Portrayal of East Asians in American film and theater

For the theatre production, see Yellow Face.

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Christopher Lee in yellowface makeup. Promotional poster for 1965 film The Face of Fu Manchu

Yellowface is the practice in American cinema, American theatre, and American television where Asian characters are portrayed by predominantly white actors, often while artificially changing their looks with makeup in order to approximate Asian facial characteristics; it also describes situations in which non-Asian people control what it means to be Asian on stage and screen.

Yellowfacing is an example of the Racism in the United States and overt racism common to the times. During the late 19th Century and early parts of the 20th, numerous anti-Asian sentiments were expressed by politicians and writers, especially on the West Coast, with headlines like "The 'Yellow Peril'" (Los Angeles Times, 1886) and "Conference Endorses Chinese Exclusion" (The New York Times, 1905) and the later Japanese Exclusion Act. The American Immigration Act of 1924 limited the number of Asians because they were considered an "undesirable" race.

Asians in White Screens

"Yellowface" portrayals date to at least 1767 in the United States, when Arthur Murphy's theatrical work The Orphan of China was presented in Philadelphia and have a long history on screen, reaching back to Mary Pickford’s Cio-Cio San in Madame Butterfly (1915).

There were Oriental actors at this time, in 1910, Lee Tung Foo was already known as “the most remarkable China man in the United States” due to his performances in vaudeville. Sessue Hayakawa, a Japanese American, between the mid-1910s and the late 1920s, was as famous as actors Charlie Chaplin and Douglas FairbanksHe was one of the highest paid stars of his time; making $5,000 a week in 1915, and $2 million a year via his own production company during the 1920s. Hayakawa was the romantic idol of millions of American women and in many ways, he was a precursor to Rudolph Valentino. He is even credited with launching Valentino's career. When Hayakawa's contract with Paramount expired in May, 1918, the studio wanted him to star in The Sheik, but Hayakawa turned them down in favour of starting his own company. The role went to the unknown Valentino who rose to overnight stardom.

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Anna May Wong and Marlene Dietrich in Shanghai Express (1932)

Anna May Wong, considered by many the first Chinese American movie star, was acting by the age of 14 and in 1922, at 17-years old, she became the first Asian to break Hollywood’s miscegenation rule playing opposite a white romantic lead in Toll of the Sea. Even though she was internationally known by 1924, her film roles were limited by stereotype and prejudice—tired of being typecast and passed over for significant Chinese character roles in favor of non-Asian actresses; in 1928 Wong left Hollywood for Europe. Interviewed by Doris Mackie for Film Weekly in 1933, Wong complained about her Hollywood roles: "I was so tired of the parts I had to play." Referring to yellowface, she commented: "There seems little for me in Hollywood, because, rather than real Chinese, producers prefer Hungarians, Mexicans, American Indians for Chinese roles." in 1935 she was considered for the leading role in The Good Earth, which went to Caucasian actress Luise Rainer who played the role in yellow face. She refused the role of the villainess, the stereotypical Oriental Dragonlady.

Some Asian American actors nonetheless attempted to start careers. Merle Oberon, a mixed-race Anglo-Indian, was able to get starring roles after concocting a phony story about her origins and using skin whitening make-up. Philip Ahn, after rejection for speaking English too well, braved death threats after playing Japanese villains. There were others like Barbara Jean Wong, Fely Franquelli, Benson Fong, Chester Gan, Honorable Wu, Kam Tong, Keye Luke, Layne Tom Jr., Maurice Liu, Philip Ahn, Richard Loo, Lotus Long, Rudy Robles, Suzanna Kim, Teru Shimada, Willie Fung, Victor Sen Yung, Toshia Mori and Wing Foo; all began their film careers in the 1930s and 40s.

With the amount of Asian American actors available; actor Robert Ito explains that job protection for Caucasian actors was one reason yellowface persisted. "With the relatively small percentage of actors that support themselves by acting, it was only logical that they should try to limit the available talent pool as much as possible. One way of doing this was by placing restrictions on minority actors, which, in the case of Asian actors, meant that they could usually only get roles as houseboys, cooks, laundrymen, and crazed war enemies, with the rare "white hero's loyal sidekick" roles going to the big name actors. When the script called for a larger Asian role, it was almost inevitably given to a white actor."

History of yellowface

Racebending of Goku, Promotional poster for Dragonball Evolution

Yellowface was once commonly accepted practice, with many Hollywood actors playing yellowface roles. Myrna Loy was the "go to girl" for any portrayal of Asian characters in over a dozen films, while Chinese detective Charlie Chan, who was modeled after Chang Apana, a real-life Chinese Hawaiian detective, was portrayed by several white actors including Warner Oland, Sidney Toler, and Peter Ustinov.

The list of actors who have donned makeup, to portray Asians, at some point in their career, reads like a who’s who of the film industry and some became famous due to their yellow face roles: Lon Chaney Sr., Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young, Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, Anthony Quinn, Katharine Hepburn, Rita Moreno, Rex Harrison, John Wayne, Marlon Brando, Alec Guinness, Tony Randall, John Gielgud, Max von Sydow, Linda Hunt, David Carradine, Joel Grey, and many others.

The use of yellowface makeup endured when blackface makeup has become taboo. In 2008, a puppet named Farnfucious was featured on Farnsworth & the Fox on CBS , a Salesgenie.com ad aired during the 2008 Super Bowl featuring a panda couple with stereotypical Asian accents, and the 21st Century examples of Grindhouse, Balls of Fury, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, and Crank: High Voltage all featured Caucasian actors as Asian caricatures.

Recurring stereotypes such as the Fu Manchu-style Asian villain or the Madame Butterfly-style Asian female love interest (always for a white hero) were going largely unchallenged. Asian Americans formed Advocacy groups such as the East West Players and Media Action Network for Asian Americans (MANAA) to counter the practice.

A related phenomenon wherein White actors are cast to portray what were originally non-White characters is often termed "whitewashing" and racebending. In these cases, the original work features non-White characters or non-White European cultural markers which are altered to cater to the perceived viewing habits of the majority Caucasian, European based, society. Instead of using yellow face makeup, the film makers change the race or origin of the characters. Recent examples of this phenomenon include: 21, Dragonball Evolution, King of Fighters and The Last Airbender.

Notable examples

The Good Earth (film)

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Paul Muni and Luise Rainer

The Good Earth (1937) is a film about Chinese farmers who struggle to survive. It was adapted by Talbot Jennings, Tess Slesinger, and Claudine West from the play by Donald Davis and Owen Davis, which was itself based on the 1931 novel The Good Earth by Nobel Prize-winning author Pearl S. Buck The film was directed by Sidney Franklin, Victor Fleming (uncredited) and Gustav Machaty (uncredited).

The film's budget was $2.8 million, a small fortune at the time, and took three years to make. Although Pearl Buck intended the film to be cast with all Chinese or Chinese American actors, the studio opted to use established American stars, tapping Paul Muni and Luise Rainer for the lead roles. Both had won Oscars the previous year; Rainer for her role in The Great Ziegfield and Muni for the lead in The Story of Louis Pasteur. When questioned about his choice of the American actors, Thalberg responded by saying, "I'm in the business of creating illusions."

