HollyWeird and the Practice of Whitewashing with the Old Art of Oriental Yellowfacing

It starts with love. . .

Race and Cinema

Originally part of "The Big Read" Library presentation on January 17, 2012.

I like how this is now old and we actually had an Asian actress win an Academy Award in "Everything Everywhere All at Once."  WOW

Imagine if a Pulitzer Prize winning novel about a Chinese woman trying to survive war became a best seller. The author herself is not Chinese but was raised in Asia.

Hollywood buys the rights as the most talented actresses like Meryl Streep, Kate Winslet, and Hilary Swank compete to portray the Chinese mother while ethnic actresses like Lucy Lui are offered minor roles. Then imagine if Meryl Streep wins an Oscar for her role as a Chinese mother.

This practice known as yellowfacing where Caucasians play Asian roles now seems absurd, but it was once very prevalent in Hollywood. Yellowfacing was a cultural form of brainwashing reinforcing old, racial Oriental stereotypes. I prefer the new word: Whitewashing. I grew up in Hollywood and hated the film they produced about Asians, so racists.

Indeed, something similar happened some eighty years ago with the film "The Good Earth" (1937), based on Pearl Buck's Pulitzer Prize winning novel. The leading Chinese American actress of the time, Anna May Wong, was offered the role of O-Lan, but when the male role of her husband went to Paul Muni, the studio withdrew the offer from Anna.

The reason for this was the Hays Code, the set of morality guidelines that censored Hollywood films until 1968. The code upheld anti-miscegenation laws of the day that criminalized interracial relationships. Instead, Anna was offered a minor role, which she declined.

Louise Rainer won an Academy Award for playing the Chinese mother.  Anna May Wong became fed up with Hollywood and left to make films in Europe.

Those Asian American actresses who remained found plenty of stereotypical Oriental roles like being a submissive Asian woman ("Madame Butterfly" 1915); being an evil seductress ("Daughter of the Dragon" 1931); or being a kind prostitute ("World of Suzy Wong" 1960). Asian American male actors did not fare much better within the art of yellowfacing.

They were denied the lead Oriental roles like the Satanic Dr. Fu Manchu (created by Sax Rohmer) or the wise fortune cookie speaking character of Charlie Chan detective types (created by Earl Derr Biggers).

Warner Oland wore the mask of yellowfacing well. Besides being Fu Manchu in a couple of films, he would make sixteen Charlie Chan films.

Perhaps the reason for such success was because it was felt that only white actors could best portray such exotic masks of Oriental stereotypes, since such masks were carved from the racial fantasies of the white mind. Though Asian American actors would mostly portray minor roles like Charlie Chan's Number Five son, they may have saved face by not portraying such heavy-handed alien stereotypes.

To Hollywood, yellowfacing was a huge money maker! Whites only need apply. By the 1950's, the Hays Code was becoming less effective. Finally, when Asian American actors started to play the lead roles, audiences dismissed those films as being inauthentic. It seemed that only white actors could best perpetuate those stereotypes.

Once a successful formula has been found, why change a good thing? Thus, when Keye Luke played a Charlie Chan like detective Mr. Wong ("Phantom of Chinatown" 1940), originally played by Boris Karloff, no more sequels were made.

The only Rogers and Hammerstein film adaptation that was not a financial success was "The Flower Drum Song" (1961) with its almost all Asian American cast.

Finally in 1967, the anti-miscegenation laws were finally struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Like Anna May Wong, Bruce Lee, a Chinese American actor, would leave Hollywood, searching for better roles in Hong Kong.

He left for the same reasons. David Carradine, a white actor, was given the lead role of Kwai Chang Caine, a Shaolin monk in the television show Kung Fu (1972–75). As soon as Bruce became popular in Asia, Hollywood offered him the starring role as a Shaolin monk in "Enter the Dragon" (1973).

Though Bruce died before the film was released, it would become an international success. Later in the film, Circle of Iron (1978) Carradine stars once again in a role originally meant for Bruce, ironically based on a story written by Bruce.

In M. Butterfly (1993), based on the play written by Henry David Hwang, Rene Gallimard (Jeremy Irons) falls in love with Song Liling, his dream butterfly. Song turns out to be a spy and not even a female one (played by John Lone).

Shocked, Rene goes to jail embarrassed for falling in love with an Oriental transvestite.

The romance was based on a true tale. In the final scene, Rene is made up as Madame Butterfly and commits suicide, a symbolic death of yellowfacing.

Thank you, libraries often invited me to speak about racism, especially when Asian were being murdered on the street for no reason. . .

I often gave talks at the library. . . Here I gave on on Vietnam because I had visited the country and taught a class on Vietnam War Literature and Cinema.