Yellowface

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yellowface is the practice in cinema, theatre, and television where East Asian characters are portrayed by white actors, often while wearing heavy makeup in order to approximate "Asian" or "Oriental" facial characteristics. Directors and film studios employed this practice for a variety of reasons, the most common being the lack of English-speaking Asian actors during the earlier decades of cinema. The most controversial reason was the desire to avoid onscreen romantic interaction between white and Asian actors in intimate contexts. Comparable to blackface, yellowface was once a commonly accepted practice in the motion picture industry, with many legendary Hollywood actors launching their careers by playing yellowface roles.

[edit] Notable Examples

• Warner Oland as Fu Manchu and Charlie Chan
• Mary Pickford in Madame Butterfly (1915)
• Lon Chaney Sr. and Renée Adorée in Mr. Wu (1927)
• Edward G. Robinson and Loretta Young in The Hatchet Man (1932)
• Boris Karloff and Myrna Loy in The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932)
• Nils Asther in The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933)
• Luise Rainer and Paul Muni in The Good Earth (1937)
• Peter Lorre in the Mr. Moto film series (1937-1939)
• Anthony Quinn in Island of Lost Men (1939)
• Katharine Hepburn, Walter Huston, Aline MacMahon, Turhan Bey, Agnes Moorehead, J. Carrol Naish, and Hurd Hatfield in Dragon Seed (1944)
• Rex Harrison, Linda Darnell, and Gale Sondergaard in Anna and the King of Siam (1946)
• Fred Astaire and Lucille Bremer in Ziegfeld Follies (1946)
• Jennifer Jones in Love is a Many Splendored Thing (1955)
• John Wayne in The Conqueror (1956)
• Yul Brynner and Rita Moreno in The King and I (1956)
• Marlon Brando in The Teahouse of the August Moon (1956)
• Curd Jürgens and Robert Donat in The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958)
• Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)
• Juanita Hall in Flower Drum Song (1961)
• Henry Silva in The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
• Shirley MacLaine in My Geisha (1962)
• David Carradine in Kung Fu (1972 - 1975)
• Peter Sellers in The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu (1980)
• Max von Sydow in Flash Gordon (1980)
• Jonathan Pryce in Miss Saigon

[edit] See also

• Blackface

[edit] Sources

• "Yellowface: Asians on White Screens", by Yayoi Lena Winfrey, IM Diversity.com.
• "A Certain Slant." by Robert B. Ito, Bright Lights Film Journal.
• Wang, Yiman (2005). "The Art of Screen Passing: Anna May Wong's Yellow Yellowface Performance in the Art Deco Era", in Catherine Russell: Camera Obscura 60: New Women of the Silent Screen: China, Japan, Hollywood. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, pp.159-191. ISBN 0-8223-6624-X.