Blog Post Week 1
- In Eugene Franklin Wong’s book, “The Early Years: Asians in the American Films Prior to World War II,” in the chapter, Screening Asian Americans, he argues that racial themes and ignorance of Asian culture on screen and in films is reflective of society’s racial profiling of Asians and vice versa.
- “throughout the 1920s into the 1930s . . . Chinese, and Japanese to a lesser degree, serving as the representatives of all Asiatics” (p.56).
- This was a time when the Yellow Peril had a strong hold on America and the rest of the world. Japanese Imperialism running rampant in Korea and the Boxer rebellion in China. These events led to America perceiving Japanese and especially Chinese as evil. This perception of Chinese being evil leads to the imagination of Chinese as being as evil, malicious, and demonic as possible. Because of these images and stereotypes film companies would portray Chinese as such and thus leads to the creation of notorious villains such as Fu Manchu, Long Sin, and Wu Fang. A notable characteristic is the “Fu Manchu mustache” along with slanted eyes and long sharp finger nails.
- An important term in this Chapter is professional carelessness. This term means the professionals, directors and writers, let their ignorance and lack of knowledge affect their decisions and misinterpret Asian cultures. Which leads to them allowing racism taint their depiction of Asians in films. This term helps us better understand the chapter because it’s about the affect of social biases and stereotypes on films leading up to World War II.
- Wong’s idea that ignorance is reciprocal between films and society connects to the viewing in class of “Slaying the Dragon,” in which we were introduced to the idea of how media affects society’s view of Asians. This is seen in the part about the news reporter Connie Chung and how news stations would more often hire Asian Women who fit the Connie Chung character over someone who is more qualified. They would also ask women to change their hair to look like Connie Chung or change their makeup to look more exotic. This shows how both media can affect society’s view of a certain group of people and also how one person can affect the media’s depiction of that group.
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