The minstrel shows of the nineteenth century, in which
comic skits were played depicting every racial stereotype imaginable, can
be seen as a direct precursor to yellowface acting in film. The minstrel
shows would encourage audiences to laugh with some stereotypical
characters, laugh at others. They compared and contrasted unacceptable,
non-assimilating groups such as African-Americans and Chinese with funny
but acceptable Irish, German, and English stereotypes.
In the
1850s, almost every minstrel show had at least one yellowface act, and San
Francisco a major stop on the minstrelry circuit. The character of "John
Chinaman" typically illustrated the reasons why Chinese were not
assimilable, and therefore have no real right to citizenship or a voice in
America. Three characteristics were almost always present in John
Chinaman: poor, pidgin English, which is mocked as nonsense; disgusting
and transgressive eating habits, wherein dog, cat, and rat are eaten; and
the queue, which, since white men of that time all had short cropped hair,
represented a gender transgressive element and therefore dangerous. A
short minstrel song will suffice to illustrate two of these three
characteristics:
Lady she am vellie good, make plenty chow chow
She live
way up top side house,
Take a little pussy cat and a little bow
wow
Boil em in a pot of stew wit a little mouse
Hi! hi!
hi!
Most importantly, yellowface minstrelry was a means by
which people of the working class could safely view the unknowable
oriental. To view an actual oriental would be possibly polluting and
offensive to the audience. The yellowface minstrel was a 'safe' way for
white Americans to create, codify, and confirm a racial stereotype,
without the interference of an actual oriental to possibly confuse the
matter.
*****
Hollywood yellowface
was not necessarily as calculated as that, but it may have been. Asian
actors did find work in silent movies, but the move to talkies made it
more difficult for them, especially if their accent was too strong or not
clear enough. It was for this reason, perhaps, that Warner Oland was given
the role of Fu Manchu in the first Fu Manchu talkie,
The
Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu. Scenes are very stationary, everyone
clustered close together to make sure they were on mike. Oland spoke quite
clearly (and without a Chinese accent). His features were vaguely Chinese,
even though he was Scandanavian. For these reasons, Warner Oland may
perhaps rank as one of the least offensive yellowface performers.
But there are more, many more. Long after poor sound equipment
could be an excuse, white actors continued to play asian roles. This has
been a frustration and impediment to Asian and Asian-American actors since
Hollywood's beginnings. Part of the reasoning for these casting decisions
are rooted in the minstrel shows and in America's century of Yellow Peril
paranoia. Films in which a Chinese man threatened to rape or have a
romantic relationship with a white woman would have been too much to bear
for audiences, had the actor playing the asian actually been Chinese. By
substituting a white actor in yellowface, the audience can experience
outrage at the story, but at the same time be soothed by the fact that it
is not real. Once again, like John Chinaman in minstrel shows, the
yellowface actor plays out white fantasies of race in a safe environment.
Yellowface performances can be unbelievably offensive, completely
unnecessary, or absurdly unreal. Sometimes, they are entirely respectable,
like the above mentioned Warner Oland as Charlie Chan, or Peter Lorre as
Mr. Moto. And sometimes, perhaps, they are somehow necessary. Like in the
case of Fu Manchu.
I feel the role of Fu Manchu is appropriately
played in yellowface. Warner Oland, Boris Karloff, and Christopher Lee all
play the role to perfection. The secret in their success is this: Fu
Manchu, the character, is in no way Chinese. As a personification of the
Yellow Peril, Fu Manchu is the personification of the West's irrational
fears and phobias. He is a rare mirror, through which we can see the
pathetic characature of the Oriental that exists in the minds of so many
Americans throughout history. By being a white actor in yellowface, the
character's illusory, fantasy quality becomes underscored. Like children
who playact as doctors and nurses, Fu Manchu is the outward representation
of the childish playacting of a nation.
Watching movies which
feature yellowface actors is sometimes fun, sometimes offensive, but
always educational. In the next section we take a look at some of those
films.