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China Doll Imperialism

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Frank Borzage’s 1958 film China Doll: Time is a Memory details a redemption story of an alcoholic American pilot, Captain Cliff Brandon, during his time fighting the Japanese in China in WWII. The plot centers around his romance with Chinese native Shu-Jen-- their meet-cute being when he accidentally purchases her from her destitute father in a drunken stupor. After employing her as a housekeeper, he falls in love with, and consequently, impregnates her before both die when their military base is attacked. I argue that the popular Hollywood film China Doll reveals the ways in which war as a form of sexual imperialism contributed to an American imagination of Asia as a land of upset sexual morals in need of white saviorism. Wartime sexual …show more content…

In the film, Captain Brandon fills the role of the white, Western savior; he is never not in good intentions and is ultimately the most likeable and noble character in the film. He only buys Shu-Jen accidentally in an attempt to donate to her destitute father, repeatedly attempts to return her to her father, and only ends up keeping her because he is advised that her father would return the money he tried to donate if he did. The accidental buying of Shu-Jen, who symbolizes the Orient, is symbolic of the ways in which Western imperialism is painted as natural, almost incidental. Moreover, in buying her, taking control of her, Captain Brandon is able to save her from her destitute condition and the poor governance of her father. Beyond that, he fundamentally is able to redeem her immorality; Shu-Jen goes from a woman who is sold for sex to a pregnant, domesticated housewife, mimicking Western femininity. Her impregnation is especially significant; impregnating her body, representing the Orient, is literally an invasion of her body/the Orient by whiteness, but produces a product that is better, whiter (the baby). But even beyond imperialism being painted as being able to redeem the Orient, the film also carries an implicit narrative of imperialism being able to redeem the white savior himself, as not only a charitable but also self-beneficial act. While Captain Brandon is always fundamentally a good and noble person, he goes from an alcoholic soldier exploring the freedom of Asia at the beginning to a hero who dies fighting for his country. Thus, China Doll tells not just a love story between a powerful white American soldier and a powerless, poor Asian woman with some surface-level racist overtones, but a love story between a powerful West and an impoverished and in-need-of-saving East that justifies American

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