Nancy Wang Yuen: Self
Quotes
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Nancy Wang Yuen : Asian American actors who rarely even get to play themselves, because white actors are sometimes taking that role. And, so, not only are Asian American actors not part of the lead and being able to kind of build their star power. So, then, there becomes this cyclical problem where they're not being casts as leads and so then, they don't become a-list actors, so then, people are thinking, "Oh, well, we can't cast an Asian to play this role because they're not a-list, they're not going to be able to, you know, to draw any audiences. So, let's cast an a-list white actor instead to play that." And that has been the historical trend amongst the casting of Asian actors compared to white actors.
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Nancy Wang Yuen : An internal Hollywood code that was based on, kind of, morality, as well as, anti-miscegenation laws that were happening in the United States where, you know, people, whites and people of color, were not allowed to have marital or romantic relationships in the United States. And so, they did this in order to make sure that the audiences in the conservative areas, especially the South, would not boycott or protest. They wanted to be able to reach these audiences that they knew would be against any kind of interracial romance or interracial relationship.
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Nancy Wang Yuen : They're very open to casting white actors as Asian characters, because, it's been done in Hollywood - even though it's been offensive. Now, they do it in different ways, like: oh, well let's just make that - all the sudden - make that Asian character *not* Asian, but, sort of Asian.
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Nancy Wang Yuen : There was an intentionality on the US Government to - to use Hollywood as a propaganda stick. So, a lot of cartoons were actually used in - during World War II, that portray the the Japanese as enemy. I actually saw one where Bugs Bunny, it was called, "Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips." And Nips was a derogatory term for Japanese. And it portrayed them as - it was interesting, because, it portrayed them with really big feet. They were very animalistic so they had the buck teeth and the glasses; but, they also had - they were barefoot and they had these really big feet - like they were animals, right. So, its really easy, I think, to portray an entire race as - animals, you know, in order to kind of then justify killing them, right, justify killing them as an enemy. Dehumanizing them.
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Nancy Wang Yuen : That's always been Hollywood's rationale for racism; because, they always say that wants the audiences. That is something that is from historical, from the institutionalization of the Hays code all the way to today, where there is not Hays code any more, but, there's still that catering to the conservative audience.
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Nancy Wang Yuen : "Breakfast at Tiffany's", I think that was one of the most popular movies of its time. Audrey Hepburn's so glamorous. Except that it's got one of the worst caricatures of Japanese Americans and Japanese people in the history of Yellowface.
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Nancy Wang Yuen : Asian stereotypes are probably one of the long lasting ones from he beginning to now where it's only until recent, I think, people are really seeing an uproar.
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Nancy Wang Yuen : Kevin Kwan, who is an Asian American author who wrote this New York Times bestseller book, they, when he, when they decided to make film adaptation, people asked him if they could make the lead, who is a Chinese-American woman who goes to Asia, right, and she's like, "Oh my God, these Crazy Rich Asians. I'm just Asian-American. What is this about." They wanted to make her white. Right. They asked if they could make her white. He's like you've missed the the entire point of my novel and he, as an Asian American writer can say, like, no. I don't want that to be the adaptation of my story.
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Nancy Wang Yuen : The Hays Code, you can't have the actors, even if they're portraying Asians, to have any kind of cross-racial romance, right. And, so, to be able to portray that at all, it makes sense that they would cast white actors. On screen, people of color and whites were not allowed to have any kind of - even romantic suggestions. And that happened even when white actors were playing characters of color, right. So, even if you have two "Chinese" characters, if one of them was played by a white actor, the other character could not be played by a Chinese actor. Because, that would be - because audiences would understand that that is actually a white actor and a Chinese actor and therefore, they can't have any romantic relationships.