Back in 1935, when MGM Studios was looking to make The Good Earth into a movie, Anna May Wong was considered a top contender for the role of O-lan, the Chinese heroine of the novel. However, because Paul Muni was of European descent, the Hays Code's anti-miscegenation rules meant his character's wife had to be played by a white woman. So, as was typical of the time, MGM gave the role of O-lan to a white actress and offered Wong the role of Lotus, the story’s villain, but Wong refused to be the only Chinese American playing the only negative character, stating: "...I won't play the part. If you let me play O-lan, I'll be very glad. But you're asking me - with Chinese blood - to do the only unsympathetic role in the picture featuring an all-American cast portraying Chinese characters." MGM's refusal to consider Wong for this most high-profile of Chinese characters in U.S. film is remembered today as "one of the most notorious cases of casting discrimination in the 1930s". Anna May Wong, an ethnic Chinese, lost out on both roles to two Austrian women, Luise Rainer and Tilly Losch, The casting of the film, vetoed Wong and other ethnic Chinese because their looks didn't fit the concept of what Chinese people should look like.

The Good Earth was nominated for a total of five Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Direction (Sidney Franklin), Best Cinematography (Karl Freund), and Best Film Editing (Basil Wrangell). In addition to the Best Actress award (Luise Rainer), the film won for Best Cinematography. Ironically, the year The Good Earth came out, Wong appeared on the cover of Look Magazine's second issue, which labeled her "The World's Most Beautiful Chinese Girl." Stereotyped in America as a dragon lady, the cover photo had her holding a dagger.

Breakfast at Tiffany's

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The 1961 film has been criticized for its portrayal of the character Mr. Yunioshi, Holly's bucktoothed, stereotyped Japanese neighbor. Played by Caucasian Mickey Rooney, Rooney wore Yellowface makeup to change his features to a caricatured approximation of a Japanese person. The issue was raised in the 1993 film Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, when Bruce Lee and his girlfriend Linda Emery (portrayed in the film by Jason Scott Lee and Lauren Holly) watch Breakfast at Tiffany's in the theater, but Linda suggests they leave midway through the picture after she notices that Bruce is upset at the stereotypical depiction of an Asian man portrayed by Mickey Rooney.

In the 45th anniversary edition DVD release, producer Richard Shepherd repeatedly apologizes, saying,"If we could just change Mickey Rooney, I'd be thrilled with the movie." Director Blake Edwards stated,"Looking back, I wish I had never done it...and I would give anything to be able to recast it, but it's there, and onward and upward." In a 2008 interview about the film, 87-year-old Rooney said he was heartbroken about the criticism and that he had never received any complaints about his portrayal of the character.

A free outdoor screening in Sacramento, California, scheduled for August 23, 2008, was replaced with the animated film Ratatouille after protests about the character Mr. Yunioshi. The protest was led by Christina Fa of the Asian American Media Watch. In light of the protest, Sacramento vice mayor Steven Cohn stated that "the intent was never to create controversy, to make political statements or to be on the avant garde of the movie world, let alone to offend significant members of our community."

Kung Fu (TV series)

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Kung Fu (1972–1975) is an American television series which starred David Carradine. It was created by Ed Spielman, directed and produced by Jerry Thorpe, and developed by Herman Miller, who was also a writer for, and co-producer of, the series. The show was preceded by a full length feature TV pilot, an ABC "Movie of the Week", which was broadcast in 1972.

Kung Fu follows the adventures of a Shaolin monk, Kwai Chang Caine [虔官昌 Qián Guānchāng] (portrayed by David Carradine as an adult, Keith Carradine as a teenager and Radames Pera as a young boy) who travels through the American Old West armed only with his skill in martial arts, as he seeks his half-brother, Danny Caine.

This role and concept originated with Asian-American kung fu legend Bruce Lee, but he was cut from the production, or any credit from the studio, in favor of the then non-martial artist Carradine. (The late) Mako recalls a studio executive's reaction when asked about featuring a non-Asian in the lead of Kung Fu: "I remember one of the vice presidents -- in charge of production, I suppose -- who said, 'If we put a yellow man up on the tube, the audience will turn the switch off in less than five minutes.' "

Production history

Herbie Pilato, in his 1993 book The Kung Fu Book of Caine: The Complete Guide to TV's First Mystical Eastern Western, commented on the casting history for the series, particularly on the involvement of both Carradine and Bruce Lee:

Before the filming of the Kung Fu TV movie began, there was some discussion as to whether or not an Asian actor should play Kwai Chang Caine. Bruce Lee was considered for the role. In 1971, Bruce Lee wasn't the cult film hero he later became for his roles in Fists of Fury (1971), Enter the Dragon (1973), and Game of Death (1978). At that point he was best known as Kato on TV's Green Hornet (1966–1967) (Kung Fu guest actor Robert Ito reports that Lee hated the role of Kato because he "thought it was so subservient"). "In my eyes and in the eyes of Jerry Thorpe," says Harvey Frand, "David Carradine was always our first choice to play Caine. But there was some disagreement because the network was interested in a more muscular actor and the studio was interested in getting Bruce Lee." Frand says Lee wouldn't have really been appropriate for the series — despite the fact that he went on to considerable success in the martial arts film world. The Kung Fu show needed a serene person, and Carradine was more appropriate for the role. Ed Spielman agrees: "I liked David in the part. One of Japan's foremost Karate champions used to say that the only qualification that was needed to be trained in the martial arts was that you had to know how to dance. And on top of being an accomplished athlete and actor, David could dance." Nonetheless, grumbling from the Asian community would have made sense, given the fact that major roles for Asian actors were almost nonexistent. James Hong, an actor on the show and ex-president of the Association of Asian Pacific American Artists (AAPAA) says that at the time Asian actors felt that "if they were going to do a so-called Asian hero on Kung Fu, then why don't they hire an Asian actor to play the lead? But then the show went on, we realized that it was a great source of employment for the Asian acting community." In fact, Hong says, Carradine had a good relationship with the Asian community. (pages 32–33)

Linda Lee Caldwell

In her memoirs, Bruce Lee's widow, Linda Lee Cadwell, asserts that Lee created the concept for the series, which was then stolen by Warner Bros.

In a December 8, 1971 television interview on The Pierre Berton Show, Bruce Lee himself makes reference to both Warner Brothers and Paramount wanting him to do a TV series. After Pierre Berton comments, "there's a pretty good chance that you'll get a TV series in the States called The Warrior, in it, where you use what, the Martial Arts in Western setting?"

Lee responds, "that was the original idea, ...both of them (Warner and Paramount), I think, they want me to be in a modernized type of a thing, and they think that "The Western" type of thing is out. Whereas I want to do the Western. Because, you see, how else can you justify all of the punching and kicking and violence, except in the period of the west?"

Later in the interview, Berton asks Lee about "the problems that you face as a Chinese hero in an American series. Have people come up in the industry and said 'well, we don't know how the audience are going to take a non-American'"?.

Lee responds "Well, such question has been raised, in fact, it is being discussed. That is why The Warrior is probably not going to be on." Lee adds, "They think that business wise it is a risk. I don't blame them. If the situation were reversed, and an American star were to come to Hong Kong, and I was the man with the money, I would have my own concerns as to whether the acceptance would be there."
What Lee called "The Warrior" and "Kung Fu" shared the idea of a lead character in a TV series who performs Martial Arts in a Western setting.

According to Lee's comments to Berton, he was talking to both Warner Brothers and Paramount about The Warrior as late as December 1971.

Contemporary examples

President Clinton: The Manchurian Candidates

On 24th of March 1997, The National Review published an illustrated cover of then President Clinton, Hillary Clinton and Vice President Al Gore. They were in stereotypical Oriental garb and featuring caricatured features, buck teeth and slanted eyes.

