Portrayal of East Asians in Hollywood



East Asians have not always been accurately represented in Hollywood. Many times, Asian characters were portrayed predominantly by white actors, often while artificially changing their looks with makeup in order to approximate East Asian facial characteristics.

These portrayals are considered an example of the racism in the United States and overt racism common to the times. During the late 19th Century and early parts of the 20th, numerous anti-Asian sentiments were expressed by politicians and writers, especially on the West Coast, with headlines like "The 'Yellow Peril'" (Los Angeles Times, 1886) and "Conference Endorses Chinese Exclusion" (The New York Times, 1905) and the later Japanese Exclusion Act. The American Immigration Act of 1924 limited the number of Asians because they were considered an "undesirable" race.

Early Asian American Actors
In 1910, Lee Tung Foo was known as “the most remarkable China man in the United States” due to his performances in vaudeville.

Japanese American Sessue Hayakawa's roles in the silent films The Wrath of the Gods (1914) and The Typhoon (1914) transformed Hayakawa into an overnight success. The first Asian-American star of the American screen was born, and during the 1920s he was as famous as actors Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks He was one of the highest paid stars of his time; making $5,000 a week in 1915 for The Cheat, and $2 million a year via his own production company during the 1920s. Hayakawa was the romantic idol of millions of American women and in many ways, he was a precursor to Rudolph Valentino. When Hayakawa's contract with Paramount expired in May, 1918, the studio wanted him to star in The Sheik, but Hayakawa turned them down in favour of starting his own company. The role went to Valentino who rose to overnight stardom. Alongside the film Birth of a Nation and the re-birth of the Ku Klux Klan as a major political force during the 1920s, there would be no more depictions of an actual Asian "having his way" with a white woman, and Hayakawa's career stalled.

Anna May Wong, considered by many the first Chinese-American movie star, was acting by the age of 14 and in 1922, at 17 years old, she became the first Asian to break Hollywood’s miscegenation rule playing opposite a white romantic lead in Toll of the Sea. Even though she was internationally known by 1924, her film roles were limited by stereotype and prejudice; tired of being typecast and passed over for significant Chinese character roles in favor of non-Asian actresses, in 1928 Wong left Hollywood for Europe. Interviewed by Doris Mackie for Film Weekly in 1933, Wong complained about her Hollywood roles: "I was so tired of the parts I had to play." Referring to yellowface, she commented: "There seems little for me in Hollywood, because, rather than real Chinese, producers prefer Hungarians, Mexicans, American Indians for Chinese roles." In 1935, she was considered for the leading role in The Good Earth, which went to Caucasian actress Luise Rainer. Wong refused the role of the villainess, the stereotypical Oriental Dragonlady.

Some Asian-American actors nonetheless attempted to start careers. Merle Oberon, a mixed-race Anglo-Indian, was able to get starring roles after concocting a phony story about her origins and using skin whitening make-up. Philip Ahn, after rejection for speaking English too well, braved death threats after playing Japanese villains. There were others like Barbara Jean Wong, Fely Franquelli, Benson Fong, Chester Gan, Honorable Wu, Kam Tong, Keye Luke, Layne Tom Jr., Maurice Liu, Philip Ahn, Richard Loo, Lotus Long, Rudy Robles, Suzanna Kim, Teru Shimada, Willie Fung, Victor Sen Yung, Toshia Mori and Wing Foo; all began their film careers in the 1930s and 40s.

With the number of Asian-American actors available, actor Robert Ito explained that job protection for Caucasian actors was one reason yellowface persisted. "With the relatively small percentage of actors that support themselves by acting, it was only logical that they should try to limit the available talent pool as much as possible. One way of doing this was by placing restrictions on minority actors, which, in the case of Asian actors, meant that they could usually only get roles as houseboys, cooks, laundrymen, and crazed war enemies, with the rare "white hero's loyal sidekick" roles going to the big name actors. When the script called for a larger Asian role, it was almost inevitably given to a white actor."

Early History
In 1767, Arthur Murphy's theatrical work The Orphan of China was presented in Philadelphia. In this early production, the actors and the audiences had never seen an Asian. On screen, Mary Pickford, a white Canadian, played Cio-Cio San in Madame Butterfly in (1915).

