Author and film scholar Dr. Peter X. Feng talked with Cinema Retro Editor-in-Chief Lee Pfeiffer about Turner Classic Movies' series of movie presentations, Asian Images in Film which launches on June 3. The film festival explores the way Asians have been portrayed in Hollywood productions from the early days of the industry until the present time. Dr. Feng co-hosts the introduction to each movie with Robert Osborne.
CR: How did the idea for this film festival originate?
PF: Charlie Tabesh, the head of programming for TCM, initiated it. He specifically wanted to do Asian Images in Film. In the process of his research, he came across my work and contacted me.
CR: I recently helped host a film event at Pinewood Studios in London and interviewed Burt Kwouk. We chatted briefly about the fact that Burt was one of the first Asian actors hired to play an Asian part. Until that time, most of the major Asian roles were played by caucasians. Why was this the case?
PF: Not to put too fine a point on it, but I would say it was racism. It's understandable that from a studio standpoint, they'd want to use actors they were already familiar with. It's also understandable that they wouldn't want to invest money in developing actors if they weren't going to develop roles for them. The larger issue is not being interested in Asian themed stories except as a backdrop for American and British characters. Once you're not interested in developing those stories, then there's no incentive to develop an Asian American star. As a principal, I don't have a problem with a white actor playing an Asian character. But until there's equity in the sense that a studio would cast an Asian actor to play a white character, then it's not fair.
CR: It seems to me that it's more permissible to have actors play characters of different races in theater productions, but when you see absurdities like Rex Harrison playing the King of Siam in a film, you have to wonder if there weren't any qualified Asian actors to take that role.
PF: I think you're absolutely right and in theater they have cast people of color in white roles. In theater, there's more playing with illusion. Somebody's hand can be empty but you understand they're supposed to be holding something. You can get away with that in theater. I understand that the film industry is a business and as soon as it becomes profitable to develop actors, they will. Of course, we're starting to see that now.
CR: Who would you say were the first actors and actresses to beat the system by being cast in Asian roles?
PF: Way back in the silent era we have Sessue Hayakawa and then Anna May Wong, of course. Then it wasn't until James Shigeta and Nancy Kwan in the late 1950s and early 1960s, who were the first ones to really be developed and nurtured and given a variety of roles.
CR: Would you say Hayakawa was more a character actor than a leading man?
PF: No, not until later in his career with The Bridge on the River Kwai. He was a matinee idol before Rudolf Valentino. He had a big fan following and women were really interested in him.
CR: What is your opinion of the Charlie Chan films which were so successful, but which featured European actors in the title role?
PF: To me, that's the issue. On the one hand, Charlie Chan is certainly a hero and the lead in the seriesand that was a huge step forward in how Hollywood represented Asians. But I still find Charlie Chan to be a limited characterization. He may be the smartest man in the room, but it's still clear he has to know his place. For me the ironic thing about the casting of caucasian actors as Charlie Chan is that they always cast Asian actors as his kids. Number One Son and Number Two Son are really important in the series, so there's that strange disconnect.
CR: It was the same dilemma black actors faced to a certain degree -being subject to bizarre casting choices. I noticed that you unearthed this rare short film from the Spanish American War in which the Phillipinos are played by black actors. Since this was made in 1899, it shows that if blacks were subjected to prejudices in the industry, then Asians were below them.
PF: Well, they were probably cast simply because they were available. It was shot in New Jersey, which is where the early film industry was based and there weren't that many Asian Americans living on the east coast. The other thing that should be said about casting white actors in Asian roles is that Hollywood was always very interested in romance plots and was always interested in flirting with interracial romance. But the production code at the time forbade them from really developing these plots. The American public was kind of fascinated by it, but uptight about it also. One of the things that casting a white actor in an Asian role allowed you to do was have the characters be of different races but if they're kissing or something, then everyone knows they're really of the same race.
CR: In watching your intros with Robert Osborne, I was intrigued by your opinion that Japanese were placed on a higher level of respect in films than Chinese were. What do you attribute that to?
PF: I attribute it mostly to the political clout of Japan internationally. Japan was a powerful country, a relatively rich country compared to China which is obviously a big country, but was less developed industrially and technologically. It just wasn't a player on the world stage. I think that's the main reason.
CR: The outbreak of WWII set the cause of racial equality in films back for years, obviously. The first major film I recall seeing that was sympathetic to Japanese Americans was John Sturges' Bad Day at Black Rock in which Spencer Tracy plays a government agent who tries to bring to justice the racist killers of a Japanese American farmer. It was ironic, because the Asian character is never seen - he's already dead when the film starts.
