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Asian Representation in Hollywood from 1940-1960 · Asian Adjacent

• 0:17
  Speaker 1: On Asian actors. Many are forgotten just because there aren't
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: as many out there and the ratio wise as their
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: white counterparts or in black counterparts. So Sins, we're going
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: back in time. These are three of the most popular
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: and influential Asian actors between nineteen forty and nineteen sixty,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: and we're talking about says Sui Hayakawa to share Mafuni
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  Speaker 1: in anime Wong all three of them. Now, we'll start
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: righting sa Sui hai Kawa, who actually is a relative
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: of mine. That's a harvest story through my Asian family,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: inside of my family. He was the most famous Asian
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  Speaker 1: actor in Western cinema from the thirty from the well
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  Speaker 1: actually from the nineteen tens and carried into nineteen forties.
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  Speaker 1: He kind of made it in He was the first
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  Speaker 1: Asian international movie star and became a Hollywood leading man
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  Speaker 1: around the nineteen tens. He gained i mean respectability and
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  Speaker 1: visibility when he was when he was in for The
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  Speaker 1: Bridge and the River Kwi and later in nineteen fifty
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  Speaker 1: seven he got an Academy Award nomination for his work. Right,
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  Speaker 1: he broke racial barriers from Asian actors were almost always
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: it's lit from serious roles, but his started in name recognition.
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  Speaker 1: Just he's the most popular Asian actor of that time
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  Speaker 1: for that long time period, so to my relative, mister Haikawa.
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  Speaker 1: Toshira Mafuni was a global Japanese cinema massive star in
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  Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties. That's why we mentioned him because he
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  Speaker 1: was huge and again not talked it out out here.
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  Speaker 1: He was in several films Rashoma in nineteen fifty and seven,
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  Speaker 1: Samurai in nineteen fifty four, usually with the Kira Korsawa,
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  Speaker 1: which of course that name, you know, that name in
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  Speaker 1: cinema very famous. Same people still study his films, but
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: his film but Toshiro, because he was with him and
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: without him, his films dominated international festivals. I mean, he
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  Speaker 1: was not a huge star in Hollywood per se, though
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  Speaker 1: he had some fame here. It was his global fame
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  Speaker 1: that made him. That's what we have to mention him.
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  Speaker 1: He just was really big, especially in the fifties that
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  Speaker 1: was his time.
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  Speaker 2: And Anime Wong, who I heard about recently, actually.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: Didn't know you about her. Another Asian actress brought her up.
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  Speaker 1: She's very influential in the theater and the acting circles.
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  Speaker 1: Her peak start was in the nineteen twenties and thirties,
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  Speaker 1: but she was still the most recognizable actress in the forties.
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  Speaker 1: She's the first Asian American movie star and female. Obviously,
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  Speaker 1: she faced extreme racism and typecasting was kind of limited
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  Speaker 1: her roles. It was quite popular, very similar to hatting
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  Speaker 1: me Danel right, and she's a trailblazer.
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  Speaker 2: As we entered the fifties and sixties.
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  Speaker 1: So it's, you know, the way you can kind of
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: put it is Hayakawa opened the door, Mafuoni kicked it
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  Speaker 1: down wide open. The anime Wong kind of just walked
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: your way up parallel to them. If you think of
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  Speaker 1: it that way, I you know, it's just it's to me,
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  Speaker 1: it's it's interesting because at the same time, there were
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  Speaker 1: a lot of white actors who were made to look
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  Speaker 1: Asian in certain films, also Latino and films too, like
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: darking your skin and doing certain makeup tricks. So when
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: you're talking about forgotten Hollywood, we almost forget there were
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: some Asian actors working. Let's like, let's really break this
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  Speaker 1: down from my teen fy nineteen sixty.
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  Speaker 2: There were a few.
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  Speaker 1: There were also some of smaller stature, but the representation
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  Speaker 1: again very limited, very controlled by the studios, and often distorted.
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  Speaker 1: What happened was what happened was Asian faces were visible
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  Speaker 1: and it was sometimes celebrated. Yet there were rarely allowed full
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  Speaker 1: humanity or agency on screen. You know, there was at
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  Speaker 1: this time we had the studio system. It was very rigid.