The Welsh-American Myrna Loy was the "go to girl" for any portrayal of Asian characters and was typecasted in over a dozen films, while Chinese detective Charlie Chan, who was modeled after Chang Apana, a real-life Chinese Hawaiian detective, was portrayed by several white actors including Warner Oland, Sidney Toler, and Peter Ustinov.

The list of actors who have donned makeup to portray Asians at some point in their career includes: Lon Chaney Sr., Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young, Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, Anthony Quinn, Katharine Hepburn, Rita Moreno, Rex Harrison, John Wayne, Marlon Brando, Alec Guinness, Tony Randall, John Gielgud, Max von Sydow, Linda Hunt, David Carradine, Joel Grey, and many others.

The use of yellowface makeup endured when blackface makeup has become taboo. In the 21st Century Grindhouse, Balls of Fury, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, and Crank: High Voltage all featured Caucasian actors as Asian caricatures.

Recurring stereotypes such as the Fu Manchu-style Asian villain or the Madame Butterfly-style Asian female love interest (with a white hero) were going largely unchallenged. Asian Americans formed advocacy groups such as the East West Players and Media Action Network for Asian Americans (MANAA) to counter the practice.

The Motion Picture Production Code was the set of industry censorship guidelines which governed the production of the vast majority of United States motion pictures released by major studios from 1930 to 1968. It was originally popularly known as the Hays Code, after its creator, Will H. Hays. With these guidelines, portrayals of miscegenation were forbidden.

Anti-miscegenation laws, also known as miscegenation laws, were laws that banned interracial marriage and sometimes sex between members of two different races. In North America, laws against interracial marriage and interracial sex existed and were enforced in the Thirteen Colonies from the late seventeenth century onwards, and subsequently in several US states and US territories until 1967.

Madame Butterfly


Madame Butterfly was originally a short story written by John Luther Long. An Italian opera, Madama Butterfly was created by Giacomo Puccini after he saw a London play by David Belasco that was based on the short story. The original production premiered on February 17, 1904, at La Scala in Milan.

It is the story of a teenaged Japanese maiden, Cio-Cio San, who marries and has a child with a white American navy lieutenant named Pinkerton. The Lieutenant leaves Cio-Cio San and returns home where, unknown to Cio-Cio San, he marries a white American. When he returns to Japan with his new wife, Cio-Cio San, who has given birth in the interim to Pinkerton's baby, kills herself.

The opera remains immensely popular but it has been accused of misogony and racism. It is seen as perpetuating the notion of the dominant white male lording it over the subdued Asian female, who can be cast aside at will. Nonetheless, the opera does paint Pinkerton's conduct as reprehensible and the libretto seeks to portray Cio-Cio San as a wronged individual worthy of sympathy and respect.

In 1915, the silent film version was directed by Sidney Olcott and starred Mary Pickford as Cio-Cio-San.

The Forbidden City
The Forbidden City was released in 1918. The plot centers around an inter-racial romance between a Chinese princess (Norma Talmage) and an American. When palace officials discover she has fallen pregnant she is sentenced to death. In the latter part of the film Talmadge plays the now adult daughter of the affair, seeking her father in the Philippines.

Mr. Wu
Mr. Wu was originally a stage play, written by Harold Owen and Harry M. Vernon. It was first staged in London in 1913; the first U.S. production opened in New York on October 14, 1914. The actor Frank Morgan was in the original Broadway cast, appearing under his original name Frank Wupperman.

Matheson Lang was the first actor to portray Mr. Wu (in the 1913 West End production), who became so popular in the role that he starred in a 1919 film version. Lang continued to play Oriental roles (although not exclusively), and his autobiography was titled Mr. Wu Looks Back (1940).

Lon Chaney, Sr. and Renée Adorée were cast in the 1927 film. Cheekbones and lips were built up with cotton and collodion, the ends of cigar holders were inserted into his nostrils, and the long fingernails were constructed from stripes of painted film stock. Chaney used fishskin to fashion an Oriental cast to his eyes and grey crepe hair was used to create the distinctive Fu-Manchu moustache and goatee.

