Romance and the "Yellow Peril": Race, Sex, and Discursive Strategies in Hollywood Fiction

by Gina Marchetti

Hollywood films about Asians and interracial sexuality are the focus of Gina Marchetti's provocative new work. While miscegenation might seem an unlikely theme for Hollywood, Marchetti shows how fantasy-dramas of interracial rape, lynching, tragic love, and model marriage are powerfully evident in American cinema.

The author begins with a discussion of D. W. Griffith's Broken Blossoms , then considers later films such as Shanghai Express , Madame Butterfly , and the recurring geisha movies. She also includes some fascinating "forgotten" films that have been overlooked by critics until now.

Marchetti brings the theoretical perspective of recent writing on race, ethnicity, and gender to her analyses of film and television and argues persuasively that these media help to perpetuate social and racial inequality in America. Noting how social norms and taboos have been simultaneously set and broken by Hollywood filmmakers, she discusses the "orientalist" tensions underlying the construction of American cultural identity. Her book will be certain to interest readers in film, Asian, women's, and cultural studies.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Film, Cultural Studies, Pop Culture, Race

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

Reviews

[James Crawford · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is subtitled Race, Sex and Discursive Strategies in Hollywood Fiction.

The book starts out saying that Hollywood's depiction of Asia has revolved mainly around the 'Yellow Peril' concept, that the West will be overpowered by the sly and seductive actions of the East. The main focus of this is on the sexual relationship between white men and Asian women.

The book examines a number of specific films, going back to 1915 and the silent film The Cheat, and relating these films to specific themes, such as the rape fantasy. The threat of captivity is discussed next, pointing out that Black and Native American women were not considered captives, but were being liberated from their inferior cultures.

There's a lot of movies discussed, and a variety of themes. I think it could have done more to tie in the films to anti-Oriental prejudice on the West Coast, though. Also, a number of the films are quite old and I'm not think at least some of them might be difficult to find.

[Madeline · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very insightful look at Hollywood's treatment of American-Asian relationships. Marchetti examines race, class, sexuality, and gender in the movies.

[Ostap Bender · Rating 4 out of 5]

An academic analysis of Asian-Americans in Hollywood films between 1915 and 1985, particularly those involving romance. Marchetti provides real insight into specific films or recurring themes between films, but unfortunately this is offset somewhat by a writing style that is pretty dense, and by analyses that don’t always seem balanced. With that said, the book is worth reading for a cinephile, film studies student, or anyone interested in an analysis of how the dominant culture perceived Asian-Americans (and women in general) over the 20th century, because of the depth of the analysis and how thought-provoking it is.

At its heart, the book identifies a fundamental dilemma with America that exists to this day – the clash between the desire for a “melting pot” with “liberty and justice for all,” and a belief that the country should remain dominated by white, Anglo-Saxon protestant males. The way Marchetti shows this manifesting itself either in outright racism in films or in those that are superficially tolerant but which have conservative underpinnings is very well done, particularly for the latter category. An example of this is her critical examination of James Shigeta’s character in the film The Crimson Kimono (1959), a film that is extraordinary for its tolerance and interracial romance, but as she reveals flawed in how it believes racism is either very rare or non-existent in America.

Marchetti also understands the historical context of the films, pointing out (for example) the pervasiveness of racism in the country after Reconstruction, and how the fear of the potential power of minority and immigrant voters helped get women’s suffrage finally passed. I also really liked her insight into the depiction of Asian women as being more passive and subservient as not only being stereotypical, but a response to rising feminism in America, essentially telling American women to remember what it is to be “feminine” in films like Sayonara (1957) and The World of Suzie Wong (1960).

I think where she falters a bit is in how negative she is about some films, or when she reads too much Freudian desires (e.g. castration anxiety) or homoeroticism into them. I have to say, some of the films selected, including a made for TV movie in the 1980’s were less interesting to me, though I understand the intention was to show the connective thread up the present (the book was published in 1993). I would have much rather had it cover a broader swath of older films and actors. It is a great reference for the films it does go into, including:

The Cheat (1915)
Madame Butterfly (1915)
Broken Blossoms (1919)
Shanghai Express (1932)
The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933)
Lady of the Tropics (1939)
Japanese War Bride (1952)
Love is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955)
China Gate (1957)
Sayonara (1957)
The Crimson Kimono (1959)
The World of Suzie Wong (1960)
Bridge to the Sun (1961)
My Geisha (1962)
The Lady from Yesterday (1985)
Year of the Dragon (1985)
An American Geisha (1986)

[Loveliest Evaris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I discovered this book while trying to write a term paper about traditional stereotypes of the Chinese found in American media and this was a goldmine of information for not only Chinese, but Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and other East Asian ethnicities that Hollywood found fit to portray (almost always with white people in the lead roles) most inaccurately, insultingly, or condescendingly on the big screen in the 20th century.