Asian American Women In Films Essay

Asian Americans were the first minority to appear on films. Their image changed from how Americans viewed them. The characters were flat, they did not have many characteristics or traits, they had a label and stuck to it. Asian American women in films were hard to take serious because of their lack of complexity. Sometimes they were cast by white actresses. They wore black wigs, they drew on black eyebrows and spoke broken English on purpose. Stereotypes played were the “Diaboloical Dragon Lady, The Prostitute, and The Subordinate Wife”. In the first films, Asian American women appeared on, the Chinese are “evil". At this point of history, Americans were afraid of the Chinese and became evildoers in the media. In “Thief of Bagdad," Animae Wong is a slave to an evil master. She is villainous and the “Diabolical Dragon Lady”. In “Shanghai Express” she also plays a caricature of a murderous vamp. The men also suffered this stereotype of maliciousness. In “Flash Gordon” Max Von Sydow, a White French man played a Chinese brute. But, yet the image of the Chinese changed over time. The Chinese changed from malevolent to favorable. The Japanese were now seen as the villains due to the Pearl

In “Walk Like A Dragon” a Chinese man falls in love with Nobu McCarthy, a Chinese girl saved from slavery. But, yet another man loves her and it becomes a love triangle. In another movie “The World of Suzie Wong” actress Suzy Wong plays “The Prostitute”. She is a fantasy and is both cute and sexy. In movies with an Asian war background, the women are spoils of war and objects for the men. Asian women began to get jobs in media such as anchors but, had to fit a certain stereotype. They had to be peaceful and subordinate, they had to have long hair and look more exotic and like Kony Chung. They still had more opportunities than other minorities because they were the “model