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"A Certain Slant"
A Brief History of Hollywood Yellowface
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When the "appearance of reality" becomes a secondary concern, the process of turning a white person into an Asian becomes fairly simple. For the eyes, prosthetic eyepieces are cast, using "real Asians" as models for the flexible molds. (Philip Ahn, who would later play a Shaolin priest in that infamous yellowface extravaganza Kung Fu, began his career as an "eye model" for the 1936 film The General Died at Dawn.) The eyepieces are then applied to the actor's eyelids and held in place with spirit gum. Finally, makeup is applied to hide the eyepieces, and rubber bands are attached to the top of the head to pull the corners of the eyes up into that familiar "slant."
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To contemporary viewers, these eyepieces and cosmetic techniques look, to put it kindly, like crap. The actors don't look Asian at all, but exactly what they are: white actors wearing a weird combination of eyepieces, rubber bands, and makeup. Incredibly, legendary Hollywood makeup artists would look back with pride at their earlier works, marveling at their realism and believability. In 1976, Frank Westmore, who did the horrendously awful work on Shirley MacLaine in My Geisha, said in his memoirs that the actress "looked as Oriental as the Japanese Empress." Don't believe it. She looks ghastly, and unmistakably Caucasian.
And then there's the accent. Some of them are as bad as you would imagine, staccato, machine-gun fire for Japanese accents; weird, singsong Chinese accents; or a strange amalgam of the two. But whether out of inability or ignorance or sheer laziness, a lot of the more serious "yellowface" performers simply eschewed an "Oriental" accent, either speaking in their normal voices or just slowing things down. Admittedly preferable to a poorly done Asian accent, this again points to a general lack of seriousness and sensitivity. While an actor might spend months working with a voice coach on an Irish brogue, an Asian accent rarely seemed to be worth the time for most Hollywood actors.
For a brief overview of the history of Hollywood yellowface, I've selected five "classic" films from the 1930s to the 1960s. This is not intended as a representative sampling of the genre, just a handful of my personal favorites — characterizations that reached new heights of tacky, racist splendor.
The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933, Columbia, Frank Capra)
The Movie: Swedish actor Nils Asther as a Chinese warlord with a soft spot for the white ladies. After rescuing Barbara Stanwyck from some civil unrest in Shanghai, Asther unsuccessfully tries to seduce his white "captive." When he is unable to win her love, Asther drinks a mix of tea and poison, the "bitter tea" of the movie's title.
Asther's death is in the great narrative tradition of Asians committing suicide after having their hearts broken by uncaring white lovers, a tradition made famous by works like Puccini's Madama Butterfly. The film skirted the ban on movie miscegenation by having white actors portray the "interracial" couple, but the taboo theme still got the film banned in the U.K.
Cool Scene: Stanwyck's wet dream sequence, in which she fantasizes about being violated by the yellow general.
Yellowface Performance: Former Hollywood hearththrob Nils Asther repels his female fans with his role as the poetry-spouting heathen. The best yellowface makeup is reserved for Stanwyck's dream sequence, where she imagines Yen as a crazed Oriental demon, complete with pointed ears, a Dracula-style widow's peak, and Fu Manchu fingernails.
Karmic Retribution: One of Frank Capra's few financial failures. Walter Connolly, who plays Yen's American financial adviser, breaks his leg during an ill-fated train sequence and spends the rest of the movie on crutches.
The Good Earth (1937, MGM, Sidney Franklin)
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The Movie: Chinese farmers endure drought, famine, revolution, and dinners of boiled mud. Luise Rainer wins the Academy Award for her role as O-Lan, the long-suffering wife, who fulfills her role as an Asian film heroine by dying at the end. Don't miss the locust invasion scenes, done with incredible special effects and creepy insect close-ups.
Memorable Line: "We're Republicans, not bandits."
Yellowface Performance: A jarring mix of white actors in yellowface alongside a handful of "real Asians" doing bit parts. The yellowface makeup is predictably bad, with Rainer going for the "heroin chic" look decades before it would come into vogue. Thankfully, none of the primary actors attempts an Asian accent.
