Double Happiness

Once upon a time, a movie called Joy Luck Club came out. (Most) everyone loved it. Soon afterwards, many other JLC rip-offs debuted and just didn't measure up. This is one of those rip-offs. Except that this one is Canadian.

"Forget that they're a Chinese family, just think of them as any old family. You know, any old white family... I grew up wondering why we couldn't be the Brady Bunch... But then again, Brady Bunch never needed subtitles."
Jade Li (Sandra Oh) is a twenty-two year old aspiring actress who lives with her extremely traditional Chinese family somewhere in Canada. Her parents only want four things in life - to get money from the penny stocks, to put on the "best" public persona to save face, to marry Jade off to a nice Chinese boy, and have prosperity. Jade couldn't care less about getting married or prosperity, causing her parents to be very worried about her. All she wants is to be an actress. She's also attracted to a nice Caucasian grad student named Mark (Callum Keith Rennie), even though she knows her parents would be very upset with her. However, her parents (and extended family) keep on trying to set Jade up with a nice Chinese boy. They introduce her to Andrew (Johnny Mah), and they go on a date together. However, Andrew tells Jade that he's gay, and they decide that they can only be friends. The plot rambles from there, taking Jade to auditions to awkward dates with Mark to awkward-er dates with faceless nice Chinese boys. Finally, Jade gets fed up and moves out of her family home, causing her to be disowned by her strict, one-dimensional Chinese father. Fin. 

Double Happiness is one of those movies with funny bits and pieces but the overall story just rambles and doesn't seem to have a point. It's release seemed to be riding on the coattails of Joy Luck Club too much. It was another one of those bankable "family-culture-clash-Asians-are-people-too" movies that really didn't measure up to the still sub-par JLC. Also, the idea of "double happiness" never even gets mentioned in the movie - or if it does, it's mentioned in passing and I missed it. Either way, that's uncool.
The similarities between Joy Luck Club and Double Happiness are eerie. Both feature Asian families with immigrant parents and Americanized children. Both have "studly" white guys as love interests. Both have strong, independent Asian American women trying to break free from the overbearing Chinese-ness of their families as the main characters/plot devices. Both have these weird, now-you-see-them-now-you-don't messages - almost like an "It's okay to be Asian American!" sort of thing. Both have themes about staying true to your family and being true to yourself as well (take this opportunity to wipe away the tears), while assimilating into Western culture while remaining faithful to your "true" heritage and culture.
However, they both have their own "defining" characteristics. Double Happiness is meant to be a lighthearted comedy - God forbid you even crack a smile during most of the scenes in Joy Luck Club. Double Happiness has no plot - Joy Luck Club has several of them. But it really ends there. Unfortunately, there aren't all that many things in Double Happiness to compare to anything. 

This, however, is one of the funnier moments in the movie. This is a scene where Jade is auditioning for an itty bitty role in some random movie. She has a total of 3 lines in the scene that she is reading, where she is a waitress. After she finishes the reading, the director asks her to do it in an accent. Jade responds with a pretty spot-on French accent... but that's not what the director wants. Then Jade is forced to belittle herself by saying, "A very good Chinese accent I can do for you." Cringe. Poor girl. 

I found this scene hilarious because (I've been told) it's true. Asian actors are usually reduced to auditioning for bit parts in big movies, and at the auditions, they're usually asked if they can do some sort of generic Asian accent. If they can't, they probably won't get the part or won't be considered for other parts. If they can, they will probably land the part of some Perpetual Foreigner with some awful accent. If they're "lucky" (and luck is relative) they'll get famous for their accent and rocket to a fame based solely on a stereotypical portrayal (see Ken Jeong of the Slim Chin and The Hangover). Yuck. That isn't "lucky" in my book. In my opinion, Ken Jeong is my generation's Gedde Watanabe - the similarities are uncanny.
But I digress. Jade's audition scene is probably a common occurrence for aspiring Asian-American actors. Directors seem to buy into this Perpetual Foreigner stereotype a little too much - it's almost like the assumption is "If you're Asian, you can do the accent." Very different from Ye Olde Days of Charlie Chan and Fu Manchu, when putting on an accent was the very least of the actors and directors' concern. Now, it's the opposite - and you can't be white and do the accent. You have to be Asian and do the accent. Perpetuating stereotypes - yay! Jade seems to realize this after her "Parisian accent" gets a look of confusion from the director and the other chick. And, lo and behold, she later "stars" in a scene where her face doesn't even get shown. She's cast as the headless, semi-mute, foreign Asian waitress, and it's depressing. That's why I found this scene so compelling - it shows the dilemmas that Asian Americans face in the audition rooms, and, subsequently, in the movie industry. 

Now look at this scene. Sandra Oh starts off pretending to be the mute Geisha-girl while Callum Rennie hits on her awkwardly. I don't actually care about Callum Rennie and his being awkward - it's the mute Geisha-girl thing. I have no idea what the purpose of this was. Is she trying to get his attention? It seems like a bad idea - I mean, if you're mute, you're not going to be grabbing anyone's attentions, right? Or is Jade/Oh trying to get him to leave her alone - the whole "I no speak Engrish" thing? I can't tell. Either way, it must work, because they end up sleeping together. My question, however, is why. Why does she adopt this weird foreign girl persona, when she is clearly (judging on looks alone) very very very Canadian/Westernized? What's the purpose? This may have been the most random part of the whole movie - and I still don't get it. 

The one other good thing I can say about this film is that it was written and directed by an Asian woman, Mina Shum. Props to Shum for being a woman in an industry which has always been male-dominated, and props for being an Asian-Canadian at the same time. We need more of her type. More of her type and fewer JLC rip-offs.

Charlie Chan in... LA?

I was in Los Angeles last week on holiday. It was nice... cold. 
Anyway.
I was driving around downtown LA when I passed this...

Charlie Chan Printing. What?!
Did the owner of the business know about the movies and thought that the name would draw buyers? Or was the owner actually named Charlie Chan? 
Funny coincidences. Either way, it made me go:

The Mask of Fu Manchu

I was supposed to watch this one three whole weeks ago... but because Netflix is stupid (kinda) I didn't get to see it until now. Better late than never, I suppose. 

