Asian Media & Western Culture
MARVEL STUDIOS
With the current influence of Asian media in Western culture, it is hard to imagine a life without anime, K-pop, Wuxia media, and K-dramas.
Contrast this to 84 years ago in Hollywood. The 1937 romance film “The Good Earth” was released starring German actress Luise Rainer and Austro-Hungarian actor Paul Muni. This was an adaptation of a popular novel with the same title by Pearl S. Buck. Both the novel and the film dramatize the life of a poor, working Chinese man with his wife.
Although the film was based on the life of a Chinese person, two white actors were cast as “O-Lan” and “Wang Lung,” the main characters, despite an actual Chinese actress who wanted the lead role of “O-Lan”. That Chinese actress was Anna May Wong, and she was not unknown at the time. She starred in prior cinematic hits such as Toll of the Sea (1922), Piccadilly (1929), and Shanghai Express (1932).
Based on her experience and ethnicity, casting Wong as O-Lan, the wife of Wang Lung would have made logical sense. Yet she was turned down because White actor Paul Muni was already cast as Wang Lung. In the 1934 industry-imposed Hays Code under the “Sex” heading, “miscegenation [was] forbidden,” meaning that interracial relationships were prohibited on set. The role of O-Lan was then handed to German actress Luise Rainer, who won an Oscar for the role.
The Good Earth is not the only culprit for controversial casting decisions. Dragon Seed (1944) starred Katherine Hepburn as the Chinese character “Jade Tan” when Katherine was English. Ghost in the Shell (2017), the live action remake of the 1995 anime, starred White actress Scarlett Johansson as the Japanese main protagonist “Motoko Kusanagi”. The live action film The Last Airbender (2010) had most of its characters misrepresented, starring White actors for the Asian protagonist characters.
White actors are criticized for their yellowface role, defined by Cambridge University as “the practice of white actors changing their appearance with makeup in order to play East Asian characters in movies, plays, etc.”
It has been difficult for Asians to sway casting decisions to their favour, but progress has been made in recent years. Films such as The Joy Luck Club (1998), Crazy Rich Asians (2018), and The Farewell (2019) featured all Asian casts. But take Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021) as an example.
Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton and written by David Callaham, Shang-Chi marks a step forward for Asian actors. With a predominantly Asian cast, Marvel’s first Asian MCU film applauded for its representation and defiance of stereotypes, earning $29.6 million on opening day and claiming the title of the third-best opening day during the COVID-19 pandemic according to Screen Rant.
Shang-Chi was not originally made to break stereotypes. The moics were the product of Marvel fitting into the 1970s craze over Asian martial arts, creating a stereotypical hero in a martial art style without considering actual Asian culture in the character itself.
Though the main fighting style of Shang-Chi in the film continues to be martial arts, Shang-Chi has at least made the fighting styles accurate to Chinese wuxia media.
When asked about Asian stereotypes during the planning process in a interview conducted by Variety, screenwriter David Callaham commented: “To me, that is when stereotypes are broken, when you see yourself in a character.”
Marvel reintroduced Shang-Chi with a new portrayal into Western media that is generally representative and accurate of Asian culture. They have made casting decisions based on authenticity with a majority Asian cast, unlike The Good Earth’s controversy or even Marvel’s own movie Doctor Strange with British actress Tilda Swinton playing “The Ancient One,” a Tibetan character in the comics.
With the growing popularity of Asian shows and films such as the Oscar-winning Parasite (2019) and Netflix’s top show Squid Game (2021) accumulating 111 million views in its first month, it is important to know how Asian actors and directors have fought through over a century of discrimination to have a role in the Western-centric entertainment industry. It is also important to consider the ethinic representation when future stories of a different culture are being created or planned for a film adaptation, as to not create another caricature that slanders a whole race.