This post was received from “gmasu” on WordPress:
Are the days of yellowface (caucasian actors playing asian) over? Not likely. Most of us who love the movies or television can reel of incidences of yellowface.
In all of the Charlie Chan movies, almost fifty and counting, Charlie Chan, a Chinese detective on the Honolulu Police Force, was played by caucasians (Warner Oland, Sidney Toler, Roland Winters, Ross Martin, Peter Ustinov). In eight movies, the Japanese detective Mr. Moto was played by Peter Lorre. Marlon Brando played Japanese interpreter Sakini in Teahouse of the August Moon (1956), Ricardo Montalban played Kabuki performer Nakamura in Sayonara (1957), and John Wayne (no joke) played Genghis Khan in the Conqueror (1956).
The list of actors and actresses who played yellowface is a who’s who of world cinema : Katherine Hepburn, Rex Harrison, Anita Ekberg, Alec Guinness, Tony Randall, Peter Sellers, Max von Sydow, John Gielgud, Mickey Rooney. And of course, David Carradine as Kwai Chang Caine in the television series Kung Fu, and recently Jonathan Pryce who portrayed the Engineer in the broadway musical Miss Saigon.
To this ignoble list of yellowface movies, we can add another. In pre-production now is a movie called The Last Airbender. This movie is based on the Nickelodeon Animation Studios’s cartoon Avatar : the Last Airbender, the story of a twelve-year old boy named Aang who with his friends Katara, Sokka, Toph Bei Fong, and Prince Zuko must defeat the Lord of the “Fire Nation,” and thus bring peace to their troubled, “unbalanced” world. If anyone watches the cartoon, it is obviously a fictionalized Asian and Inuit world. The backdrops are mainly Tibetan, Chinese, Japanese, and Inuit. Aang is a product of Tibetan philosophies, Katara and Sokka are Inuit, Toph Bei Fong (any guesses?) – correct – Chinese. Prince Zuko is an amalgam of Chinese, Japanese, and other Asian cultures. When the cast of the movie was announced, guess who got the parts : Noah Ringer as Aang; Jackson Rathbone (Twilight) as Sokka ; Nicola Peltz (Deck the Halls) as Katara ; and Jesse McCartney as Prince Zuko. Since this casting was announced, Jesse McCartney has withdrawn as Prince Zuko, noting conflicts with his singing career and has been replaced by Indian actor Dev Patel.
Of course, those who picked the original cast dismiss any prejudices. After all, they would say, this is a fictionalized world – yes, a fictionalized Asian and Inuit world with fictionalized Asians and Inuits. Maybe I am being too hard on them. Preproduction is preproduction, actors and actresses can be replaced, and who knows, maybe in the final movie, Katara will be Kenyan, Sokka (her brother) will be Fijian; Toph Bei Fong will be Italian; Prince Zuko will be Argentinian, and Aang will be Swedish. Who knows? Yet if this turns about to be another expression of Hollywood’s yellowface, we don’t have much to look forward to. This is the first part of a trilogy.
February 19, 2009 at 11:02 pm
This is a great point you bring up, gmasu. I wasn’t aware of this new film in preproduction. If they do in fact go with non-Asian actors in roles, I would be utterly shocked if they actually put them in yellowface, i.e., actually attempted to make them appear Asian, in the way Caucasian actors playing Charlie Chan were. I am very interested to see how this plays out.
I’ve often been surprised how many people I talk to think that David Carradine is of Asian, or partly Asian ancestry. I was a HUGE fan of Kung Fu as a kid (had the lunchbox). You can still catch him pitching some kind of quasi-Eastern-health-type products on late night TV, as if he’s some kind of guru or Sensei.
The roles that Asians get in American films is a whole other matter. It seems to me that Asians need to have serious martial arts skills, or hope that movies get produced about purely Asian themes in order to get leading roles. . .
March 9, 2009 at 5:36 pm
On a similar vein: Has anyone seen the trailer for Dragonball Revolution (comes out in April)? If you did, and you’re familiar with the Japanese anime series, did you wonder at all why Goku is played by a Caucasian actor? I know, this movie is a Hollywood production, and Goku is a fantasy character (who I guess could have been played by anyone). In my mind, though–and I don’t think I’m alone in thinking this–Goku is definitely Asian, and I don’t think having an Asian in the lead role would make it any less marketable in America.
I agree with Knappy about Asians in Hollywood films. I would extend this to television too. There really aren’t that many Asians in television dramas and I can think of only a few off the top of my head, and certainly none in lead roles. From my observation, advertisements fare better in terms of ethnic representation. Anyone feel the same? I have seen Asian actors in a number of ads (and not just as doctors or karate experts!!!)
March 19, 2009 at 1:12 pm
I read about this on another site. It’s really sad that Asian actors are for the most part, underutilized in Hollywood. As a longtime fan of Asian (mostly Hong Kong) cinema, I’ve seen actors such as Jackie Chan, Chow Yun Fat, and others take terrible roles just to be accepted by America. Newsflash, fans have accepted you and appreciate when you make movies on your own terms. I don’t know if this will ever change, but thankfully cinema is so global that it’s easy to watch all these great Asian films with little effort.
Bruce Lee was supposed to star in Kung Fu but was too Asian (so they made a white guy look more Asian, go figure)… and also note that there are many other instances of remakes taking place. The Departed, The Lakehouse, My Sassy Girl, The Ring, and countless other films are simply remakes of often better Asian films because they aren’t deemed marketable enough in their original state…
I hope it does change, but then again Hollywood doesn’t necessarily make the best films, so maybe it’s better that these actors/actresses are using their talents elsewhere. Great post.
June 2, 2009 at 5:52 pm
eh, i think the slumdog star should’ve been sokka…
katara should’ve been played by a darker skinned girl but they got the facial features right…eh, zuko shoulda been played by the guy does his voice–dante basco…