Asian Americans across the country were incensed. Daphne Kwok, executive director of the Organization of Chinese Americans described the cover as extemely offensive and racist. She complained that Asian-Americans sense that their patriotism is being besmirched. The National Review was unrepentant, editor John O'Sullivan denounced the complaints as orchestrated by the ethnic grievance industry and demanded an apology from Ms. Kwok.

Plainly this is a philistine objection to the nature of caricatures and cartoons as such. For these require exaggerated features and, where a social type is portrayed, a recognizable stereotype. Thus, a cartoonist who wants to depict an Englishman will show him wearing a monocle and bowler hat, a Frenchman in beret and striped jersey, a Russian in fur hat, dancing the gopak, etc.

Yellowface in Europe: Ushi & Dushi/ Ushi Heiku

The most blatant contemporary example of yellowface, is a character created by Dutch TV and later adopted by Danish TV RTL called Ushi, a caricature of a Japanese woman, but played by white women. The sole gag running in these highly popular programs is the portrayal of a stereotypical Japanese female journalist, with buck teeth, bottle glasses and a bad accent. Ushi & Dushi. Numerous examples of interviews can be found on Youtube.

In Dutch TV the character's full name is Ushi Hirosaki in Danish TV it is Ushi Heiku. Broadcasted via RTL Group, the Dutch character last appeared in the show Ushi & Dushi in December 2009. The show did receive criticism for being racist, but only it seems because she was also in blackface portraying a woman from Curacao. According to the Dutch wiki page for the show, it is very popular Ushi & Dushi.The viewer ratings are about 2 million per episode. For a country of about 16 million people that is quite a substantial rating.

Filmography

Main article: Yellow Peril

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Gale Sondergaard in the trailer for The Letter (1940)

Imagine a person, tall, lean and feline, high-shouldered, with a brow like Shakespeare and a face like Satan, ... one giant intellect, with all the resources of science past and present ... Imagine that awful being, and you have a mental picture of Dr. Fu-Manchu, the yellow peril incarnate in one man. –The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu

The phrase "yellow peril" was common in the U.S. newspapers owned by William Randolph Hearst. It was also the title of a popular book by an influential U.S. religious figure, G.G. Rupert, who published The Yellow Peril; or, Orient vs. Occident in 1911. Based on the phrase "the kings from the East" in the Christian scriptural verse Revelation 16:12, Rupert, who believed in the doctrine of British Israelism, claimed that China, India, Japan and Korea were attacking England and the U.S., but that Jesus Christ would stop them.

The "Yellow Peril" was also a frequent theme of pulp fiction in the early twentieth century and that was reflected in other entertainment media. The Swedish author Sven Lindqvist has pointed out that several science fiction novels from the time depicting cataclysmic clashes of civilizations take particular relish in describing the ultimate defeat of the Chinese, as compared to Africans or communists.

One particular example is Jack London's 1914 story The Unparalleled Invasion, which has been controversial for its depiction of genocide and provides evidence of London as a racist. The genocide, described in considerable detail, is throughout the book described as justified and "the only possible solution to the Chinese problem," and nowhere is there mentioned any objection to it. The then commonly accepted phrases "Yellow Race," "yellow crowds in streets," "yellow faces," and similar racial epithets are frequently used throughout the story. It ends with the "sanitation of China" and its re-settlement by Western settlers.

"Pulp magazines in the 30s had a lot of yellow peril characters loosely based on Fu Manchu," says William F. Wu, a pioneer in Asian science fiction writing in the U.S. "Most were of Chinese descent, but because of the geopolitics at the time, a growing number of people were seeing Japan as a threat, too."

In his 1982 book The Yellow Peril: Chinese Americans in American fiction, 1850-1940, Wu theorizes that the fear of Asians dates back to Mongol invasion in the Middle Ages. "The Europeans believed that Mongols were invading in mass, but actually, they were just on horseback and riding really fast," he writes. Most Europeans had never seen an Asian before, and the harsh contrast in language and physical appearance probably caused more skepticism than transcontinental immigrants did. "I think the way they looked had a lot to do with the paranoia," Wu says.

Silent Era

Ramón Novarro, the Latin Lover, with Lupe Vélez in Laughing Boy (1934)

Even now Hollywood continues to weigh in with racial stereotypes, but during the early part of the 20th Century, people like Sessue Hayakawa and Ramón Novarro stood tall. Latinos contributed to the American film industry. During the silent and early talkie era, Latinos were almost always stereotyped as tempestuous lovers, bandidos, or cantina girls. One scholar, Antonio Rios-Bustamante, professor of Mexican-American studies and history at the University of Arizona, identified "an early window of opportunity," as a period lasting from 1911 -- the silent era -- until the mid-1930s, when barriers to people of colour solidified.

Scene from Broken Blossoms starring Lilian Gish and Richard Barthelmess in yellowface.

As for the other Americans who were already excluded, Black independent filmmakers, like Oscar Micheaux, who became the first African-American to make a film in 1919. He wrote, directed and produced the silent motion picture, The Homesteader. Given the times, his accomplishments in publishing and film are extraordinary, including being the first African American to produce a film to be shown in "white" movie theaters. Micheaux and others like William D. Foster made what was termed race movies as an answer to White America.

Most of the early filmmakers were mostly European immigrants, who did not have the same racial attitudes of white Americans, so people of colour were not initially shut out. For instance, Latinos were participating in Hollywood, both as actors and directors, right from the beginning. The cameraman for the first Charlie Chaplin movie, Making a Living, was Enrique Juan Vallejo of Mexico. The early silent films were not subject to "English-only prejudice" as there was no language barrier.

According to Rios-Bustamante, when the denigration of people of colour became profitable, these same producers developed the same attitudes and participated in either excluding or exploiting the images of people of colour, he says. "By the end of the 1920s, the screws came on. They (European filmmakers) adopted U.S. racial values."

One of the reasons the industry was open in the early years was because film was not seen as a respectable profession. The actors who first got into the profession were "culturally marginal". Unfortunately, at this time period, blackface and yellowface were already practised.

Film
Year	Film	Actor/s	Notes
1915	Madame Butterfly	Mary Pickford	This silent film version was directed by Sidney Olcott and starred Mary Pickford as Cio-Cio-San. Mary Pickford was known as "America's Sweetheart," "Little Mary" and "The girl with the curls". Her influence in the development of film acting was enormous and she is a watershed figure in the history of modern celebrity. And as one of silent film's most important performers and producers, her contract demands were central to shaping the Hollywood industry. In consideration of her contributions to American cinema, the American Film Institute named Pickford 24th among the greatest female stars of all time.
1918	The Forbidden City	Norma Talmadge and others	The plot centers around an inter-racial romance between a Chinese princess (Talmage) and an American. When palace officials discover she has fallen pregnant she is sentenced to death. In the latter part of the film Talmadge plays the now adult daughter of the affair, seeking her father in the Philippines.
1919	Mr. Wu	Matheson Lang	Mr. Wu was originally a stage play, written by Harold Owen and Harry M. Vernon. It was first staged in London in 1913; the first U.S. production opened in New York on October 14, 1914. The actor Frank Morgan was in the original Broadway cast, appearing under his original name Frank Wupperman. Matheson Lang was the first actor to portray Mr. Wu (in the 1913 West End production), who became so popular in the role that he starred in a 1919 film version. (The better-known Lon Chaney production is therefore a remake.) Lang continued to play Oriental roles (although not exclusively), and his autobiography was titled Mr. Wu Looks Back (1940).
1919	Broken Blossoms	Richard Barthelmess	Broken Blossoms was released during a period of strong anti-Chinese feeling in the USA, a fear known as the Yellow Peril. Griffith changed Burke's original story to promote a message of tolerance. In Burke’s story, the Chinese protagonist is a sordid young Shanghai drifter pressed into naval service, who frequents opium dens and whorehouses; in the film, he becomes a Buddhist missionary whose initial goal is to spread the word of Buddha and peace (although he is also shown frequenting opium dens when he is depressed). Even at his lowest point, he still prevents his gambling companions from fighting.
1927	Mr. Wu	Lon Chaney, Sr. and Renée Adorée	Wu Li Chang, a Spanish-language version of Mr. Wu, was produced in 1930. Cheekbones and lips were built up with cotton and collodion, the ends of cigar holders were inserted into his nostrils, and the long fingernails were constructed from stripes of painted film stock. Chaney used fishskin to fashion an Oriental cast to his eyes and grey crepe hair was used to create the distinctive Fu-Manchu moustache and goatee. In 2000, Turner Classic Movies presented the television premiere with a music soundtrack composed, produced, edited and mixed by Maria Newman, who also conducted the Viklarbo Chamber Symphony.