PF: I think you're right- that was certainly a high point. We're showing another film, Go for Broke that's about the WWII regimental combat team made up of Japanese Americans that was made before Bad Day at Black Rock but it wasn't as a big a film.
CR: As a child, when you went to the movies, what Asian characterizations used to grind on you the most?
PF: That's a good question, because now I think a lot of them are silly- you know, Katharine Hepburn in Dragon Seed, for example. I would have to say it was the villains, because I wasn't thrilled with those characters anyway - Fu Manchu in particular, you know, Lon Chaney and Boris Karloff.
CR: Have you seen the Hammer films with Christopher Lee as Fu Manchu?
PF: I have. His daughter was played by Tsai Chin, a British actress who is also in The Joy Luck Club. She had also played Suzie Wong on the London stage. But we're talking now about the 1960s and I think there was a little bit of the camp aspect to it. Everyone knew that the idea of a megalomaniacal villain trying to conquer the world was kind of a joke, whereas originally, the character of Fu Manchu expressed a lot of anxiety about what it meant in London that there were so many Chinese there and the popular fear about the opium dens, which of course was unfounded.
CR: How do you feel about Samuel Bronston's 55 Days at Peking about the Boxer Rebellion? It at least attempted to present the Chinese frustration at having the European powers dominate their country in the early 1900s.
PF: I haven't seen it in many years and I agree with your assement. You're right in that it did portray the issues, but it was still a backdrop for the story involving Charlton Heston and Ava Gardner. That film came along in the 1960s during the Civil Rights Movement. The first time the phrase "Model Minority" was used was in a Time or Newsweek article in reference to the Japanese American community. It said that here was a community that was interned in WWII and they've risen in economic status and they've done it by being a model minority- by keeping their head down, by not complaining. It's clear they were supposed to be a model to other minorities. The message was: blacks are militant are asking for things and demanding things rather than just putting their head down and working hard. I would put 55 Days at Peking in that context. It may be a favorable representation of one group, but it's kind of a message to others that says, "We will help you. We will take care of you. Just stop complaining about whether you get to ride in the front of the bus."
CR: How were the films selected for the TCM festival?
PF: Charlie gave me a big list of all the films that were already in the Turner library. I also made a wish list of other films I hoped we could get the rights to. Of course, Charlie took care of the budgeting aspect and came up with the best way we could get the most bang for our buck. We got almost everything I wanted. There were a handful of films I would have loved to have gotten, but I'm really happy that we covered the topic with other films that were available.
CR: I see they're going against tradition by showing a couple of relatively recent films like Rush Hour II and The Joy Luck Club.
PF: Well, Charlie wanted to bring the stories as close to the present day as possible. I think that's really great. I thought we'd end the series around 1960.
CR: Do you think there has been sufficient progress in how Asians are portrayed on screen today?
PF: We still have a long way to go. There's still not many opportunities for Asian American actors. There's been an influx of actors from Hong Kong like Jet Li and Chow Yun-Fat but they're not Asian American roles. The stories are generally set in Asia or it's the hero comes to the United States to solve a problem and it's clear he's going to leave. So they don't deal with the kind of social issues such as the fact that we live in a multi-racial society. They still engage in this fantasy that Asian Americans are temporarily here.
CR: How do you feel about the emergence of the Asian cinema as a major force in the film industry?
PF: If all we see are action films and horror films, that's still a stereotype. When I was a kid on the playground, everyone called me "Bruce Lee", but people didn't see me in a more rounded way than that. It occurs to me now, with all these horror movies from Korea and Japan, they all seem to feature an Asian kid in a bowl haircut and I worry that people are going to freak out when they see an Asian kid because that's the only thing they ever see him as. (Laughs)
CR: Is there one film in particular you would recommend our readers tune in for during the TCM festival?
PF: Walk Like a Dragon isn't widely seen. It's not available on DVD. It's a film I put very high on my list because I hadn't seen this film, only excerpts. I'm really excited about it. It's set in California in the Old West and Jack Lord from Hawaii 5-0 finds out there's a slave auction of Chinese women and he intervenes and purchases a woman from the auction with the intent of setting her free. But it doesn't occur to him that setting her free isn't enough. Where is she going to go? She doesn't speak English and she's just going to be exploited by somebody else. It's a film about this problem and a character of good intentions who gets in over his head. James Shigeta plays a recently arrived Chinese immigrant who refuses to walk with a bowed head. He walks down the center of Main Street with his head held high and gets beaten up. It's a film that is really complex and rich. The character is not a saint. The answer to these depictions is not to create characters who are morally spotless, but to create real characters - and this is a character who is flawed. It's a really interesting film.
CONTINUE READING FOR THE TCM PRESS RELEASE AND SCHEDULE FOR ASIAN IMAGES IN FILM