The National Tour of the musical Anything Goes came through College Station this past week. I got a chance to see the show thanks to a friend in my department. It was a fantastic show. I had a really good time watching most of it. The dance numbers were insanely choreographed and good. Billy (Brian Krinsky) and Reno (Emma Stratton) have amazing voices and gave fantastic performances, as did the rest of the cast! But there was one part of it that gave me pause (apologies for any spoilers). It's the part towards the end where two of the characters (who are white American) gamble and win the clothes off a couple of Chinese characters (if you can call them characters instead of caricatures) and pretend to be Chinese to crash an impending wedding rife with pseudo Chinese accents.
I've always felt a very uncomfortable, visceral reaction when there is any hint of yellowface in any production. A large part of that is because I was raised to spurn anyone who would mock Asian heritage through poor imitations. Another reason for the visceral reaction was because I felt like it only highlighted my foreign-ness at the expense of the fact that I am an American who, although born in South Korea, was raised here in the states. Growing up I used to get kids imitating the Chinese language to me (despite the fact that, like Glenn from the Walking Dead, I'm Korean!). I had a friend in elementary school who used to call me "Chinese chink" before I even knew what it meant. More innocuous but no less problematic: two decades later in Chicago I've had a couple of drunk guys called me Jeremy Lin, and some folks on the street called me Yao Ming. The point is when folks see me they don't see a complex person with a complex identity. They associate me with the closest thing to a trope in their brain, and tropes are easy to dismiss. It used to be Bruce Lee in the 70s and 80s and now it's Jeremy.
As I try to take a step back and think more critically through portrayals of minorities I've tentatively come to two conclusions about stereotypes and yellowface. One, that stereotypes of a group are actually permissible as long as there is AT LEAST equal portrayal of people in said group as complex characters and complex people groups. AT LEAST. I've heard the argument that we stereotype the Irish and Italians, and they aren't up in arms about it, so why are Asians and blacks so sensitive? The reason is when it's all said and done, we don't think of the Irish and Italians as Irish and Italian at all. You know what we think of them? They're regular Americans. Translation, they're white, with a hint of European heritage. Asians, on the other hand, are foreign with a hint of assimilation, despite the fact that we've collectively been in this country for over a hundred years. And a large reason for that attitude towards me and other Asian Americans is that there just aren't many stories told of complex, Asian Americans.
If I saw Anything Goes in a vacuum, I'd probably have no qualms with the caricaturization and vague yellowface. It's just one show. Ah, but it's not just one show. It's Mickey Rooney. It's Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee. It's to a lesser extent Yul Brynner. It's the white Shredder in the new Ninja Turtles film. It's the Chinese waiter in a bazillion TV shows and movies. It's the Indian enginerd. It's the asexual Asian male. It's the exoticized and fetished Asian female. There are too many of those and not enough Glenn Rhees, Mindy Kalings, and James Shigetas. It's historical stereotyping and marginalization.
So first tentative conclusion: stereotypes are fine as long as there are complex stories being told in at least equal amounts. Again, at least! And this is what's hard for me as someone who loves theater and recently had the privilege of taking part in telling stories: There just aren't that many stories told of complex Asian characters. That's why I think my impulse to be grumpy at stereotypical portrayals and light yellowface is a valid concern.
A second conclusion that I've come to concerns whether it's okay for a person of one race to portray a character of another race. Once upon a time I had a very different opinion about this, but as someone who has spent his entire community theater career portraying NOT Asian people (again, partially a function of the fact that there aren't very many Asian characters in musical theater), I think that that is certainly defensible if the person is the right actor or actress to portray a certain character, WITH the exception of blackface. Considering our spectacularly crappy history, blackface is never okay, unless you are doing it poignantly to parody the absurdly racist mentality that pervaded television during the minstrel eras, like Jon Hamm did on an episode of 30 Rock, but even that is highly, highly debatable. Another factor to consider is whether or not people of a particular race are given chances to portray characters of their own races. Johnny Depp sells tickets, so of course they're not going to cast a no name Native American actor. It makes business sense, but it perpetuates the marginalization of Native American actors. By the way, when's the last time we saw a Native American on any screen NOT working at a casino or with a feather in his/her headband?
Bottom line, I love musical theater, and I belong to a group who has been consistently marginalized not just in that arena but in television and movies. That's why it's a big deal that this one spectacular show I loved had shallow and hollow portrayals of Asians. It's one in a line of literally dozens and dozens. And I just get exasperated sometimes.
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