth of a Nation” (1915)
as the starting point of the dissemination of such racist images, the
Chinese had by then already been smeared by an earlier silent picture
entitled “Massacre of the Christians by the Chinese” (1900).
Over the intervening years, Asians have been generally
presented in a very limited fashion in accordance with several
recognizable stereotypes popularized and perpetuated by Hollywood. The
females tend to be very deferential and sexually available for white
men, who they adore and place upon pedestals. Meanwhile, their males are
shown to be either desexualized and submissive, or as dangerous and
demonic, if they’re at all assertive.
The history of systematic cinematic mistreatment of
yellow-skinned people is carefully recounted in Hollywood Chinese, an
enlightening, encyclopedic expose’ directed by Arthur Dong. Carefully
chronicling the screen characterizations of Asians over the past
century, decade by decade, Dong shows how harmful and widespread the
fallout from these movies has been.
He is assisted in this endeavor by both damning film
footage and by the revealing reflections of luminaries like author Amy
Tan, directors Ang Lee, Justin Lin and Wayne Wang, actors Nancy Kwan,
James Hong and Joan Chen, and academic Stephen Gong. Mr. Going points
out the movies are more than entertainment, for the have the potential
to damage with the images they create.
Others speak about growing up hating themselves
because of the way they were marginalized by the media. It is important
to note in this regard, that in the early days many of the most famous
Asian roles, such as Fu Manchu, Mr. Moto and Charlie Chan, were played
in “yellow-face” by whites. So, you had Caucasian thespians totally
misrepresenting a culture by speaking in an insulting, monosyllabic,
pidgin English dialect that suggested they were capable of no deeper
reasoning than your average fortune cookie.
The problem is that when Hollywood was finally ready
to hire Asians to play themselves in lead roles, the industry still
demanded that they mimic the previously-established prevailing
archetypes. Thus, it is no surprise to hear one actress recount here how
she had to depend on an acting coach to learn the unfamiliar mannerisms
of the one-dimensional, cinematic version of the Chinese, and how to
speak “Chinglish.”
The bulk of the interviewees regret that Asians, until
relatively recently, never had the opportunity to tell their own
stories. Consequently, they fear that they might never be seen as
complex human beings with a full range of fears, feelings and emotions.
Sadly, the simplistic message still delivered by Hollywood is that the
West is masculine, and the Orient is feminine, almost as if the East
wants to be dominated. An eye-opening documentary delineating how motion
pictures have negatively impacted affected the Asian community, and how
they are like to continue to affect impressionable young minds for
generations to come.
Excellent (4 stars)
Unrated
Running time: 89 minutes
Studio: Deep Focus Productions
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Kam Williams