The Mask of Fu Manchu is about a group of English archaeologists, commissioned by a certain Sir Nayland (Lewis Stone) who race against the power-hungry Dr. Fu Manchu (Boris Karloff) for the contents of Genghis Khan's tomb in the Gobi desert. But before the expedition can begin, the lead archaeologist, Sir Lionel Barton (Lawrence Grant) is kidnapped by one of Fu Manchu's henchmen and taken away to his palace, where Fu Manchu tortures him for the information about where the tomb is. He is kept there for many days until his daughter Sheila (Karen Morely) and her fiancé Terry (Charles Starrett) begin to worry. They go to Sir Nayland and tell him that they will continue the expedition without fear of Fu Manchu and that they will try to find Sir Lionel anyways. Nayland lets them go, but soon accompanies them on the journey as well. The expedition team starts off and soon finds the tomb with no problems. There, they take the Mask and Sword of Genghis Khan to put in the museum, but Fu Manchu wants the Sword and Mask to "become" Genghis Khan and take over the world! They get the artifacts back to where they are staying for the night and set a guard to watch them just in case. The guard is killed in the middle of the night but the sword and mask aren't stolen. The next day, one of Fu Manchu's henchmen comes to the house where the team is staying and offers to trade Sir Lionel Barton for the sword and mask. Sheila jumps at the offer despite Terry's doubts, so Terry brings the sword and mask to Fu Manchu's palace, where he is looked over in strange ways by Fu Manchu's Dragon Lady-China Doll daughter Fah Lo See (Myrna Loy). Fu Manchu takes the sword and tries to do some freaky electrical stuff to it, demonstrating his scary powers. However, Nayland secretly swapped the real sword of Genghis Khan's for a fake, so Fu Manchu's special electricity experiment doesn't work. Terry is whipped as punishment under supervision of Fah Lo See, who later plans to make him her sex slave and then kill him. Fu Manchu steps in and injects Terry with a mind-control serum and sends him back to bring Sheila, Nayland, and the real sword and mask to Fu Manchu. He does so and they all walk right into the trap. Fu Manchu plans his world domination strategy and decides he needs a ceremony to celebrate it. He sends Sheila off to get ready to be sacrificed at his ceremony, who gets angry and says to him, "You yellow beast!" He sends Terry off to be bedded by Fah Lo See. He sends Nayland off to be eaten by some crocodiles. And he goes off to put on his fancy robe for the ceremony. Nayland then manages to escape and rescues Terry, while Fu Manchu assembles his army of Middle Easterners, black guys, and some other Asian-looking people for a pep rally where he wears the mask and wields his sword. Nayland and Terry find a big electronic death ray zapper and zap Fu Manchu as soon as he is about to stab Sheila. Then, for good measure, Nayland and Terry zap his followers as well. Fast forward several days, and Nayland, Sheila and Terry are aboard a boat back to England. They toss the sword over the side of the boat (but not the mask?) so that it will be safe from any future Fu Manchu.

Watch 6 - The Mask of Fu Manchu [1932].avi in Horror  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com
"Will we ever understand these Eastern races?" -Sir Nayland
Remember how I wrote about Flash Gordon and Ming the Merciless? He is Fu Manchu, just from outer space. 
The horror. Quite literally, I'm afraid. This movie is the embodiment of Yellow Peril. It's the Perpetually Foreign and Inherently Evil Scary "Oriental!" Because Dr. Fu Manchu wants to take over the world! He wants to lead all of Asia in an uprising against the accursed white race! He enjoys torturing people! He injects funky serums into the bloodstreams of next-to-naked white men! He wants to sacrifice a white woman to an accursed pagan god! The horror! The indignity! 

"Should Fu Manchu put that mask across his wicked eyes and take that scimitar into his bony, cruel hands, all Asia rises. He'll declare himself Genghis Khan come to life again. And that, my friend, is what you have got to prevent." - Sir Nayland
Some background on Fu Manchu: Originally conceived by British author Sax Rohmer, Fu Manchu was "yellow peril incarnate" an an evil scientist to boot. 

"Imagine a person, tall, lean and feline, high-shouldered, with a brow like Shakespeare and a face like Satan, a close-shaven skull, and long, magnetic eyes of the true cat-green. Invest him with all the cruel cunning of an entire Eastern race, accumulated in one giant intellect, with all the resources of science past and present, with all the resources, if you will, of a wealthy government--which, however, already has denied all knowledge of his existence. Imagine that awful being, and you have a mental picture of Dr. Fu-Manchu, the yellow peril incarnate in one man."
-- Nayland Smith to Dr. Petrie, 

The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu, Chapter 2

Scared, huh? I know I am. He's everything scary and bad about Asians compiled into one dude with freaky long fingernails and some funky facial hair. In fact, this sounds like a Moriarty-type criminal mastermind trapped in Sherlock Holmes' body! Whoa! Strangely enough, the Fu Manchu books were sort of like Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes series, featuring Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie versus the (apparently) insidious Fu Manchu. Except that Nayland Smith isn't brilliant, and neither is Dr. Petrie. They're just racist and often voice the anti-Asian sentiments of the book (and presumably Sax Rohmer as well). It's just Fu Manchu that's cunning and clever and supremely evil and anti-white. So not only do you fear his evildoings - you have to fear his intelligence as well! 
What does this remind you of? The model minority? This fear that China will take over the world? Yes and yes! He's super smart (model minorty) and he wants to take over the world (China takes over the world)! Captain Obvious, reporting for duty!

