Orientals in Hollywood: Asian American representation in early U.S. cinema
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Abstract
Modern Asian American activists are shining a spotlight on the lack of diversity
in media, and the root of this inequality traces back to the origins of cinema. Since Asians
first immigrated to the United States in the mid-nineteenth century, the U.S. government
and its citizens have repeatedly demeaned, misrepresented, and excluded Asian
Americans from most facets of society, including the opportunity to appear on screen.
This project explores how early cinema shaped negative perceptions of Asian
immigrants, primarily by subscribing to popular stereotypes including the pollutant,
coolie, deviant, and yellow peril, the first four of Robert G. Lee’s “Six Faces of the
Oriental.” By analyzing a series of Hollywood films from the years 1894–1934, and
providing the historical context surrounding Asian Americans’ slow and contested
assimilation, this project maps the evolution of these four threatening identities and how
they influenced exclusionary laws targeted towards Asian immigrants. It also explores
yellowface, the branch of racial cosmetology wherein non-Asian (primarily white) actors
are “made up” to appear of Asian heritage, and how this practice promoted the literal
exclusion of Asians from the film industry. This project ultimately concludes that while
modern cinema offers less bigoted representations, the invisibility of Asian Americans
persists through the practice of whitewashing, the successor to yellowface.
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Attribution 4.0 International