Asian Stereotypes in Film History
D.W. Griffith’s Broken Blossoms is a silent film that is a perfect example of how Asians were viewed during this time period. The film is about a “yellow man,” Cheng Huan, who leaves his home country in order to teach white men about the Buddhist message of peace. The title character is obviously an Asian man, but audiences are not given any specificity as to what exact nationality he is; “distinctions among Asians of different nationalities went unrecognized” (Shah 3). The interesting part about the main character is that although the story is about an Asian man, the actor playing this role, Richard Barthelmess, is Caucasian, thus illustrating Hollywood’s reluctance to give a leading role to a person of Oriental background. This practice of making white actors look Asian was called “yellowface.” One justification offered by Hollywood for yellowface “was that white actors simply made better ‘Orientals’ than Asian actors did. This was probably true, since the white actors were often actively trying to play ‘Orientals,’ trying to play the stereotypes, while the Asian actors were perhaps trying to play humans” (Ito 3). It is also important to note that there were some Asian actors in this film, such as the shopkeeper who sold the flowers, but none played speaking roles and virtually faded into the background.
Once settled in Europe, Cheng becomes discouraged and submits himself to the role of “chink storekeeper,” a main stereotypical role that directors tended to give people of Oriental background. Later on, he meets and falls in love with Lucy Burrows, a girl whose father beats her. Being the established Asian, Cheng is subservient and tends to her every need, dressing her in silks and watching over her until she gets better. Despite the gratitude and perhaps love she feels for him, she asks him, “What makes you so good to me Chinky?” While the term “chinky” may not have been as derogatory as it is today, Lucy could have just as well referred to him by his name instead of such a stereotypical title. When Lucy’s father Battling Burrows finds out that she has taken refuge with Cheng, he is outraged: “A Chink after his daughter? He’ll learn him.” “In Hollywood, Asian men were depicted as menacing, predatory, and lusting after white women. These images, in films such as Broken Blossoms and The CheatâÂ?¦ helped perpetuate the Yellow Peril stereotype of Asian males” (Shah 3). The next title states, “Above all, Battling hates those not born in the same country as him,” once again illustrating the racism against Asians that was rampant in that day.
Another film that portrays the Asian culture through stereotypes is William Nigh’s Lady from Chungking. Anna May Wong plays Madame Kwan Mei, a Chinese aristocrat who has been captured by Japanese troops during early World War II. She and other prisoners who are forced to work in slave labor plot to kill the Japanese general, who is incidentally played by Harold Huber, a white man. “During much of the so-called Golden Age of Hollywood, scores of actors, big-name actors, had no moral qualms about taking roles that required them to ‘slant’ their eyes, do that funny walk, and practice their embarrassingly poor ‘Oriental’ accents'” (Ito 2). As his lady companion, Madame Kwan Mei becomes the diversion the Chinese need to put their plans into action. She dresses seductively and persuades the general that she will remain at his side and that she will submit to his every desire. “Moviegoers were fed erotic images of the China Doll as concubine, supple in cheongsam attire, secret danger cocked in her eyes, graceful as a snow leopard” (Nga 2).
In this film, although Wong is ultimately the hero, she is often depicted as a cold-hearted Dragon Lady, one of the main stereotypes found to describe Asian actors. “A journalist reporting on the Chinese Empress Tsu-hsi coined the term when he referred to the monarch as a ‘reptilian dragon lady who arranged the poisoning, strangling, beheading or forced suicide of anyone who challenged her rule'” (Shah 3). The men she leads question her motives, especially when she sits by at the general’s side and quietly watches the elderly men from her group be executed. “In Hollywood films, Asian women were depicted as diabolical, sneaky and mean, but with the added characteristics of being sexually alluring and sophisticated and determined to seduce and corrupt” (Shah 3). By this time, a few Asian actors were able to land leading roles, but even they were tired of the stereotypes they had to play. In Thi Thanh Nga’s article “The Long March from Wong to Woo: Asians in Hollywood,” he writes:
Anna May Wong explains her reason for leaving Hollywood- “I was tired of the parts I had to play. Why is it that on the screen the Chinese are nearly always the villain of the peace, and so cruel a villain- murderous, treacherous, a snake in the grass. We are not like that. How could we be, with a civilization so many times older than that of the West? We have our rigid code of behavior, of honor. Why do they never show those on the screen?” (1)
Another stereotype that is seen throughout the film is the brutality of the Japanese, which was a result of the war. In the first scene, a Japanese soldier beats a child because he is not working in the fields. “Between 1931 and the end of World War II, U.S. fear of Japan as a growing imperial power led to images of cruel Japanese soldiers abusing the Chinese and other Asian populations” (Shah 4).