"Men of Asia! The skies are red with the thunderbolts of Genghis Khan! They rain down on the white race... and burn them!" - Fu Manchu 
Let's ignore Fu Manchu's scary intelligence for a moment, shall we? Let's focus on his sadistic scariness instead. He puts Nayland on a weird seesaw that gradually lowers him into a pit of (presumably) hungry alligators (or are they crocodiles?). He puts some other white guy on a platform between two walls of spikes that inch closer and closer together until... well, you get the idea (Said white guy is rescued, but not before he freaks out sufficiently). He has Terry whipped into a pain-induced stupor and then injects him with funky serum. He puts the good Sir Barton under a giant, endlessly clanging bell for days without food or water or reprieve from hearing the sonorous clanking, eventually driving poor Sir Barton insane. What does this do, you ask? This makes Fu Manchu an even more frightening character. Not only will he kidnap you, he'll torture you too! It's another little aspect to this already disgusting character that makes his foreignness and his evilness even more intolerable. He'll torture you in ways unimaginable! And he'll get a kick out of it! And on top of that... he's Asian! Asian and evil! Evilly Asian! Asianly evil! My eyeballs are rolling in terror!

Then there's Fu Manchu's army of Asians. Of course, this screams of perpetual foreigners and peril of all types - that's to be (hate to say it) expected from a movie from this time period. However, the only "East Asians" we see in the movie are Fu Manchu and his creepy little daughter, plus or minus a few mute extras. The rest of Fu Manchu's army is made up of... Middle Easterners? What's the subtext here? That the East Asians are the power-hungry ones, and the Middle Easterners are the ones who will follow their leaders like little woolly sheep? I have no ideas. Care to help me out on this one?

This one's right up there on the So-Racist-it-Makes-Me-Violently-Sick list with Mr. Moto. Shame.

South Pacific

Another Rodgers and Hammerstein (same guys who did Flower Drum Song). Mediocre musicals for the win! 

The entire musical takes place during WWII in the Solomon Islands. There is an American naval base on one of the islands, and the rest are occupied by the Japanese.  An American lieutenant, Joe Cable (John Kerr) lands on the island occupied by the US in order to plan an attack on the Japanese-occupied islands. He lands there and is greeted by Luther Billis (Ray Walston), another sailor stationed on the island, and Bloody Mary (Juanita Hall), a Tonkinese grass skirt vendor. Bloody Mary shamelessly flirts with Cable while Billis sees Cable as his chance to get to the one unoccupied and seemingly magical island, Bali Ha'i. Cable falls in love with the idea of the island as well, and Bloody Mary sings a song. Then a Captain Brackett (Russ Brown) arrives and shoos Bloody Mary and her grass skirts away from the navy base while introducing himself to Cable. Cable tells him of his plans to take the islands from the Japanese, but he'll need the help of a certain Frenchman living on the island, Emile de Becque (Rossano Brazzi). Meanwhile, Emile de Becque is entertaining a certain Nellie Forbush (Mitzi Gaynor), a naval nurse working at the hospital. They fall in love quite instantaneously and sing a song about it. Then Emile proposes to her (what? It's only 35 minutes into the film!) and Nellie says she'll think about it. Then Emile tells her that back in France, he killed a man (nice timing, bro) and she's slightly horrified but still wants to marry him. She returns to the hospital for work and is summoned to Capt. Brackett's office. Brackett and Cable have learned about Nellie and Emile's romance, so they question her about it and Cable tells Nellie to forget it all. Then Nellie goes and takes a shower and vows to "wash that man right outta [her] hair." Then the captain talks to Emile and tells him to join in the secret operation with Cable. Emile refuses because he loves Nellie and Cable is distraught. Captain Brackett tells Cable to take some time off, and Cable seizes the opportunity to go to Bali Ha'i with Luther Billis. They both get a boat and sail to the magical island where native women cover them with flowers and they watch a pig-killing ritual. Then Bloody Mary shows up and drags Cable off to her house, where he meets her daughter Liat (France Nuyen). Liat and Cable fall in love/lust and stay with each other until the bell for the boats rings and Cable has to return to the other island. Meanwhile, Emile has hosted a grand party for Nellie to meet all of his friends. She speaks horrible French, by the way. Both are rather drunk, so they sing a song. Emile decides to introduce Nellie to his two children, who he had with his previous wife, a woman of Polynesian descent. When he tells Nellie this, she becomes remarkably upset and flees his house. INTERMISSION! Act II begins with Cable returning to Bali Ha'i to be with Liat, where he is told that a rich French planter wants to marry Liat. Bloody Mary tells Cable that he must marry Liat to make her happy. Cable says that he can't, but he gives a watch to Liat as a keepsake. Bloody Mary is unsatisfied, so she takes the watch and gives it back to Cable, who returns to the other island depressed. Thanksgiving is nearing, and Nellie is planning to put on a comedy show in celebration. However, she is depressed as well, and she demands a transfer to another island. Captain Brackett talks her out of it, and after the show, Nellie receives some flowers and a note from Emile. Distraught, she runs from the stage and out... away... to where she bumps into Cable, who has just recovered from malaria (what?!). They talk about love, and Cable confesses that he loves Liat, and Nellie suggests that they both need to go back home to America. Emile shows up to talk to Nellie, who confesses that her racism made her hate the fact that Emile used to be married to a Polynesian woman, while Cable decides against going back to America and decides to marry Liat. Emile then reluctantly joins Cable's mission to take back the Japanese-occupied islands. The two of them make it to the other island safely and are able to relay information back to the naval base. Unfortunately, the Japanese detect their presence and open fire on them, killing Cable. Nellie hears of this and must comfort Liat, who has refused to marry anyone but Cable. Nellie realizes that she still loves Emile despite his past marriage, and she goes to his house and begins to care for his two children. Emile returns safe and sound and they all eat soup together. The End!

Bali Ha'i,

Bali Ha'i,

Bali Ha'i!

Someday you'll see me floatin' in the sunshine,

My head stickin' out from a low fluin' cloud,

You'll hear me call you,

Singin' through the sunshine,

Sweet and clear as can be:

"Come to me, here am I, come to me."

If you try, you'll find me

Where the sky meets the sea.

"Here am I your special island

Come to me, Come to me."

This movie is part of a whole other aspect of Asian American-ness that I haven't really investigated prior to this. I've mostly stuck with exploring East Asian stereotypes, but I've never really gotten into the Pacific Islander thing. It is definitely included in the Asian/-American thing, but Pacific Islanders usually get left out of these considerations. I realized this and thought that I needed to include a movie or television show that showed potential stereotypes surrounding Pacific Islanders as well. I lucked out, huh?