Classical Hollywood cinema and Anti-miscegenation Laws

Main article: Motion Picture Production Code

Anti-miscegenation laws, also known as miscegenation laws, were laws that banned interracial marriage and sometimes sex between members of two different races. In the United States, interracial marriage, cohabitation and sex have since 1863 been termed "miscegenation." Contemporary usage of the term "miscegenation" is less frequent. In North America, laws against interracial marriage and interracial sex existed and were enforced in the Thirteen Colonies from the late seventeenth century onwards, and subsequently in several US states and US territories until 1967.

In the case of Hollywood, they had the Motion Picture Production Code, the set of industry censorship guidelines which governed the production of the vast majority of United States motion pictures released by major studios from 1930 to 1968. It was originally popularly known as the Hays Code, after its creator, Will H. Hays. With these guidelines, portrayals of miscegenation were forbidden.

Film
Year	Film	Actor/s	Notes
1929 - 1935	Fu Manchu	Warner Oland	In 1929 Fu made his American film debut in The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu. Oland repeated the role in 1930's The Return of Dr. Fu Manchu and 1931's Daughter of the Dragon. Oland appeared in character in the 1931 musical, Paramount on Parade where the Devil Doctor was seen to murder both Philo Vance and Sherlock Holmes.
1931 - 1937 film series	Charlie Chan	Warner Oland	Shanghai Express (1932), The Painted Veil (1934), Werewolf of London (1935), and Shanghai (1935) youtube :Charlie Chan in Shanghai : Number One Son
1938 - 1942	Charlie Chan film series	Sidney Toler	Main article: Charlie Chan .
1932	The Hatchet Man	Edward G. Robinson and Loretta Young	Makeup artists had noticed that audiences were more likely to reject Western actors in Asian disguise if the faces of actual Asians were in near proximity. Rather than cast the film with all Asian actors, which would have then meant no star names to attract American audiences, studios simply eliminated most of the Asian actors from the cast. Oriental Hollywood excesses make for rather uncomfortable viewing today, even when directed by such cinematic experts as William Wellman. The director obviously wished to address the clash between ancient culture and modern American life, tradition versus modernity, but the bizarre "Oriental" makeup of Occidental stars Edward G. Robinson and Loretta Young simply gets in the way of the message, especially when contrasted to such genuine Asian supporting players as Toshia Mori and Willie Fung, both briefly spotted skulking about in the background. Made during the few years before strict enforcement of the Hollywood Production Code, The Hatchet Man has elements that would not be allowed later such as adultery, narcotics and a somewhat graphic use of a flying hatchet.
1932	The Mask of Fu Manchu	Boris Karloff and Myrna Loy	The Mask of Fu Manchu at IMDb The most famous early incarnation of the character.The Mask of Fu Manchu The film's tone has long been considered racist and offensive, but that only added to its cult status alongside its humor and Grand Guignol sets and torture sequences. The film was suppressed for many years, but has since received critical re-evaluation and been released on DVD uncut.
1932	Frisco Jenny	Helen Jerome Eddy	Helen Jerome Eddy, in yellowface, portrays Frisco Jenny's loyal servant Amah. Although not a success on the original release, in recent years, Frisco Jenny has been among the pre-Code films rediscovered and re-evaluated thanks to theatrical revivals and cable television screenings. New fans have been impressed by Chatterton's depiction of a tough woman who takes charge of her own destiny long before women's liberation and Wellman's energetic direction and creative camera placement.
1933	The Bitter Tea of General Yen	Nils Asther	General Yen was a box office failure upon its release and has since been overshadowed by Capra's later efforts. In recent years, the film has grown in critical acclaim. In 2000, the film was chosen by British film critic Derek Malcolm as one of the hundred best films in The Century of Films. According to a New York Times Review, Mr. Asther's make-up is impressive, with slanting eyes and dark skin. He talks with a foreign accent. Toshia Mori who in 1932 became the only Asian actress to be selected as a WAMPAS Baby Star, an annual list of young and promising film actresses, was billed third in the film's credits, behind Barbara Stanwyck and Nils Asther. This was her most significant film role, she returned to minor characters in her subsequent films.
1934	The Mysterious Mr. Wong	Béla Lugosi	Bela Lugosi stars as Mr. Wong, a "harmless" Chinatown shopkeeper by day and relentless blood-thirsty pursuer of the Twelve Coins of Confucius by night. They didn't even bother to disguise Lugosi's thick Hungarian accent. It was directed by William Nigh, who three years later directed Karloff in the Mr. Wong detective films.
1937	The Good Earth	Luise Rainer and Paul Muni	Please look at notable entries, regarding this film.
1937	Lost Horizon	H.B. Warner	H.B. Warner as Chang. In yellowface as an ancient Chinese man who rescues the plane crash survivors and takes them to Shangri-La. H.B. Warner lost the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor to Joseph Schildkraut for the same film. Lost Horizon was named one of the 10 best films of 1937 by The New York Times and later won two Academy Awards, for Best Film Editing, and Best Art Direction.
1937 - 1939	Mr. Moto film series	Peter Lorre as Mr. Moto film series	Between 1937 and 1939 eight motion pictures were produced by 20th Century Fox starring Peter Lorre as Mr. Kentaro Moto. Unlike the novels, Moto is the central character, wears glasses, and no longer has gold teeth. He is still impeccably dressed in primarily Western suits, only wearing a yukata when he is relaxing at home. The stories are action-oriented due to Moto’s liberal use of judo (only hinted at in the novels) and due to his tendency to wear disguises. Mr. Moto is described as being just over 5 feet tall in the film Danger Island. (Lorre was actually 5 feet 5 inches).
1939	Island of Lost Men	Anthony Quinn	Anna May Wong plays Kim Ling Anthony Quinn is in yellowface and portrays Chang Tai, a "Chinese" agent.
1939	The Mystery of Mr. Wong	Boris Karloff	Notes
1940	The Letter	Gale Sondergaard	Sondergaard plays a Eurasian, a trope of the Dragonlady. Variety said, "Never has [the W. Somerset Maugham play] been done with greater production values, a better all-around cast or finer direction. Its defect is its grimness. Director William Wyler, however, sets himself a tempo which is in rhythm with the Malay locale . . . Davis' frigidity at times seems to go even beyond the characterization. On the other hand, Marshall never falters. Virtually stealing these honors in the pic, however, is Stephenson as the attorney, while Sondergaard is the perfect mask-like threat".