Continuing with World War II propaganda, Jean Negulesco’s Three Came Home is another film that endorses cruel stereotypes of the Japanese. Claudette Corbert stars as American writer Agnes Newton Keith in her true account of how she survived a Japanese concentration camp. The Japanese soldiers throughout this film are portrayed as cruel, apathetic men, and there are an abundance of scenes that elucidate this image. As Mrs. Keith and her son are boarding the truck to take them away from their home to the prison camp, she struggles to get her suitcase onto the landing; she looks up at the soldier there, perhaps wondering if he will help her. He only looks back down at her, a blank expression on his face, and it is then that she realizes their inability to have compassion. In another scene, Betty, Mrs. Keith’s close friend, makes fun of another woman in front of a Japanese guard; thinking that she is making fun of him, he beats her mercilessly. When Mrs. Keith makes the accusation that a Japanese soldier assaulted her one night in the yard, she is beaten in order to be persuaded to sign a statement renouncing her allegation. The director of this film also reinforces the soldiers’ brutality by doing a few scenes that cut quickly from one to the next, showing Mrs. Keith being slapped or pushed around.
The interesting part about Three Came Home is that the Japanese soldiers’ cold-heartedness is contrasted with the Japanese colonel’s humanity. Despite his position, Colonel Suga, played by Sessue Hayakawa, quickly becomes a relatively likable character in the beginning of the film when he meets Mrs. Keith; he has requested to meet her because he has read her book and admires her writing. Later on, he has tea with her at the concentration camp and even turns to her for sympathy when he discovers his family has been killed in the bombing of Hiroshima. The most poignant scene that illustrates Colonel Suga’s humanity is when he takes Mrs. Keith’s son and a few other children to his house to eat. This move by Negulesco to portray a kind-hearted Japanese authority figure and move away from the harsh Asian stereotypes reveals the progress Hollywood was making towards a more racially-friendly mindset. As a result, Hayakawa, although one of the most successful Asian actors during this time period, was able to elevate his career even more. “Like other actors, had Hayakawa been no more than a victim of a stereotype, had he not been able to differentiate himself from the simplicity of an accepted idea, he likely would not have enjoyed the success that he did” (Kirihara 92).
Henry King’s Love is a Many Splendored Thing is another film that takes Asian stereotypes into a different direction. In this movie, a Eurasian doctor named Han Suyin meets and falls in love with Mark Elliot, a war correspondent. Once again, a Caucasian woman, Jennifer Jones, is cast in the leading role, revealing Hollywood’s lack of confidence in an Asian actress to do the job.
Another justification was that there just weren’t any ‘qualified’ or talented Asian or Asian-American actorsâÂ?¦ Of course, this type of thinking is a catch-22 for so many Asian actors who can’t find work because they lack experience, and can’t get experience because all the good Asian roles go to white actors. (Ito 3)
Suyin is initially portrayed as an antithesis to the typical Asian woman. She is a doctor and even seems to preside over some of her male colleagues. She does not seek a husband to take care of her and does very well on her own. She wisely refuses to go out with Mark because she has already been hurt in the past; her husband was a general who was killed in war. She tries to remain steadfast to her convictions but eventually does give in. As she falls in love with Mark, the stereotype of Asian women being subservient comes out in this film by the way she gives in completely to him. The end of World War II generated a Lotus Blossom stereotype, an “Asian woman as submissive, meek and ready to serve a man’s every need” (Shah 4), and Suyin definitely falls into this category. The Lotus Blossom stereotype stems from the loyalty of a Japanese prostitute in Puccini’s opera “Madam Butterfly.” A naval officer fakes a wedding to live with Cho-Cho-San, and when he leaves for home, she remains faithful to him and raises his son (Shah 4). Despite the fact that she clearly has an important job, she takes off from work in order to spend time with him, to remain loyal to him. When he asks her to stay longer, she does so without even a second thought. Her work-conscious attitude has been transformed by love.
As a result of their interracial relationship, Suyin ultimately becomes the epitome of a stereotypical Asian woman. An interracial relationship during this time was greatly frowned upon, and this is shown by the attitudes of Dr. Sen and Mrs. Palmer-Jones, whose husband runs the hospital. Dr. Sen tells Suyin that she has lost her job because of her relationship with Mark. Not only does she lose her job and her home, but in the end, Mark is killed while covering police action in Korea. This tragic ending leads one to believe that the director is trying to reinforce the idea that Asians and Americans should not mix. By the end of the movie, Suyin has reverted into the typical Asian woman, having to rely on others to help support her.
Another film that is full of Asian stereotypes is Blood Alley, directed by William Wellman. Captain Tom Wilder, played by John Wayne, helps an entire Chinese village escape to Hong Kong, away from the yokes of communism, by transporting them on an old ferry boat along the coast through a dangerous alleyway of water. Throughout this movie, the villagers who are trying to escape are constantly seen as hard-working, ingenious, subservient, and obedient, all stereotypical characteristics of Asians. With the help of Cathy Grainger, played by Lauren Bacall, they are able to break Captain Wilder out of the prison he has been locked up in for years. They concoct an elaborate plan to leave the area, including securing a new engine for the ferry boat they are going to steal, stealing the ferry boat by pretending to sink it, and dropping enough rocks into the bay so that guard boats that would attempt to follow them would be cut off. During their voyage, Captain Wilder has full command of the boat, and whatever he says, goes. When they are running low on water for the boat, he tells them to stop drinking tea, and they obediently pour it back into the jug. When they stop in the ship graveyard to gather wood, all of the villagers are out there, working hard together. One particular character in this movie that clearly defines the Charlie Chan stereotype is Big Han, who is played by Mike Mazurki. Big Han becomes Captain Wilder’s right-hand man and is completely obedient to whatever he says. After they have stolen the boat, Big Han leaves to take a nap before the big escape, but Captain Wilder tells him to make preparations instead; Big Han doesn’t even blink an eye and immediately adheres to the command. The Charlie Chan stereotype was a mysterious man, possessing awesome powers of deduction. Yet, he was deferential to white, non-threatening, and revealed his ‘Asian wisdom’ in snippets of “fortune-cookie” dialog. This quiet, unassertive and ostensibly positive character evolved from a derogatory Asian character in popular fiction: the Asian domestic servants who were commonly called Charlie- as in “Good boy, Charlie”- by their employers (Shah 4).