I watched this musical mostly for Juanita Hall's performance as Bloody Mary. Hall, an African-American woman, played the Tonkinese woman who sells grass skirts to the sailors stationed on the unnamed island. She's loud, and brassy and pidgin English abounds. Everything about Bloody Mary is disgusting. She can't say the word "lieutenant" - she's forced to call Joe Cable a "sexy Lootellant" in that halting, fingernails-on-chalkboard accent. She sets up her daughter with the "sexy Lootellant" and purrs at him, "You riiiiiiiiiiiiike?" Once he refuses to marry Liat, she calls him a "steen-gee steen-kah" and waddles away in a huff. Accent aside, however, there's the issue of yellowface. Is it considered yellowface to have an African-American playing a Pacific Islander? She's not playing an East Asian, but she's still playing someone of a different race - a race that, nowadays, is grouped with East Asians. What's up with this? I'm unsure how to classify this particular casting choice at all. The role has been played by women of all races, but that doesn't excuse the fact that this role is based on cheap stereotypes and lowbrow comedy based on her preposterous accent. The character of Bloody Mary is basically creating another stereotype, but this time only one that can be applied to Pacific Islander women of a certain age - middle-aged, roly-poly and sassy women. Bloody Mary seems to be made fun of all the time by the sailors stationed on the island, and she doesn't seem to have any love interests - she's just there for kicks and giggles. Bloody Mary is kind of like Charlie Chan in this way. Both are subservient, rotund, laughable, and speak their own brand of pidgin English. She's like an old, un-innocent Suzie Wong - now ain't that too damn bad?

Then there's the island girl Liat. She's pretty and sweet and mute. Another Lotus Blossom - although it begs the question of whether or not she should be a Hibiscus Blossom or something. Liat has only one line in the entire movie - "Je parle francais - un peu." And that's it. Nothing more. When she's onscreen she's either kissing Lootellant Cable or smiling at him or, in the above video, doing some sort of funky hula-esque/sign language dance. Liat represents the white man's fantasy - a young, pretty, exotic island girl who doesn't talk but dances and is pretty all the time. Eye candy. That's all Liat is. And she's completely devoted to her Lootellant - what more could the guy want? (Sidenote: That actress is France Nuyen (19 at the time of the shooting), who played Suzie Wong on Broadway and later starred in Joy Luck Club)

Then of course there's the plot line surrounding Nellie Forbush and Emile de Becque - Nellie loves him but can't get over the fact that he was once married to (God forbid) a Polynesian woman! And had two mixed-race children with her! How horrible! Obviously, the French guy had no problem with marrying a Polynesian woman - makes you wonder whether his previous situation was similar to Cable + Liat's, eh? Yeah. This whole White Guy + Asian Woman thing? Yeah, tanned-white-as-white-can-be Nellie Forbush doesn't like that all that much. It's the Reverse Fu Manchu effect: Watch out for those innocent, Bambi-eyed, pretty Polynesian women! They'll enchant and steal your white men! This prompts Emile to (somehow) still believe in Nellie's love and ability to love him and his children. Then Lootellant Cable bursts into song!

You've got to be taught

To hate and fear,

You've got to be taught

From year to year,

It's got to be drummed

In your dear little ear

You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught to be afraid

Of people whose eyes are oddly made,

And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade,

You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught before it's too late,

Before you are six or seven or eight,

To hate all the people your relatives hate,

You've got to be carefully taught!

Well damn. Couldn't have said it better myself (I think?). Now here's the kicker. The tune of this song sounds like a happy-happy-joy-joy song, right? But those lyrics don't... fit? I mean, "You've got to be taught to be afraid of people whose eyes are oddly made"? Wow. Ouch. And in a way, Cable's right. You probably have been taught to fear people with "oddly made" eyes. That's what this study is about, right? How the media teaches us to fear the other - regardless of what kind of other it is. Anyways, I'm pretty sure that this song is supposed to be sarcastic and spiteful, as Cable (at this point in the show) is upset that he can't marry Liat. This song seems to be shedding some light on this idea of inherent racism that is really... nurtured racism? Environmental racism? Interestingly enough, this song was deemed "Communist" by a Georgia legislation when the show was first on tour in the 1950s (Communist? Really?!? I resent that remark!). It claimed that the song "[justified] interracial marriage [and] was implicitly a threat to the American way of life." Ouch. Thankfully, Rodgers and Hammerstein stated that they would continue the show without the cutting of this one song. Progress, people, progress!

Overall, this musical is... odd. At some points, it directly draws from and expands upon crude stereotypes surrounding Pacific Islanders, not to mention some East Asian characterizations. But then it has songs like "You've Got to Be Carefully Taught" that open one's eyes to the racism that has been, well, carefully taught. It's a mixed bag - but again, it's some crap songs. 

Dragon Seed

Another Pearl S. Buck novel made into a movie. Dear Lord. 

The story begins with Ling Tan (Walter Huston), the patriarch of his family consisting of his devoted and snarky wife (Aline MacMahon), his three sons Lao Ta, Lao Er, and Lao San (Robert Bice, Turhan Bey, and Hurd Hatfield, respectively) and the wives of two of his sons, Jade (Katharine Hepburn) and Orchid Frances Rafferty). Lao Ta and Orchid have two children together, a baby girl and a toddler boy. Lao Er and Jade have no children because they don't know they're in love yet (and I haven't even gotten to the real plot yet). Ling Tan and his wife (credited as "Ling Tan's wife") try very hard to keep the "old ways" going in the house, while Jade, who is a sort of pseudo-femme fatale, tries to tell them about the new ways of the world. The movie takes place during the Second Sino-Japanese War (which, honestly, I know very little about). "Evil dwarfs" from Japan invade the village near Ling Tan's farm after invading other parts of China and bombing the land, and soon take over, raping all the women and killing all the sons and eating all the food and being evildoers. The whole family joins a resistance group and begins killing Japanese soldiers and burying them under their floors. Even Jade joins in, poisoning some food and knocking out an entire regiment of Japanese soldiers. Eventually the Japanese are too evil to hang around, so all of Ling Tan's family (or what is left of them) up and leave for the mountains. The End.