1942	Little Tokyo, U.S.A.	Harold Huber as Takimura, American-born spy for Tokyo, June Duprez as Teru	In its day, Little Tokyo, U.S.A. exemplified yellowface at its most pernicious. While other works had used Asian make-up to ridicule or vilify Asian features, this B movie used yellowface directly to deny a group of Asian Americans their civil rights. Twentieth Century-Fox seized on one of the most controversial aspects of the homefront, the roundup and internment of people of Japanese descent on the West Coast. Little Tokyo basically developed the theme that anyone of Japanese descent, including American citizens, was loyal to the emperor of Japan and a potential traitor to America. The movie employed a quasi-documentary style of filming. Twentieth Century sent its cameramen to the Japanese quarter of Los Angeles to shoot the actual evacuation. However, after the evacuation, night shots were difficult in the deserted "Little Tokyo". Night scenes were filmed in Chinatown, instead-who would notice that the street signs had Chinese instead of Japanese characters? This assumption carried over to casting: Chinese actor Richard Loo played one of the lead Japanese roles in the film. The movie ends up extolling the necessity for the internment of Japanese Americans. In retrospect, knowing that not a single charge of espionage was ever brought against a Japanese American during wartime, this sensationalistic story reeks of racist propaganda. Little Tokyo, U.S.A. stands as a cautionary reminder of just how horribly a community's image can be distorted when it's not there to represent itself.
1944	Dragon Seed	Katharine Hepburn, Walter Huston, Aline MacMahon, Turhan Bey, Agnes Moorehead, J. Carrol Naish, and Hurd Hatfield	Based on a best-selling book by Pearl S. Buck, the film portrays a peaceful village in China that has been invaded by the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second Sino-Japanese war. The men in the village choose to adopt a peaceful attitude toward their conquerors, but Jade (played by Hepburn), a headstrong woman, stands up to the Japanese. Aline MacMahon was nominated for an Academy Award for best supporting actress. In Lion of Hollywood author Scott Eyman wrote that this was one of the worst of all MGM pictures (p. 364).
1946	Anna and the King of Siam	Rex Harrison, Linda Darnell, and Gale Sondergaard	Notes
1946	Ziegfeld Follies	Fred Astaire and Lucille Bremer	Limehouse Blues: Conceived as a "dramatic pantomime" with Astaire as a proud but poverty-stricken Chinese labourer whose infatuation with the unattainable Bremer leads to tragedy. The story serves as bookends for a dream ballet inspired by Chinese dance motifs in an unfortunate, racially stereotyped setting.
1955	Blood Alley	Anita Ekberg, Berry Kroeger, Paul Fix, and Mike Mazurki	Despite the star power of its lead actors and director, Blood Alley received a lukewarm reception from critics[1]. The New York Times proclaimed, "Blood Alley, despite its exotic, oriental setting, is a standard chase melodrama patterned on a familiar blueprint."[2] Far better were Paul Fix, Berry Kroeger, and Anita Ekberg, who weren't the most convincing "Chinese" in the world but who seem to fit right in with the blood-and-thunder proceedings. Today's critics have focused on Blood Alley's anti-communist aspect, website sover.net calling it "only a banal actioner" [3] and DVDtalk proclaiming it "preposterous but entertaining" and claiming that "Wayne and Bacall have no chemistry at all" [4].
1955	Love is a Many Splendored Thing	Jennifer Jones	Set in 1949-50 Hong Kong, it tells the story of a married, but separated, American reporter (played by William Holden), who falls in love with a Eurasian doctor originally from Mainland China (played by Jennifer Jones), only to encounter prejudice from her family and from Hong Kong society. Apart from Jennifer Jones, the rest of the family were cast with East Asian Actors. The film won Academy Awards for Best Costume Design, Color, Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture and Best Music, Song (for Sammy Fain and Paul Francis Webster for "Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing"). It was nominated for Best Actress in a Leading Role (Jennifer Jones), Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color (Lyle Wheeler, George Davis, Walter M. Scott, Jack Stubbs), Best Cinematography, Color, Best Picture and Best Sound, Recording.
1956	The Conqueror	John Wayne	The picture was a critical and commercial failure (often ranked as one of the worst films of the 1950s), which is remarkable given the stature of the cast. Wayne, who was at the height of his career, had lobbied for the role after seeing the script and was widely believed to have been grossly miscast. (He was so "honored" by The Golden Turkey Awards.)
1956	The King and I	Rita Moreno	Notes
1956	The Teahouse of the August Moon	Marlon Brando	Notes
1957	Sayonara	Ricardo Montalban	Notes
1958	The Inn of the Sixth Happiness	*Curd Jürgens and Robert Donat	The film makers, since release, have been criticised for casting, Ingrid Bergman, a tall woman with a Swedish accent, as Gladys Aylward who was in fact short and had a cockney accent. Likewise, the two leads, British actor Robert Donat and Austrian actor Curt Jurgens were not even Chinese.
1961	Breakfast at Tiffany's	Mickey Rooney	Please look at notable entries, regarding this film.
1961	Flower Drum Song	Juanita Hall	The film and stage play were based on the 1957 novel of the same name by the Chinese American author C.Y. Lee. In 1960 producer Ross Hunter cast Anna May Wong, in Flower Drum Song. However, Wong became ill in December of 1960 and was replaced by Juanita Hall. This movie was unusual (for its time) in featuring nearly all Asian American cast members (one of the few speaking Caucasian parts being that of a mugger), including dancers, though two of the singing voices were not by Asian ones. Starring in this movie were Nancy Kwan, James Shigeta, Benson Fong, James Hong, Reiko Sato and the original Broadway cast members Jack Soo, Miyoshi Umeki and Juanita Hall (an African American actress who previously played the Pacific Islander Bloody Mary in the Broadway and film productions of Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific). In 2008, Flower Drum Song was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
1962	The Manchurian Candidate	Henry Silva	Notes
1962	My Geisha	Shirley MacLaine	Notes
1962	A Majority of One	Alec Guinness	Notes
1963	55 Days at Peking	Flora Robson	Notes
1964	7 Faces of Dr. Lao	Tony Randall	Notes
1965	Pierrot le fou	Anna Karina	Notes
1965	Genghis Khan	Robert Morley, James Mason and others	Notes
1965	Gilligan's Island	Vito Scotti	Notes
1965	Get Smart	Leonard Strong (actor)	As "The Claw", in the episode: "Diplomat's Daughter". "Not Craw, Craw!"
1965	The Return of Mr. Moto	Henry Silva	In 1965 Mr. Moto's character was revived in a low-budget Robert Lippert production filmed in England starring Henry Silva. In Mr. Moto Returns, a.k.a. The Return of Mr. Moto, Mr. I.A. Moto is now a member of Interpol. The extremely tall Silva conveyed an almost James Bond-like playboy character; in the fight scenes he is clearly not proficient in martial arts. He speaks in a lazy 'Beatnik' manner. Nowhere in the film is it even mentioned that Moto is Japanese. He is referred to as an "oriental" and, oddly, in the trailer, Moto is referred to as a “swinging Chinese cat.” It is only when he is disguised as a Japanese oil representative, Mr. Takura, that a more stereotypical portrayal of a Japanese businessman is given.
1966	7 Women	Woody Strode and Mike Mazurki	Notes

The 'New Hollywood' and Post-classical cinema

After 1967, anti-miscegenation laws were repealed in the United States of America, but Hollywood practices still found it normal to yellowface white actors.

The 1980s was also the decade where the phenomenon of the white ninja kid trope grew ascendant. Young all-American White kids who were trained by the Ninja Masters of Japan.