Karmic Retribution: Producer dies untimely death just before completion of the film. Alcoholic director Walter Hill gets blotto before an important story conference, embarrasses himself in front of the producer and crew, then promptly returns home and puts a bullet in his head.
The Conqueror (1956, RKO, Dick Powell)
The Movie: John Wayne is Genghis Khan. The Mongol warrior's armies sweep across Asia, raping and pillaging. Wayne kills the Tartar ruler and marries his daughter, who has inexplicably fallen in love with the Mongol ruler after he kidnaps her on a random pillaging run.
Memorable Line: "You're beautiful in your wrath!"
Yellowface Performance: Universally acknowledged as one of the Duke's most wretched performances, as well as one of the worst casting decisions in Hollywood history. Wayne loved the script, and nobody at RKO had the balls to say no to the legendary actor. In a fit of good sense, Wayne refused to even take a stab at an Asian accent, delivering his lines his own immediately recognizable wooden style. The makeup? Imagine John Wayne as an Asian warlord.
Karmic Retribution: The film was shot in Utah, 136 miles from a huge atomic test site. Of the 220-member cast and crew, over 90 contracted cancer, and half of that number died from the disease, including the director and several of the major stars, including Wayne.
The Teahouse of the August Moon (1956, MGM, Daniel Mann)
The Movie: Film adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play. A bumbling Army captain, played by Glenn Ford, attempts to "Americanize" the local inhabitants in postwar Okinawa. His assistant/translator is Sakini, a smiling, sneaky Okinawan played by Marlon Brando. It may have been funny in the 1950s, but it's pretty unwatchable now, especially the ass-backwards scene in which Lotus Blossom, a "geisha girl first class," "comically" tries to tear off the clothes of the resisting Army captain.
Memorable Line: "My job is to teach these natives the meaning of democracy. And they're going to learn democracy if I have to shoot every one of them!" I guess this line was funny in the 1950s too.
Yellowface Performance: Brando gets a "C" for effort, and actually attempts an "authentic" Japanese accent (he even speaks some Japanese, but it's all in that unique Brando voice). Standard prosthetic eyepieces and makeup, made all the more noticeable because he is the only actor in yellowface in a sea of Asian extras and secondary characters. Looking unmistakably like Marlon Brando doesn't help either.
Karmic Retribution: I'm still waiting.
Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961, Paramount, Blake Edwards)
The Movie: Audrey Hepburn as free spirit Holly Golightly, in an adaptation of Truman Capote's novel. Cool Oscar-winning tune "Moon River," and many interesting performances all around, especially Mickey Rooney as the crazy Jap in the upstairs apartment. Standard whitewash of the Capote novel, with the usual happy Hollywood ending tacked on for good measure.
Memorable Line: Audrey Hepburn to an angry, screaming Rooney: "Don't be angry, you dear little man ... If you promise not to be angry, I might let you take those pictures we mentioned."
Yellowface Performance: May Rooney burn in hell for this supremely racist bit of "acting." Although I can appreciate ethnic humor as much as the next guy, this one-note performance gets tired after the first 30 seconds. Rooney pulls out all the stops: Halloween-style prosthetic eyepieces; round, black-framed glasses; big buck teeth; crossed eyes; and hysterical Jap accent.
Karmic Retribution: Three decades later, Rooney's racist rantings are pilloried in the 1991 film Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story. His yellowface performance is displayed as an example of blatant anti-Asian racism in the U.S., and is used to foreshadow the immense racism Lee would encounter in Hollywood. A great scene, and one of the few critiques of yellowface in a major Hollywood film.
March 1997 | Issue 18
Copyright © 1997 by Robert B. Ito
Robert B. Ito is a freelance writer and associate editor at Los Angeles Magazine. He has written for Salon, Mother Jones Online, Independent Film & Video Monthly, and International Documentary.
HOW TO SEE IT: Most of the films mentioned above are available on videotape or laserdisc. (As always, we suggest you NOT rent from Blockbuster, a corporation driven by extreme right-wing ideology that routinely censors movies and consistently works against your interests as a free-thinking citizen.)
ALSO: Dis-Orientation: Japan from a Western Viewpoint in Topsy-Turvy and The Mikado: If "Asian face" isn't bad enough, how about names like Nanki-Poo and Yum Yum?
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