There really is no plot to this movie. I mean, there is... But the first 30-45 minutes is just Jade and Lao Er getting to know each other and planting rice and reading books together. The next hour and a half consists of alternate shots of the Japanese being evil and Ling Tan's family taking revenge. That's all there is to it. 

The similarities between this movie and The Good Earth are uncanny. Both have subservient yet strong women who are not particularly beautiful but make good wives and bear sons. Both have supportive husbands who are also not particularly beautiful and love the fact that they have sons. Both movies have a stock character who is lazy and fat and a kissass. Both movies (and novels too, I guess) glorify the hardworking Chinese peasant while dismissing the upper class and royalty. Both stage large scenes of full-scale riots complete with fire and shouting and running and the works. I was a little freaked out by all the similarities, to be honest. 

Now this is scary. I've seen some pretty horrific yellowface but it's mostly been on males. This takes the cake for Female Yellowface. Look at those eyes. That's just... gross. 
I have nothing against the character of Jade. Jade is strong-willed and independent - it's great! She's no Lotus Blossom or China Doll - nor is she a Dragon Lady. Of course, she has qualities of a Dragon Lady (poisoning soldiers, being smart) but she lacks the sex appeal that the stereotypical young Dragon Lady has. However, I dislike the way Katharine Hepburn portrayed her. There are two interpretations of her portrayal. One is that Hepburn played herself in yellowface. Vocally, this is very true. It sounds just like Katharine Hepburn being Katharine Hepburn. The other is that she took Luise Rainer's interpretation of O-Lan and made her more of an outspoken feminist but kept the same physical qualities. Both O-Lan and Jade employ coy tilts of the head to express their love for their homely husbands and seem to be meek and hesitant with their movements. 

The purpose of this film was to glorify and build sympathy to the Chinese and to make Americans hate the Japanese. It's quite easy to sympathize with the Chinese characters of the film - they are hardworking, loving, and peaceful, sacrificing themselves for their children and fighting back against the "Evil Dwarfs" that are the Japanese. They are also all portrayed by white people - not actual Asians. And the cameo of Benson Fong doesn't count - he plays a militant hater of the Japanese who takes his anger out on Ling Tan's merchant brother-in-law. However, the Chinese children in this movie are actually played by Asian children. And they are pretty darn cute - just their wide eyes and chubby cheeks elicit prolonged "Aaaawwww"s from the audience, I guarantee you. This makes it even easier for the American audience to sympathize and end up caring about the Chinese. Remember, this film was released during 1944, towards the end of WWII. China was, at the time, our ally, and Japan was America's enemy. The film then shows the Japanese as cunning, sly, evil men with large teeth and an insatiable appetite for women and wine - they're all Japanese Fu Manchus! A group of them attack, rape, and kill Orchid after she is caught by them trying to hide her children. Another group of them kill Ling Tan's mother in his courtyard. They steal all of Ling Tan's hard-earned crops and starve out the rest of the village. And on top of that, all of the Japanese soldiers were played by Asians. In this way, the Chinese take on the more sympathetic role, not just because of the fact that they have "good" qualities but because they were played by white people - and therefore, a bit more trustworthy. However, getting the Asians to play the bad guys was making the fear of the Japanese even more real and tangible - one didn't have to imagine that these were Asians/Japanese, because they were. It was a horribly clever idea to do this, and it probably resulted in American audiences hating the Japanese even more. Granted, the Japanese did do some pretty awful things while occupying China, but... come on! This is a little much!

Awwwww,

There's a scene where Katharine Hepburn is bathing her cute Asian baby and she sings a little song in a pentatonic key and it's about cherry blossoms and the river that flows... something strange and pseudo-Oriental like that. Reminded me of Suzie Wong's cloud song -only this time, the song was being sung in English. However, that did not detract from the messed-up-ed-ness of the song. Why is it so difficult to listen to these types of songs? Probably because they were composed by white people who have no idea of what a traditional Chinese song sounds like. These types of songs also seem to crop up more often in these old films from the "Golden" Age of Hollywood as opposed to now, with the exception of Jackie Chan's Chinese lullaby in The Spy Next Door.
Then there's the plethora of accents going on. Not one of them can be classified as "Oriental." Lao Er has a British accent, one character has a Russian accent (what?!), Ling Tan speaks with a standard American accent, and the Japanese just sound... like they're from Britain. It's weird. Very weird. 

There's also the issue of sexism in this movie. Most of the characters freely joke and toss around the ideas about beating women up and saying that their place is in the kitchen and nowhere else. The first scene with Katharine Hepburn in it shows her at a lecture in the village presented by some university students that are showing how evil the Japanese are. Lao Er shows up looking for Jade and sees her stand up and say to the students that she will help fight them. She says, "Yes! I will come!" And Lao Er shouts, "You come home! I'm hungry!" And everybody laughs. I'm not sure what the intent of this scene is supposed to be. Are we supposed to hate the Chinese for being sexist and keeping women subservient and in the home sphere? Or are we supposed to laugh as well, because a wife's duty to her husband includes making him dinner? Does the fact that their characters are Chinese change the sexism embedded in that exchange? I have no idea. 

Overall, this movie was exactly the same as The Good Earth - just more anti-Japanese, more specific about the time period it was set in, and more of a propaganda film. There was still gratuitous yellowface and fetishizing the humble Chinese. 

Amy Chua Reconsidered

After all that venting about Amy Chua's crazy article "Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior," I read her book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. Yes, I read it. I read it and I enjoyed it, laughing at the tongue-in-cheek-ness of some of the book and frowning at the bits that still struck me as... questionable. 

