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| Movie Racism And The Chinese
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June 10 2008
I recently viewed three old movies that perfectly illustrate how racism and propaganda change over time to fit whatever happen to be the current biases in our society. All three films dealt with the Chinese as a group, but the image of Asians portrayed in each movie couldn't be more different.
The first film was The Mask of Fu Manchu, made in 1932. Based on a disgustingly racist novel by British author Sax Rohmer, this movie has Boris Karloff with his eyes taped playing the title role. It represents a blatant example of a white actor in "yellow face". It's hard to believe that Karloff gave even the Frankenstein monster a certain pathos when you see his sneering, cackling performance as an evil "Chinaman". This movie argues that the Chinese are not only inferior to whites, they are also fiendishly cruel and constantly plotting to enslave white men and rape white women. Compared to The Mask of Fu Manchu, the literature of the Ku Klux Klan looks tolerant.
Ten years later, things were different. By then, America was at war with Japan. When Hollywood made the John Wayne flick Flying Tigers in 1942, the Chinese had become a friendly, helpful people whom the American Volunteer Group was protecting against the monstrous Japanese. Throughout the movie, cute Chinese children are shown being bombed repeatedly by the merciless "Japs" who apparently never waste bombs on any military targets. Of course, the friendly Chinese know their place in this film and show great deference to white people.
By 1961, the fiendish Chinks were back, but in a different form. China had gone Communist and had allied itself with the Soviet Union to become part of The Evil Empire. The Manchurian Candidate has no cackling Fu Manchu in it and at least the Asian roles are played by Asians.Though this movie is a masterpiece thriller, it still leaves the impression that all Chinese people are sinister and merciless.
Of course, racism and propoganda usually contain some kernel of truth. The Japanese did commit terrible attrocities during World War II and the Chinese Government under Mao Tse Tung murdered millions of its own people. However, any American film made about some US attrocity (Hiroshima, My Lai, etc.) would be careful to emphasise that not all Americans were responsible and that Americans are not evil in their very genes. By contrast, the North American view of other ethnic groups seems to be laid on with a much broader brush. Whether the Chinese are benevolent or monstrous depends on what we find to be useful at the time.
What do you think? Twenty or thirty years from now, will people look back at current films and feel embarrassed by the racism in them? I'd like to know your opinion.
George
P.S. Please visit my website at: www.checkmatefiction.com
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Posted by gjcondon on 2008-06-10 15:28:08 | Rating: | Views: 94
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In my opinion, I feel that different asian stereotypes are played up according to the time or "era" of society when the movie is released. So in a sense the characters reflect more of what society at that time views the collective group to be, rather than what they are neccesarily...
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Posted by bellhop
on 2008-06-11 08:35:34
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