There were, of course, also some negative stereotypes of Asians in this film. For example, the Feng family was headed by Old Feng, a traditionalist who was stuck in old China times. The villagers force the Feng family to come with them because they were a part of the village, and out of pure cruelty, members of that clan poison the food stock on the boat. Ultimately, Old Feng is accidentally shot and killed by communists who are pursuing the ferry boat full of escapees, thus revealing the stereotype that traditionalist Asians are stubborn to the core. Another thing to notice in this film is the role that Susu, Cathy’s maid, plays. Joy Kim, the actress portraying this character and one of the few Asians who have a speaking role, often uses very broken English. In fact, her language is so broken that she is primarily there for comedic relief. Being unable to speak proper English is clearly another stereotype forced upon Asians in the film industry.
Richard Quine’s The World of Suzie Wong is another film that can be analyzed to be full of Asian stereotypes. Suzie Wong, played by actress Nancy Kwan, is a prostitute who falls in love with Robert Lomax, played by William Holden, who has taken a year off from his office job to try his hand at being an artist in Hong Kong. Initially, Suzie fits into the role of a Chinese “wan chai” girl, a typical seducer. She lies to Robert on the ferry boat about what her identity is; later on when she sees him in the bar that is frequented by prostitutes and sailors, she pretends like she doesn’t know him. Because he is an artist and carries some prestige as such, she tries to get him to sleep with her in order to up her own prestige. Later, he asks her to be her model, and she twists things around to her friends in order to make it seem like something it’s not. She does and says whatever it takes to get what she wants, playing up the stereotypical exotic Asian woman with a hint of Dragon Lady. She has men falling all over her, seeking her attention, and she is the most popular “wan chai” girl in that bar.
As the film continues, Suzie begins to transition into another stereotypical role, that of the Lotus Blossom. The more time they spend together, the more she falls in love with Robert. She then transforms into a condescendingly fragile woman who needs to be cared for by her man, a typical role played by Asian actresses. When she gets beaten up by a sailor, she intentionally goes up to Robert’s room to show him in order to provoke him to want to care for her. Later on, after he knocks the sailor out into the street, she confesses that she’s been man-handled plenty of times before and that this isn’t anything new to her. She really just wanted to have someone to take care of her.
In keeping with the stereotype of broken language seen in Blood Alley, the director of The World of Suzie Wong also tries to distribute this point across to his audiences. Suzie often speaks without the use of articles. Her very first words to Robert are “No talk,” meaning, “Don’t talk to me.” Her simplistic way of speaking makes her seem like a simplistic character, which we find out is not true as the plot unfolds. She also uses the phrase, “For goodness sake,” repeatedly throughout the film. This can be seen as an unsuccessful attempt to cross the cultural boundaries that are before her. Although Asians often do speak as such, this stereotype is demeaning to those people who can speak proper English. By portraying the lead character in such a way, audiences can come to the misconception that all Asians speak and act in an uneducated manner.
Since the first silent film appeared in the United States, stereotypes, primarily those of minorities, have been all over the place. A prime example is the way Asians have been portrayed since practically the beginning of the industry. Asian actors and actresses have played mere minor, non-speaking roles such as laundry men, storekeepers, maids and servants; World War II brought about roles of brutal soldiers. “‘Giving the audience what they want’ was a common justification for this one-sided deal, which was a nice way of saying that audience members didn’t want to have to look at Oriental actors for any extended period of time” (Ito 3). If perhaps awarded the opportunity to be able to partake in a speaking or leading part, women were cast as seductive prostitutes, evil aristocrats or submissive lovers. Men played wise and passive Buddhists or ferocious, women-seeking generals. Because of these constricting roles that Asians often had no choice but to take, society in general has taken to labeling this group of people in these ways.
[T]he stereotypes represented in the fourfold typology described above help many white Americans to understand Asians as a dangerous threat to be policed and controlled, or as a complacent and benign presence that could be largely ignored or harmlessly assimilated. In any case, Hollywood stereotypes of Asians – much like the discourse of Orientalism – help whites maintain social and cultural differences that are at the heart of ascribing and maintaining Asian American identities. (Shah 8)
While it is easy to interject that many of these stereotypes have died out in modern film, it is also important to note that new ones have arisen in their places, and minorities may be forever doomed to carry images that are really not their own.