The article that preceded the release of the book wasn't written by her - it was compiled by some unknown editor at the Wall Street Journal. The article was deliberately cut-and-pasted into the article that we're all familiar with and, honestly, detest. Chua didn't even choose the snarky, arrogant title of the article (Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior). However, it's very interesting to see that in the above interview, Chua states that "[She doesn't] think Chinese mothers are superior" when the caption on the cover of her memoir states "This was supposed to be a story of how Chinese parents are better at raising kids than Western ones." Just that sentence alone is enough to make one wonder - but wait, there's more! The cover caption continues with "But instead, it's about a bitter clash of cultures, a fleeting taste of glory, and how I was humbled by a thirteen-year-old." Doesn't Chua now sound... less arrogant? It's much better! Chua accepts her defeat! 
This book isn't a parenting manual - it's a memoir that just so happens to be written by a mother who is Chinese. She's definitely not as crazy dictator as the article made her sound (thank goodness) and she comes across as a strict, but not unloving mother. Chua definitely still sounds like an uppity, holier-than-thou person, but she still retains enough humility that perhaps she was a bit too extreme with her parenting, and she does express some regret in her past decisions. It's a journey.

There are still things, however, that I disagree with. Like when she says that playing drums will lead to drugs. Uh, no. There's a part in the book where Chua talks about her parents and their stories, and she describes her grandmother as a (you'll get a kick out of this) a Dragon Lady. When I first read that, I was a wee bit shocked. I'd always been under the impression that the term "Dragon Lady" was kinda derogatory, belonging in the same category as the "Lotus Flower" or "Fu Manchu" stereotype. But here's Chua, using it to describe her own grandmother! I may be reading a little too much into it, and Chua's grandma may have been born in the year of the Dragon, but who knows? All I know is that she's applying cultural stereotypes to her own grandmother, and showing that it's okay to embrace and essentially perpetuate these stereotypes! Then there's this idea of training and pushing her daughters to just get the A. Get the A and everything will be fine. Get a B and you'll work your butt off until you get that A. GET THE A! I'm a little biased, having gone to schools that value learning for the sake of learning as opposed to learning to get the grade. Maybe that's why the emphasis on "getting the A" was so infuriating and confusing to me. Either way, it's still bothersome - how on earth are her children going to learn from their mistakes if they never make mistakes? 

She does, however, keep on categorizing herself as the "Chinese Mother" and makes it seem like there is only one kind of "Chinese Mother," which only furthers the stereotype surrounding an ethnicity-based parenting style. And, as we all know, stereotypes can be unfairly applied to anyone who seems to fit the bill - in this case, be Chinese. Only once in the book does she acknowledge that there are many different types of parenting, Chinese or otherwise. Unfortunately, she states it only once, in one smarmy paragraph in the very first chapter of the book. Chua highlights the diversity of Western parents and leaves them under the umbrella label of "Western parents" but categorizes the über-strict parenting style as Chinese, even going as far as to categorize an anecdotal white mother as a Chinese mother. So... basically... you are a Chinese mother (regardless of ethnic background) if you are as strict as Chua is. Not an Asian mother. A Chinese mother. To be a "Western" mother is to be somewhat free in your label, while it seems like there is one way and no other way to be a Chinese mother... Right? What's up with that? 

Chua still says that in order to be Chinese (or a Chinese mother, for that matter), one must raise one's children exactly as she did. I still have a problem with this. It's like saying that I'm not Chinese or my mom isn't Chinese because I wasn't forced to play violin or piano or get A's in every single class except gym and drama. It's just a wee bit, you know, wrong. 

In the end though, Chua has every right to raise her children as she wishes, and it's not really our place to make a pariah out of her for doing so. What's really annoying is the fact that she labels this the "Chinese" way. Of course, she hides behind this idea of "the immigrant thing." Well... Chua's not an immigrant. Her parents were. So... was adopting their strict parenting style necessary? Was it because she just didn't know any other way of raising children, and she couldn't be bothered to read up on some child psychology? It seems she did it because she was worried about future generations of children and she wanted filial piety. It's odd. 
Fun Fact: Chua's book (Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother) is currently being sold in China under the title "US Mom." 
Long story short: Amy Chua isn't as bad as the article made her out to be. 

http://news.yahoo.com/video/us-15749625/husband-of-tiger-mom-speaks-out-24025828
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9hTvzbo8AE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nx8iXyKe4-Q

Flash Gordon: The Emperor Ming and Other Offensive Stuff

I honestly don't know why I watched this miserable excuse for a movie. The worst thing I have ever had to sit through - and not just because of the twisted, odd little racist plot details.

The only good thing I can say about this pathetic bit of "filmmaking" is that Queen wrote that catchy, soaring theme song. Yes, that's dear old Freddie Mercury belting out that "FLASH!.... AAAAH!... Savior of the universe!"  
Did you see that Fu Manchu-esque evil space lord dictator guy? Yeah? That's Emperor Ming. MING! And not just any Ming - he's Ming the Merciless! He's an alien and his name is Ming. Translation: They're implying that the name "Ming" (a very stereotypical Asian name) is alien. Foreign. Different. And, judging by the context of the character, evil.

There's really no need to explain the plot, because there isn't one. Long story short: Flash Gordon (Sam J. Jones), the white-as-white-can-be, all-American football star, teams up with some other white aliens to take down the Oriental-esque Emperor Ming (Max von Sydow) from destroying Earth (never mind any other planets that might be in danger).

Ming the Merciless was originally conceived as Flash Gordon's nemesis in the comic strip of the same name in the year 1934. This was one year after Chang Apana, the inspiration for Charlie Chan, died, and a year after Filipinos were barred from immigrating to the US. An odd mix of pro-Asian and anti-Asian sentiments, don't you think? Yeah. And then came Emperor Ming the Merciless, a demonic, intimidating evildoer with a penchant for torture and for bedding white girls, not to mention a creepy (incest implied) relationship with his daughter Aura. Now, nowhere in the comic nor the movie (the 1980 version) is Ming the Merciless ever referred to as being of Asian descent or claiming some allegiance to an Asian country. However, the itty bitty hints and details surrounding his character have definitely been inspired by debilitating stereotypes surrounding Asian people. 

1. The name. I said it before. "Ming the Merciless." The "Ming" bit just screams "Asian!" The "Merciless" bit screams "EVIL ASIAN!" So all together, it screams, "Asian EVIL ASIAN!" And believe you me, it's not a pleasant sound.
2. The clothes. It's obvious that the clothes are not authentic Asian garments (well, specifically Chinese garments), but everyone's wearing flowing silky-looking robes that look extremely "Oriental!" Mr. Ming's harem girls are all wearing Chinese-style headdresses that look like they were made out of tinfoil. He's wearing plenty of tinfoil Chinese emperor robes himself. It's all so otherworldly, yet distinctly Asian. Again, fetishizing and making Asian-ness something unnatural and, no pun intended, alien. 