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  Speaker 1: Now it's for everybody, no matter what race you were,
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  Speaker 1: it just for everybody. Was very rigid, white everybody. But
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  Speaker 1: they came to racial stuff. They enforced racial typecasting, restricted
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  Speaker 1: leading roles for non white actors, so usually just white
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  Speaker 1: actors were leads, and like I said, made white actors
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  Speaker 1: kind of do yellow face. Asian actors were very much
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  Speaker 1: relegated to villains, which I guess. You know, we had
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  Speaker 1: several wars where there were our enemy, so I guess
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  Speaker 1: that was that part of that. Servants and of course
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  Speaker 1: the exotic love interests, you know that, and then other
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  Speaker 1: Asian actors they were on screen, but they were silent.
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  Speaker 2: They just showed up. They say much or hat heavily
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  Speaker 2: accented rails.
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  Speaker 1: And when I say yellow haze, the Asian the story
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  Speaker 1: may be very Asian, an Asian set story. It's eight
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  Speaker 1: and the studios would choose white stars portray them. That's
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  Speaker 1: what's crazy, right, Well, it's crazy. We have to mention
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  Speaker 1: the first five years of the forties we were at war,
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  Speaker 1: We were at World War Two. Japanese and Japanese Americans
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  Speaker 1: actors were mostly caughtcasts as the enemies, so they got
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  Speaker 1: a chance they're on there. But Chinese characters, think about
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: this for a second, were treated more sympathetically due to
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: wartime alliances.
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  Speaker 2: See it goes back to war.
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  Speaker 1: They don't have a bad Chinese character on screen and
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  Speaker 1: trying to get mad at you. Right, My relatives were
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  Speaker 1: interned here and here in California, so that was another
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  Speaker 1: thing too, And it's just the whole thing was it
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  Speaker 1: reinforced that the Asian identity was political, not personal.
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  Speaker 2: And then in any Asians on screen, it.
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  Speaker 1: Was defined by global events rather than a lived experience.
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  Speaker 1: And I think about for a second, by nineteen sixty,
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  Speaker 1: so when nineteen sixty comes, no Asian actor regularly headlined
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  Speaker 1: a major Hollywood film or films.
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  Speaker 2: Asian women were either hyper.
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  Speaker 1: Sexualized or sideline, and the reverse Asian men were desexualized
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  Speaker 1: or villainized. And just keep this in mind, there were
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  Speaker 1: a few Asian creators that held power behind the camera,
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  Speaker 1: so representation existed, but ownership did not give that in mind,
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  Speaker 1: But I want to end this on a positive note.
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  Speaker 1: We just want to know that it's this is not
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  Speaker 1: just you know way. The people of the system did change,
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  Speaker 1: and times did change, and the struggles of the Asian
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  Speaker 1: experience from nineteen forty nineteen sixty did lay the groundwork
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  Speaker 1: for future breakthroughs.
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  Speaker 2: Bruce Lee his emergence.
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  Speaker 1: In nineteen sixties and seventies, huge gradual dismantling of the
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: studio racism that helped all different races. And there was
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: also this long fire for authentic storytelling. And you still
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: say it was still slow going in the seventies, in
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: the eighties, but in the nineties we started to see
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  Speaker 1: a few things happening, a few films coming out and
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  Speaker 1: enjoy Lug Club and the wedding banquets, and you know,
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  Speaker 1: then of course, of course all the Anglee films started
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  Speaker 1: hitting America, and then they going from the nineties sixty thousands,
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  Speaker 1: we have you know, Jet Lee and Jackie Chan and
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  Speaker 1: Michelle Yoe to today. So it's it's much better. Still,
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  Speaker 1: gotta leave some bowels to go. But it's much better
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  Speaker 1: back then. But there's always you know, it starts out,
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: it's a little slow, but as society changed, so did Hollywood.
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  Speaker 2: And so did Asian visibility.
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  Speaker 1: Still more works we've done, but that's your Asian representation
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  Speaker 1: from nineteen forty.
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  Speaker 2: In nineteen sixty here on guns.
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  Speaker 1: Proper proper letters,