Film
Year	Film	Actor/s	Notes
1972 – 1975	Kung Fu	David Carradine as Kwai Chang Caine	See Notable Examples.
1973	Lost Horizon	John Gielgud as Chang	Notes
1975	One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing	Peter Ustinov and others	Notes
1976	Murder by Death	Peter Sellers	Peter Sellers plays Inspector Sidney Wang, based on Charlie Chan and appropriately accompanied by his adopted, Japanese son Willie (Richard Narita). Wang wears elaborate Chinese costumes, and his grammar is frequently criticized by the annoyed host. It could be argued that Sellers' role is in itself a parody of yellowface casting in earlier films.
1978	Revenge of the Pink Panther	Peter Sellers	Inspector Clouseau had many disguises and this included the quintessential Chinaman stereotype.
1980	The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu	Peter Sellers	Notes
1980	Flash Gordon	Max von Sydow as Emperor Ming	Ming the Merciless is the sci fi version of Fu Manchu.
1981	Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen	Peter Ustinov as Charlie Chan	In 1980, Jerry Shylock proposed a multi-million dollar comedy film, to be called Charlie Chan and the Dragon Lady. A group calling itself C.A.N. (Coalition of Asians to Nix) was formed, protesting the fact that two white actors, Peter Ustinov and Angie Dickinson, had been cast in the primary roles. Others protested that the film itself contained a number of stereotypes; Shylock responded that the film was not a documentary. The film was released the following year as Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen and was an "abysmal failure." More successful was Wayne Wang's Chan is Missing (1982), which was a spoof of the older Chan films. An updated film version of the character was planned in the 1990s by Miramax; this new Charlie Chan was to be "hip, slim, cerebral, sexy and ... a martial-arts master", but the film did not come to fruition.
1981	Hardly Working	Jerry Lewis
1982	The Year of Living Dangerously	Linda Hunt as Billy Kwan	The Year of Living Dangerously was entered into the 1983 Cannes Film Festival where it was well-received by audiences and critics. Actress Linda Hunt won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
1982	Marco Polo (TV miniseries)	Leonard Nimoy as Achmet	American television mini-series
1985	Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins	Joel Grey as Chiun	Film based on the Destroyer book series. The role garnered Joel Grey a Saturn Award and a second Golden Globe nomination for "Best Supporting Actor".
1994	Sabotage	Adam Yauch	Beastie Boys music video.
1999	Galaxy Quest	Tony Shalhoub as Fred Kwan / Tech Sergeant Chen	Notes

21st Century

Film
Year	Film	Actor/s & Role	Notes
2001	Not Another Teen Movie	Samm Levine as Bruce	A parody of racist stereotypes in teen films, most notably Long Duk Dong in Sixteen Candles.
2005 Australian television series	We Can Be Heroes	Chris Lilley as Ricky Wong	Ricky Wong is a 23-year-old Chinese physics student who lives in the suburb of Wheelers Hill, Melbourne, Victoria. He is often exuberant and tells his colleagues that "Physics is Phun" and that they are in the "Wong" laboratory. This character is largely a vehicle for parodying the stereotypical "Chinese overachiever", or model migrant.
2006	Cloud 9	Paul Rodriguez as Mr. Wong	Cloud 9
2007	Balls of Fury	Christopher Walken as Feng	Feng is a parody of the yellow peril and Fu Manchu stereotype.
2007	Norbit	Eddie Murphy as Mr. Wong	For his portrayal. Eddie Murphy received a Golden Raspberry Award. Worst Supporting Actor (Eddie Murphy; as Mr. Wong)
2007	Grindhouse	Nicolas Cage as Dr. Fu Manchu	Fake Trailer: Werewolf Women of the SS
2007	I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry	Rob Schneider as the Asian minister and photographer	Schneider is in fact one quarter Filipino by descent, but wore prosthetics for the role which were criticised as an offensive stereotype. Nominated for the Worst Supporting Actor Golden Raspberry Award but lost to Eddie Murphy.
2008	My Name Is Bruce	Ted Raimi as Wing	Notes
2009	Crank: High Voltage	David Carradine as Poon Dong	Poon Dong, played by the late David Carradine, is the head of the Chinese Triad. In Crank: High Voltage. The name of the character is a pun, being both a stereotypical Chinese-sounding name and slang for genitalia.
2009	Chanel - Paris - Shanghai A Fantasy - The Short Movie	Freja Beha, Baptiste Giabiconi	Karl Lagerfeld Opened His Pre-Fall Show in Shanghai With a Film That Included Yellow Face. Lagerfeld defended this as a reference to old films. “It is an homage to Europeans trying to look Chinese,” he explained. “Like in ‘The Good Earth’, the people in the movie liked the idea that they had to look like Chinese. Or like actors in ‘Madame Butterfly’. People around the world like to dress up as different nationalities.” "It is about the idea of China, not the reality." Chinese persons played the maid, a courtesan and background characters. The film is currently on youtube

Theatre Examples

Miss Saigon

Miss Saigon (1989–1999) is a West End musical by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil, with lyrics by Boublil and Richard Maltby, Jr.

The setting of the plot is relocated to the 1970s Saigon during the Vietnam War, and Madame Butterfly's American Lieutenant and Japanese geisha coupling is replaced by a romance between an American GI and a Vietnamese bar girl. This musical has received criticism for what some have perceived as a racist or sexist overtone, including protests regarding its portrayal of Asian men, Asian women, or women in general.

Originally, Jonathan Pryce and Keith Burns, white actors playing Eurasian/Asian characters, wore eye prostheses and bronzing cream to make themselves look more Asian, which outraged some who drew comparisons to a "minstrel show". From April 1989 to May 1990, nearly 100 shows were produced under the agreement between Equity and the League of American Theaters and Producers, 33 of the shows, with 504 roles, had no ethnic minority actors and 12 other productions had only one or two ethnic actors.

In the London production of Miss Saigon, Lea Salonga originally starred as Kim, with Jonathan Pryce as the Engineer. When the production transferred from London to New York City, the Actors' Equity Association (AEA) refused to allow Pryce, a white actor, to recreate the role of the Eurasian pimp in America.

As Alan Eisenberg, executive secretary of Actors' Equity explained, "The casting of a Caucasian actor made up to appear Asian is an affront to the Asian community. The casting choice is especially disturbing when the casting of an Asian actor, in the role, would be an important and significant opportunity to break the usual pattern of casting Asians in minor roles."

This ruling led to criticism from many including British Actors Equity Association, citing violations of the principles of artistic integrity and freedom. Producer Cameron Mackintosh threatened to cancel the show, despite massive advanced ticket sales.

Although there had been a large, well-publicized international search among Asian actresses to play Kim, there had been no equivalent search for Asian actors to play the major Asian male roles—specifically, Engineer (Pryce) and Thuy (Keith Burns). However, others pointed out that since the Engineer's character was Eurasian (French-Vietnamese), they argued that Pryce was being discriminated on the basis that he was Caucasian. Also, Pryce was considered by many in Britain to have "star status", a clause that allows a well-known foreign actor to recreate a role on Broadway without an American casting call. After pressure from Mackintosh, the general public, The Mayor of New York and many of its own members, Actors' Equity was forced to reverse its decision. Pryce starred, sans yellow face makeup, alongside Salonga and Willy Falk (as Chris) when the show opened on Broadway.

Madama Butterfly

Albanese as Butterfly in Puccini's Madama Butterfly'

Madama Butterfly (Madame Butterfly) is an opera in three acts (originally two acts) by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa.