3. The facial hair. Classic Fu Manchu stuff. All that drawn-out beard and moustache? The arched and overgrown eyebrows? Coincidence? I think not!
4. The harem. The harem. The harem. Ming's harem. Ming's harem of white women. Ming's harem of white women who wear "Oriental" clothes. Just like Fu Manchu, Ming has an insatiable appetite, it seems, for white women, or just women in general. And this is no Charlie Chan or Mr. Moto. One needn't worry about the Honorable Detective or the Sly Secret Agent stealing and raping your women. But beware of Ming the Merciless, otherwise known as Fu Manchu! He'll seduce your women and add them to his collection of scantily clad alien whores!
5. The not-so-subtle reference to opium. When Flash's would-be girlfriend ends up in Ming Manchu's harem, she is offered a drink that will alter her mind and make her enjoy her (ahem) experience with Ming Manchu that night. She drinks it and is completely infatuated with the magical beverage. It's a little too reminiscent of opium for my taste. And we all know about the connotations of opium and Asia were...
6. Ming Manchu's hypnotism ring. He uses it to hypnotize Flash's would-be girlfriend into a session of pseudo-masturbating... It's weird. It's hypersexual, just the sort of thing you would expect from this character. And in our quasi-Puritan society, this is seen as horrific and savage - so the audience begins to make this connection between hypnotism, forced (albeit tame) masturbation, evil men, and Orientalness! All represented by this one character and this one scene! All leading to more distrusting of the "Yellow menace!" And this came out in 1980! The indignity!

This is a good example of a trend in Hollywood that's been around since the birth of the Fu Manchu stereotype - the idea that Asia is evil, inherently evil, and that they are determined to crush or take over everything Western society holds dear. It's a classic example of fear of the other and fear of the exotic and mysterious "Orient" taking over and overruling Western society. And this fear suddenly begins to manifest itself in oddball characters (like this guy) that are not designed to spark outright anger and fear of Asian people, but instead to breed a sleepy hate and distrust of those "Orientals." It's really sickening.

The one good thing I can say about this film is that it was completely panned by critics. They blasted it mostly on campy dialogue and ugly costumes - not on the racial undertones of the character of Ming the Merciless. And because this "movie" was shot down by critics, it did poorly at the box office and was reduced to a cult classic.  

Mr. Moto Takes a Chance

Just when I thought I would be moving into less racist, more accepting/progressive roles, I go and watch this movie. Dear God.

Mr. Moto Takes a Chance takes the Japanese secret agent to Angkor Wat in Cambodia, where he is spying on the king of the village/country/city of Tong Moi for unknown reasons. While he is there, an adventuress, Victoria Mason (Rochelle Hudson) "crashes" her plane after it "catches fire" (she set it with a flare) but survives and is taken to Tong Moi. Two reporters, Chick (Chick Chandler) and Marty (Robert Kent), are doing some wildlife filming when they spot Victoria's plane going down, so they rush on over to the crash site and do some filming. However, Victoria has already been taken to the King of Tong Moi (J. Edward Bromberg) by his magical adviser Bokor (George Regas) after meeting Mr. Moto (Peter Lorre), who is posing as an archaeologist. Marty and Chick catch up to Victoria, Bokor and the King of Tong Moi and want to film them. Unfortunately, the King's favorite wife drops dead from a poisoned arrow, but Bokor blames it on Marty and Chick's demon camera, and orders them to be taken away for a "trial by the gods." Bokor takes the two reporters to the Temple of Shiva where he burns them with hot metal and it hurts them (of course). This deems them guilty of their crime and they are about to be thrown in a big pit to die when an elderly guru interrupts them. The guru proves how magical and powerful he is when he doesn't get burned by the hot metal and he charms a snake, so he orders Bokor to let the reporters go. Bokor does so and he is mad. The next day, Moto approaches the reporters and tells them that he would pay a hefty price for pictures of the inside of the temple. Chick and Marty agree and go off towards the temple, but Victoria Mason follows them! However, when they arrive, Bokor and an unnamed servant try to kill them with poison darts too! They duck down and hide, and, lo and behold! The guru! He rescues them from Bokor and the servant but throws Chick and Marty's camera down the well. Bokor sees this, and contacts the guru after Chick, Marty and Victoria leave, and asks the guru if he can kill Moto. The guru agrees and returns back inside the temple. He digs around until he finds a secret trap door that leads to an underground room. In it, there are loads of ammunition. Then another unnamed servant climbs down into the underground room and tries to stab the guru, but the guru strangles the assassin with his own two bare hands! Then the guru runs away through a secret passageway, and reveals himself to be Mr. Moto in disguise! Mr. Moto then writes a secret note saying that Bokor is in charge of a rebellion against the King and that he (Moto) has found the secret stash of ammunition and sends it off via carrier pigeon. The carrier pigeon is then shot down by the King of Tong Moi, who sees the message and reads it. That night, the King hosts a big party with faux-Cambodian dancing and announces that he is going to marry Victoria Mason (airplane girl). He then serves roasted pigeon and gives the one that was a carrier to Mr. Moto, who finds a message on it and realizes the King found out his secret! Later that night, Moto is marking the ammunitions cellar on a map when Bokor and another unnamed servant attempt to stab him. But, in a display of badassery, Moto stabs the servant with his own knife, takes the servant's clothes and runs away. Victoria Mason goes to visit Mr. Moto but finds the stabbed servant. She pokes around in the itty bitty house until she finds Mr. Moto's map hidden in a spear. Bokor spots her and throws a dagger at her, which misses her narrowly. She is then kidnapped by Bokor and taken away to the Temple of Siva for questioning! They are about to subject her to the hot metal torture until - huzzah! - the guru appears. He "hypnotizes" Victoria and whispers to her that he is Mr. Moto. Victoria follows along and is a good hypnotee, until Marty (who followed them to the temple) bursts in and attacks guru/Moto and "rescues" Victoria, although he ends up getting tortured too. Bokor commands his nameless servants to light bonfire signals so that this one Captain Zimmerman (Frederick Vogeding) can bring him his guns. Bokor wanted the guns so that he could overthrow the King and "[drive] every foreigner from Asia!" Then he has his unnamed servant shoot Captain Zimmerman and Victoria lets slip that the guru is really Mr. Moto. Then Mr. Moto busts out his karate chop hands and fights everyone. Bokor escapes and rounds up the rest of Zimmerman's men, while Moto, Victoria, Marty, and Chick (who tagged along) become friends and find guns in the temple. There is a big shootout between our Fab Four and Bokor and Zimmerman's dudes, and Chick gets shot in the arm. Then Victoria Mason reveals that she's not a plane girl - she's a spy! And Mr. Moto reveals that he isn't an anthropologist - he's a spy! They're both spies! Then the King arrives with his troops and goes after Bokor and Bokor's guys - but the King wants to take Bokor's ammunition and stage a revolt against the French! The King is revolting! He plans to kill Marty, Chick and Mr. Moto but Victoria distracts him and somehow the King ends up in the ammunition cellar, which Mr. Moto sets fire to. Everyone except the King escapes from the temple before it blows up. And then our Fab Four gets on a boat to go... somewhere else. The end!