Broken Blossoms
The film Broken Blossoms is based on a short story, "The Chink and the Child" taken from the book "Limehouse Nights" by Thomas Burke. It was released in 1919, during a period of strong anti-Chinese feeling in the USA, a fear known as the Yellow Peril. Griffith changed Burke's original story to promote a message of tolerance. In Burke’s story, the Chinese protagonist is a sordid young Shanghai drifter pressed into naval service, who frequents opium dens and whorehouses; in the film, he becomes a Buddhist missionary whose initial goal is to spread the word of Buddha and peace (although he is also shown frequenting opium dens when he is depressed). Even at his lowest point, he still prevents his gambling companions from fighting.

The Good Earth


The Good Earth (1937) is a film about Chinese farmers who struggle to survive It was adapted by Talbot Jennings, Tess Slesinger, and Claudine West from the play by Donald Davis and Owen Davis, which was itself based on the 1931 novel The Good Earth by Nobel Prize-winning author Pearl S. Buck The film was directed by Sidney Franklin, Victor Fleming (uncredited) and Gustav Machaty (uncredited).

The film's budget was $2.8 million, a small fortune at the time, and took three years to make. Although Pearl Buck intended the film to be cast with all Chinese or Chinese-American actors, the studio opted to use established American stars, tapping Paul Muni and Luise Rainer for the lead roles. Both had won Oscars the previous year; Rainer for her role in The Great Ziegfeld and Muni for the lead in The Story of Louis Pasteur. When questioned about his choice of the American actors, Thalberg responded by saying, "I'm in the business of creating illusions."

In 1935, when MGM Studios was looking to make The Good Earth into a movie, Anna May Wong was considered a top contender for the role of O-lan, the Chinese heroine of the novel. However, because Paul Muni was of European descent, the Hays Code's anti-miscegenation rules meant his character's wife had to be played by a white woman. So, MGM gave the role of O-lan to a white actress and offered Wong the role of Lotus, the story’s villain, but Wong refused to be the only Chinese American playing the only negative character, stating: "...I won't play the part. If you let me play O-lan, I'll be very glad. But you're asking me - with Chinese blood - to do the only unsympathetic role in the picture featuring an all-American cast portraying Chinese characters." MGM's refusal to consider Wong for this most high-profile of Chinese characters in U.S. film is remembered today as "one of the most notorious cases of casting discrimination in the 1930s".

The Good Earth was nominated for a total of five Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Direction (Sidney Franklin), Best Cinematography (Karl Freund), and Best Film Editing (Basil Wrangell). In addition to the Best Actress award (Luise Rainer), the film won for Best Cinematography. Ironically, the year The Good Earth came out, Wong appeared on the cover of Look magazine's second issue, which labeled her "The World's Most Beautiful Chinese Girl." Stereotyped in America as a dragon lady, the cover photo had her holding a dagger.

Breakfast at Tiffany's
The 1961 film Breakfast at Tiffany's has been criticized for its portrayal of the character Mr. Yunioshi, Holly's bucktoothed, stereotyped Japanese neighbor. Played by Mickey Rooney, Rooney wore makeup to change his features to a caricatured approximation of a Japanese person.

In the 45th anniversary edition DVD release, producer Richard Shepherd repeatedly apologizes, saying,"If we could just change Mickey Rooney, I'd be thrilled with the movie." Director Blake Edwards stated,"Looking back, I wish I had never done it...and I would give anything to be able to recast it, but it's there, and onward and upward." In a 2008 interview about the film, 87-year-old Rooney said he was heartbroken about the criticism and that he had never received any complaints about his portrayal of the character.

Fu Manchu
In 1929 the character Fu Manchu made his American film debut in The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu played by the Swedish-American actor Warner Oland. Oland repeated the role in 1930's The Return of Dr. Fu Manchu and 1931's Daughter of the Dragon. Oland appeared in character in the 1931 musical, Paramount on Parade where the Devil Doctor was seen to murder both Philo Vance and Sherlock Holmes.

In 1932, Boris Karloff took over the character in the film The Mask of Fu Manchu. The film's tone has long been considered racist and offensive, but that only added to its cult status alongside its humor and Grand Guignol sets and torture sequences. The film was suppressed for many years, but has since received critical re-evaluation and been released on DVD uncut.

Charlie Chan
Charlie Chan was played by Warner Oland. Films included Shanghai Express, The Painted Veil, Werewolf of London, and Shanghai.

The 'New Hollywood' and Post-classical cinema
After 1967, anti-miscegenation laws were repealed in the United States of America.