It is the story of a Japanese maiden (Cio-Cio San), who falls in love with a white American navy lieutenant. The Japanese girl and the officer have sex, resulting in a child. The American seaman leaves while Cio-Cio San blissfully awaits his return, who arrives back in Japan with his American wife in tow. The heartbroken Japanese girl bids farewell to her callous lover, then kills herself.

There has been much controversy about the opera, especially its sexist and racist themes. The fact that it is the most-performed opera in the United States, where it ranks as Number 1 in Opera America's list of the 20 most-performed operas in North America. only helps to perpetuate the notion of the dominant white male over the subdued Asian female who can be cast aside.

• Puccini's original production premiered on February 17, 1904, at La Scala in Milan. All seven main characters, including the lead role of Cio-Cio San were played by caucasian women.

• In the 2010 production by The Dallas Opera, the lead role of Cio-Cio San, an Asian female charager, is played by caucasian Adina Nitescu.

"Whitewashing" or "racebending"

True Believer (1989 film) From K.W. Lee "it was not a true picture…They have completely preempted the struggle of Asians.”

"Whitewashing" or "racebending" are terms used to describe the adaptation of works of an originally ethnic origin to suit the perceived majority preference for Caucasian leads, Western settings, or both. This often occurs in adaptations of anime or manga works into films intended for American audiences, as in the film adaptations of Guyver and Speed Racer. Whitewashing is the older term, with “racebending" coming to the fore, as a broader term, when Patrick Stewart performed Othello on stage, in a "photo negative" production, as a white man, with an otherwise all-black cast, in 1997.

"Racebending" as a neologism was used to describe Robert Downey Jr.'s parody role in Tropic Thunder and then popularised by fans of Avatar: The Last Airbender when a live-action film was to be made and the main cast were all white actors. The fans protested with letter writing campaigns, picketing the casting and finally, websites calling for the boycotting of Hollywood "racebending" practices were set up. Movie critic Roger Ebert has called the whitewashing of the cast in The Last Airbender wrong, stating: "The original series Avatar: The Last Airbender was highly regarded and popular for three seasons on Nickelodeon. Its fans take it for granted that its heroes are Asian. Why would Paramount and Shyamalan go out of their way to offend these fans? There are many young Asian actors capable of playing the parts." . There have been cases of non-white actors being cast to portray originally white characters in secondary roles: Michael Clarke Duncan played Wilson Fisk, also known as the crime lord Kingpin, in the 2003, Daredevil (film) and Daniel Henney as Agent Zero in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, (2009). The majority is the reverse.

"Whitewashing" may also occur in the adaptation of true stories, as in the cases of True Believer (1989 film), where the Asian American activists were completely written off and 21 (2008 film), where the real-life students were Asian Americans, but in the movie they were portrayed as white.

The practice of “yellowface” is no longer so prevalent, the problem of white actors being cast in non-white roles continues, in Hollywood: recent big-budget movie adaptations have actively erased or are currently changing, the original sources, to make room for a white hero. Between 2008's 21, to the recent casting for movies like Forbidden Kingdom, Dragonball Evolution, King of Fighters, Akira, Prince of Persia, and The Last Airbender, roles for non-white lead characters have consistently gone to white actors.

Akira, a popular manga and anime from the 1980s was intended to receive a "whitewashing" treatment; changing Neo-Tokyo to Neo-Manhattan and the character Tetsuo to be changed to Travis. The character of Kaneda was going to be kept, but the actor's ethnicity was not described. The production is currently on hiatus. There were also negotiations for a movie adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s, work Anansi Boys, but the "moviemakers wanted to change the lead black characters to white or drop the magical elements altogether". Gaiman claimed not to need the money, "Not needing the money puts me in a magical place because I can say no. I like the idea of having good movies made or having no movies made."

Casting controversy : 21 (2008 film)

Whitewashing of the MIT Blackjack Team. Studio executives determined that "most of the film's actors would be white, with perhaps an Asian female. 21 (2008)

Controversy arose over the decision to make the majority of the characters white, even though the main players in the book Bringing Down the House, upon which the film 21 is based, were mainly Asian-Americans

Jane Willis, the real “Jill Taylor” played by Kate Bosworth in 21, said in an interview that it was obvious early on that the studio wasn’t interested in staying true to Ben Mezrich’s book. Although race and gender were key to the dynamic of the MIT group, and Ma recruited her to “give the team, which was mostly Asian and male, a little diversity,” the studios originally wanted her character left out. They wanted an all white male cast with one Asian girl as a love interestand in another interview, this was also confirmed by Mezrich. Nick Rogers of The Enterprise wrote "The real-life students mostly were Asian-Americans, but 21 whitewashes its cast and disappointingly lumps its only major Asian actors (Aaron Yoo and Liza Lapira) into one-note designations as the team's kleptomaniac and a slot-playing "loser."

Supporters of the decision to cast Jim Sturgess as Ben Campbell claim that producers simply sought the best actor for the job, regardless of race. Ultimately, this meant passing over many Asian-American talents in favor of London-born Jim Sturgess, who required a dialect coach to speak with an American accent.

Jeff Ma, who was the real-life inspiration for the character Ben Campbell and served as a consultant on the film, was accused of being a "race traitor" on several blogs for not insisting that his character be Asian American. In response, Ma said, "I'm not sure they understand how little control I had in the movie-making process; I didn't get to cast it." Ma said that the controversy was "overblown" and that the important aspect is that a talented actor would portray him.

Chinese American Jeff Ma, inflamed Asian Americans when he told USA Today, "I would have been a lot more insulted if they had chosen someone who was Japanese or Korean, just to have an Asian playing me." Boycott21 and other anti-21 websites quickly sprang up.

According to the author, Ben Mezrich, the MIT team thrived by choosing people who fit the casino mold of the young, foolish, and wealthy. Primarily nonwhite, either Asian or Middle Eastern. Dark skin fitted better with lots of money in the casinos. These were the kids the casinos were accustomed to seeing bet a thousand bucks a hand. White 20-year-olds with $2 million bankrolls stand out. A geeky Asian kid with $100,000 in his wallet didn’t raise any eyebrows.

The Media Action Network for Asian Americans (MANAA) reported on their web site: "After the ‘white-washing’ issue was raised on Entertainment Weekly’s web site, [21] producer Dana Brunetti wrote: "Believe me, I would have LOVED to cast Asians in the lead roles, but the truth is, we didn’t have access to any bankable Asian-American actors that we wanted."

Guy Aoki, MANAA’s Founding President, had spoken to Brunetti about the film in October 2005. Back then, Brunetti said he did not care about realistic ethnic casting and was merely looking for "the best actor for the role". Says Aoki, "Asian American actors are 40 years behind African Americans in being allowed to play themselves in their own stories. 21, unfortunately, continues that discriminatory tradition."