"No devil in box, just a movie camera! Miss Mason, will you tell Dracula there that we're not gonna hurt anybody?"
You know how everyone talks about how racist the stereotype of Charlie Chan is? Mr. Moto takes the cake. 

God, the yellowface. It's so awful. I had never seen any prosthetic teeth until I watched Breakfast at Tiffany's with my best friend Mr. Yunioshi. These are some serious prosthetic teeth. They don't stick out as much as some caricatures that I have seen, but these are pretty bad. They're large and black around the edges. They're just silly, and painful to look out. And some pretty serious taping of the eyelids. If you look at Peter Lorre's real teeth, they're not much better. But would his teeth be forgiven because he's really Hungarian? Lorre also adopted a horrific accent for this too - lots of slurring of the speech and mixing up the "r"s and the "l"s - pretty standard "Oriental" accent, but it's worse than Charlie Chan's (lack of an) accent. He also says "Oh so?" all the time. All the time. Every time there is something of interest, it gets the "cute" little "Oh so?" and an inquisitive bow. Of course, you can't tell if Peter Lorre had his skin darkened in order to appear more "Japanese," but the bows at the waist, the buckteeth and the slanty eyes are enough! Shame! 

"What do you make of that gravedigger?" "If I was castin' a horror picture, I'd have him play the murderer."
The character of Mr. Moto was created in response to the death of Earl Derr Biggers, author of the Charlie Chan novels. Once there were no more fresh Charlie Chan novels, readers needed another Asian sneaky guy to satisfy their Oriental mystery fetishes. Enter Mr. Moto. 
Mr. Moto is sly and sneaky and smiley. He knows martial arts (judo, jiu-jitsu). He is more than adept at disguise. He speaks 4 languages. He works alone. If Jackie Chan is the son of Charlie Chan, then Bruce Lee is the son of Mr. Moto, and Moto is the brother of Mr. Yunioshi. It's a whole family of stereotypes! But I digress. Mr. Moto is (possibly) an even more damaging and offensive caricature than Charlie Chan. He's not as subservient as Charlie Chan is - he's more sly and shifty and doesn't seem to be trusted by anyone, whereas Charlie Chan is everyone's favorite roly-poly, subservient detective. There's also the fact that Mr. Moto is a secret agent - it's his job to deceive people. Coupled with the fact that during this time, the Japanese were the "bad Asians," this makes a caricature of Japanese men (showing them as manipulative and untrustworthy). It's really disgusting. 

"Them Nipponese sure are peculiar birds."
In contrast, I've seen a lot of accounts that state that Mr. Moto is not a racist portrayal after all. They state that his politeness, combined with his cleverness, presents a sort of heroic character. It's insinuated that Mr. Moto is a sympathetic character, regardless of his shiftiness in the beginning of the story and how you don't learn he's a good guy until the very last 10 minutes of the film. They also state that while casting Warner Oland as Charlie Chan and Luise Rainer as O-Lan in the Good Earth was racist, casting Peter Lorre (a white guy) as Mr. Moto was not racist. Uh, what? Mr. Moto is just as humble and polite as Charlie Chan - why does the casting make any difference at all? Was it because Peter Lorre regularly played evil characters, and the role that turned him into a star was a (slightly) more sympathetic role? 

"Everything is possible here in the Orient."
What's really interesting is that this movie takes place in Cambodia. Cambodia? Really? What happened to things happening in Shanghai, or Canton, or Beijing, or something? Cambodia? This seems to be very odd... It seems to be the beginning of this division between East Asians (Japanese, Chinese, Koreans) and Southeast Asians (Cambodians, Vietnamese, etc.) and it's not... all... that great. Everything in this movie is fetishizing Cambodians and making them into mysterious, bloodthirsty savages! Evil Cambodians took away the reporters! Evil Cambodians burned the white reporters with a hot metal rod! They threatened to throw the white reporters into a deep dark well! One white reporter fell into  a mysterious tiger pit! Evil Cambodians assassinated the King's favorite wife with a dart-gun-thing! Mysterious Cambodian dancers who are really white danced around as entertainment to the white male guests! Victoria Mason was going to have to marry the Cambodian King of Tong Moi! Mysterious killing Cambodians! They tore off her shirt threatened to burn Victoria Mason with more hot metal! Oh no! It's all... so... bad!

"There's something about those ruins that Mr. Moto wants to find out, and it isn't archaeology!"
There are very few Asian extras in this film. Most of them portray servants and peasants, whereas the harem women are all white as white can be. I don't think there's a single sympathetic speaking role for any actual Asian actor in this film. It's become so expected that it isn't bothersome anymore - it just is. The fact that there are lots of unnamed Asian extras seems to justify the whiteface - but it really doesn't. It's all disappointing.