Hollywood's Asians

Hollywood’s Asians

Asian Americans have been part of America for almost as long as its existence. From the Chinese laborers building the transcontinental railway, inner cities laundry services, to Asian farmers who have helped build the agriculture communities around the country, Asian American have contributed to the industries and economy of America. Despite their loyalty and contributions to this country, Asian Americans have been discriminated and considered as “unassimilable” by many Americans. Racism toward Asian is further extended by Hollywood’s use of “yellow face,” where Caucasian actors applied make up and prosthetics to pose as Asians, stereotypes such “yellow peril” and “orientalism.” (Garcia, 13) From the beginning of motion picture, Hollywood’s portray of Asian has been highly influenced by political climate and propagandas from characters such as Fu Manchu, Chinese Warlord, to “Red Menace,” communist fanatic during strong anti-Communist Era. Although many American film contains resistance to Asian immigrant and on-screen Orientalism, American media also exhibits obsession with Asian culture.

According to Gina Marchetti’s America’s Asia: Hollywood’s Construction, Deconstruction, and Reconstruction of the “Orient” (Marchetti, 37) American cinema begins

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during the time where America’s Imperialism has being to spread toward Asia. Thus, several early motion pictures adopted the mysterious East as a back drop to depict American soldiers

fighting in the Spanish-American war in the Philippines. Since the United States was rapidly becoming a colonial power, American adopted European’s mentalities of such that the Asian are primitive and uncivilized. Also, invention of “yellow peril” quickly follow as United St...

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... of radicalized Asian women role in motion pictures. For example, Lucy Liu role in Charlie’s Angels displays a stereotypical archetype of Asian women in movie. Even though Liu plays a heroine character, she is still portrayed as sexual object, more specifically a character that is similar to the dragon lady character by utilizing her sexuality and manage to defeat men as obstacles.

Bibliography

Garcia, Roger, Gina Marchetti. Out Of The Shadows: Asians American Cinema. Asian CineVision, Inc. 2001.

Wong, Eugene F. The Early Years: Asians in the American Films Prior to World War II. Rutgers, The State University, 2002.

Chung, Hye S. Hollywood Asian: Phillip Ahn and The Politics of Cross-Ethnic Performance. Temple University Press, 2006.

Shimizu, Celine P. The Hyper Sexuality of Race: Performing Asian/ American Women On Screen and Scene. Duke University Press, 2007.