Film
Year	Film	Actor/s & Role	Notes
1989	True Believer (1989 film)	James Woods as Eddie Dodd	The film is loosely based on an investigative series of articles written by Pulitzer Prize nominated journalist K. W. Lee on the conviction of immigrant Chol Soo Lee for a 1973 San Francisco Chinatown gangland murder. The news coverage led to a new trial, eventual acquittal and release of the prisoner from San Quentin's Death Row. Screenwriter Wesley Strick based the character of Eddie Dodd on real-life Bay Area defense attorney Tony Serra. The contributions of K.W. Lee are completely brushed aside, as are those of the other Asian Americans who worked tirelessly on the case, including Jay Yoo, Grace Kim, Ranko Yamada, Tom Kim, Warren Furutani and Luke Kim. At the time of True Believer’s release, K.W. Lee told the Charleston Gazette he enjoyed the film “as fiction … but it was not a true picture. They have completely preempted the struggle of Asians.” Strick's screenplay was nominated for a 1990 Edgar Award for Best Mystery Motion Picture.
1991	The Guyver	Jack Armstrong as Sean Barker	Science fiction film based on the Guyver manga series. Shō Fukamachi became Sean Barker Mizuki Segawa was renamed Mizky Segawa with ethnicity intact and played by Vivian Wu Nathan Shumate of Cold Fusion Video Reviews criticized the film, in particular "the annoying demeanor and lack of personality" of lead actor Jack Armstrong," adding: "If there ever was a movie made for fan appreciation only, this is it, [...] but not everything can be blamed on audience unfamiliarity; there are plenty of elements in this movie that don’t work even by fanboy standards." The film generated enough interest for a sequel, Guyver: Dark Hero, with Armstrong replaced by David Hayter in the role of Sean, which was more well-received critically than its predecessor.
1994	Guyver: Dark Hero	David Hayter as Sean Barker	Mizky Segawa was cast with Billy Lee Compared to the previous film, Guyver 2 was much closer to the source material. The flashback to the Creation of the Guyvers, for instance, is taken almost verbatim from the manga. Unlike the first one, Guyver 2 went direct-to-video and was Rated R (Unlike the PG-13 rating of the first movie). Guyver 2 was more critically successful than its predecessor.
1995	Mortal Kombat	Christopher Lambert as Raiden	Raiden is in the Japanese religion Shinto, from which the character is derived, Raiden (also known as Raijin). His appearance in the games resembles more the Taoist thunder god presented in the Chinese temples, right down to his attire. In a case of whitewashing, Lambert was cast to portray the god. The movie was well received by fans of the series and became a financial success, eventually grossing $70 million in the U.S. (and over $125 million worldwide) while jump starting the Hollywood careers of Paul W. S. Anderson and Robin Shou as Liu Kang, among others.
1996	Generation X	Heather McComb as Jubilee	This character has since been properly portrayed by Asian actresses Katrina Florece in X-Men and Kea Wong in X2: X-Men United and X-Men: The Last Stand.
1997	Mortal Kombat: Annihilation	James Remar as Raiden	Sequel that replaced Lambert with Remar. However, in a rare case of race-switching favoring Asians, Asian actress Irina Pantaeva was featured as Jade, a character who was portrayed as white in her first appearance in Mortal Kombat II, but black in every game thereafter to this day.
1997	Fist of the North Star	Gary Daniels as Kenshiro, Costas Mandylor as Shin, Malcolm McDowell as Ryuken and Chris Penn as "Jackal" (actually a renamed Jagi)	Film based on the Japanese Anime.
1997	Starship Troopers	Casper Van Dien as Juan "Johnnie" Rico	Juan Rico is Filipino in the book, in the films Starship Troopers (1997) and Starship Troopers 3: Marauder (2008), John Rico is played by Casper Van Dien. There is a vast divergence between the original book and film. A report in an American Cinematographer article around the same time as the film's release states the Heinlein novel was optioned well into the pre-production period of the film, which had a working title of Bug Hunt at Outpost Nine; most of the writing team reportedly were unaware of the novel at the time. According to the DVD commentary, Paul Verhoeven never finished reading the novel, claiming he read through the first few chapters and became both "bored and depressed."
2004	Legend of Earthsea	Shawn Ashmore as Ged	A loose adaptation of the award-winning Earthsea novels by Ursula K. Le Guin. It premiered as a two-night television event on the Sci-Fi Channel in December 2004. Le Guin, was not involved in the development of the material or the making of the production. She has written a number of responses to the mishandling of this adaptation of her works, including "A Whitewashed Earthsea" and "Frankenstein's Earthsea".
2008	The Forbidden Kingdom	Michael Angarano as Xuanzhang renamed as Jason Tripitikas	One of the recent films where "whitewashing" occurs. The Asian character is changed into a White character. In this case, an all-American Caucasian kid saves ancient China, helped along the way by Jet Li and Jackie Chan.
2008	21	Jim Sturgess as Ben Campbell	Please see above.
2008	Speed Racer	Emil Hirsch, John Goodman, Susan Sarandon, Paulie Litt, and Scott Porter as the Racer family; Christina Ricci as Trixie; Matthew Fox as Racer X; Kick Gurry as Saprky; Nicholas Elia as Young Speed; Ariel Winter as Young Trixie	Film based on the Japanese Anime, in which the family was originally named Mifune, Trixie was named Michi Shimura, and Spakry was named Sabu.
2009	Dragonball Evolution	Justin Chatwin as Son Goku (Dragon Ball)	Chatwin was cast as Goku, a White kid raised by his Asian Grandfather Randall Duk Kim. Also, like The Forbidden Kingdom, the story is based on Journey to the West and this character is the Monkey King, bearing the character's traditional Japanese name.
2009	The King of Fighters	Sean Faris as Kyo Kusanagi,	Leader of Japan Team The movie premise has been unfavourably compared to the Mortal Kombat film. Other criticism has involved the casting of the Caucasian Sean Faris as the Japanese Kyo Kusanagi. Also the film has been frequently mistaken for a Hollywood production by many even though Hollywood is not involved.
2010	The Last Airbender	Noah Ringer as Aang, Jesse McCartney as Zuko, Jackson Rathbone as Sokka and Nicola Peltz as Katara	See Notable Example. After complaints from the fans over the whitewashing, Zuko was recast with Dev Patel, after Jesse McCartney cited scheduling conflicts with his tour. There are ongoing calls to boycott the movie, set for release in 2010.
2010	The Weapon (comics)	David Henrie as Tommy Zhou	The Weapon is a comic book series about a Hawaiian born Chinese American, super hero It is early in production but Italian American David Henrie has been cast to portray Tommy Zhou, a Chinese American.
2010	Extraordinary Measures	Harrison Ford as Dr. Robert Stonehill	Based on the true story chronicled in the book The Cure: How a Father Raised $100 Million and Bucked the Medical Establishment in a Quest to Save His Children by Geeta Anands. The man responsible for developing the Pompe cure was Dr. Yuan-Tsong Chen while at Duke University. He becomes the Caucasian Dr. Robert Stonehill in the film, portrayed by Harrison Ford.

See also

• Blackface
• The Slanted Screen
• Racism in the United States
• Stereotypes of East and Southeast Asians in American media
• Covert racism
• Laissez-Faire Racism
• Race movie

Further reading

• Wang, Yiman (2005). "The Art of Screen Passing: Anna May Wong's Yellow Yellowface Performance in the Art Deco Era". In Catherine Russell (ed.). 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.
• Paul, John Steven (Spring 2001). Misreading the Chinese Character: Images of the Chinese in Euroamerican Drama to 1925 (review) Asian Theatre Journal - Volume 18, Number 1, pp. 117-119,. {{cite book}}: Text "University of Hawai'i Press" ignored (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
• Moon, Krystyn R. Yellowface: Creating the Chinese in American Popular Music and Performance, 1850s-1920s.

External links

• Racebending.com
• Hollywood Chinese Hollywood Chinese, a 2007 documentary film about the portrayals of Chinese men and women in Hollywood productions.
• The Slanted Screen The Slanted Screen, a 2006 documentary film addressing the portrayals of Asian men in American television and film. Directed by Jeff Adachi.
• "Yellowface: Asians on White Screens", by Yayoi Lena Winfrey, IM Diversity.com.
• "A Certain Slant." by Robert B. Ito, Bright Lights Film Journal.
• Asian American Media Watch.
• Asian Images in Film Introduction.
• Racechanging makeup jpegs