“Will you never let me be, will you never let me free, the ties that bound us are still around us, there’s no escape that I can see and still those little things remain that bring me happiness or pain” --ERic Maschwitz
Maschwitz wrote this song for the Chinese-American actress Anna May Wong. Ironically, this song summarizes Wong’s life long struggle with racism in American society. As the first Chinese female movie star in Hollywood, her artistic talents were limited by “foolish things” such as her race. Laws pertaining to race and a negative social attitude toward Chinese and Chinese American not only limited her career development, but also dominated her life. Wong was American by definition: born in California and a native English speaker. She was, however, not recognized as an American because of her Chinese background. Her goal in life was to gain the rights of an American citizen.
Wong felt that she never fully belonged to either China or America. She had an itch to get out of Chinatown and enter the big world. Her ticket was the movie industry. The environment that she grew up in is portrayed as an alienated, uncivilized place in “Old San Francisco”. Wong passionately played Shosho in “Piccadilly”, a character who shared her hard work and determination to break into a predominantly white American society. Wong as an individual Chinese-American woman was as sensual and intelligent as Lan Ying Lin in “Daughter of Shanghai”. Wong’s films reflect Chinese Americans’ status during the first half of the twentieth century. Her characters represent a white point of view of Chinese Americans.
We can’t analyze Anna May Wong’s characters without considering the historical context she lived in. Anna May Wong was the daughter of a Chinese laundryman in Los Angeles. She grew up in Chinatown. The isolated Chinatown was portrayed as an underground society by white mainstream American society. In reality, the Chinatown residents were mostly hard-working, productive sweatshop workers. They obeyed traditional Chinese values that required them to be bearing and quiet. Their distanced eastern culture separated them from a dominant white western society, because of this they were considered a second class race. It took a lurid ingenuity to plant the idea that the Chinese were a dark mysterious race in the mind of mainstream audiences. For example, the film “Old San Francisco” is a tale, which demonized Chinatown and Chinese Americans.
In “Old San Francisco”, Chinatown is stereotyped as an underground, evil, hidden place. The visual presentation of the underground Chinatown is like a San Francisco gold mine. Historically, it represents the “Gold rush” in the nineteenth century, which brought Chinese to San Francisco as slave-like labors. The filmmaker’s representation of the underground Chinatown world demonstrates the misunderstanding and lack of communication between white American society and Chinese society. During this time, Americans had very little knowledge about Chinese culture. The economically challenged Chinese laborers comprised much of the work force market. This led to the development of hatred among their white counterparts. Due to this animosity and general misconception toward Chinese Americans, the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882-1943) was passed to keep Chinese immigrants as permanent aliens excluded from the rights given to American citizens.
In “Old San Francisco” the Chinese are portrayed as an unknown, evil race which functions in the hidden underground, like a snake hides in the grass silently attacking the innocence white people. Most of the Asians in this film are drug dealers, pimps or low-lives. Whites actors played all leading roles, including that of Buckwell Chan, a big dumb jerk who happens to be a Mongolian man pretending as a White man. Ironically, Buckwell was played by Warner Oland, a white Swedish actor. The images of the Chinese in Hollywood films were those of the stereotyped Asian American “Yellow Faces,” an idealized image created by white society. However, these are the iconic images planted in the majority of American society.
In the film, they catch Buckwell and pronounced him to be guilty; not because of the many bad things he has done, but because his race is not white. The film gives value to the idea that whiteness implies humanity and civilization. Buckwell is the sin of the city because inside him is an uncivilized, animal like Chinese man. His evil behavior, such as hiding his real identity and locking his Chinese brother (a monkey like dwarf) in a cage, symbolize Buckwell’s demonic animal nature. In reality, pretending to be white was the only way for Chinese to be recognized, and to be successful in the society, because “In the slang wisdom of the day, sojourners from the Middle Kingdom "didn't stand a Chinaman's chance.’” There were various federal acts and Supreme Court rulings that forbade the Chinese to own real estate and to become naturalized citizens, even to emigrate to the U.S. (unless they were laborers). Buckwell’s motive to portend to be a white man is to fade in the excised racial categories in American society, and be recognized as a successful person.
The ending of the movie shows the 1906 earthquake that destroyed the underground Chinatown and killed all the evil characters. This film has strong religious overtones. In one scene of the film, Buckwell and his entourage are drinking and carousing in a dive in the Mile of Hell. A white man barges in and boldly proclaims to all: "In the midst of thy inequities, God will punish thee! His wrath will fall from Heaven." This is a warning from a Christian perspective. By contrast, the Chinese god Chan secretly prays to in the underground is portrayed as an evil entity, which helps Chan to destroy the western civilization. The ending of the film expresses the filmmaker’s message to audiences: the Chinese are the sin of society and the cause of the disaster. The earthquake is twisted into the western god’s punishment toward Chinese evils.
Anna May Wong plays a supporting role in “Old San Francisco”, a sidekick for Buckwell. It is one of the hundred one-dimensional characters she played in her Hollywood career. As a sexy, evil mistress, and a mean, spy servant, her character is an icon, which characterized Chinese as “snakes in grass”. She is a spy and bodyguard for Buckwell. She always appears by the rear door, or behind the curtain. She has connection with the underground evil world. She helps kidnap Dolores Costello (who is the epitome of Christian innocence, a veritable angel). She sneaks Dolores into one of the brothels and has the madam dress her to service an old Chinese man. In this film, Wong's “exotic” Chinese ethnicity limits her abilities to deepen and broaden the limited range of the character she was allowed to play as an actress.
Wong had to follow rules regarding race to pursue success in her acting career. However, the stereotyped characters she was limited to playing misled mainstream American audiences’ ideas about Chinese Americans while entertaining them at the same time. In Wong’s era, mainstream audiences were made up of people with very little knowledge about China and Chinese American. The media deliberately portrayed the politically invisible Chinese Americans as stereotyped characters.
Wong’s early characters are reflections of mainstream America’s ideology about Chinese Americans. Wong’s characters also satisfy white male audiences’ fantasy of Chinese women, often they request to put Wong in a tiny sexy dress as an “eye candy” servant for white men. The color of Anny May Wong’s skin also isolated her from the rest of the Hollywood stars. Anna May Wong says: "... I've already been rejected, and pigeon-holed because I am Chinese." The strict race code Hollywood followed limited Anny May Wong from taking on any leading roles. Eventually, Wong became frustrated with the American cinema's steadfast racism. She left Hollywood to work on films in England, Germany and France. “I think I left Hollywood because I died so often," Wong said.
In 1929, to escape the Victorian attitudes toward race of the American cinema, Wong went to England to make “Piccadilly” with celebrated German director E.A. Dupont. In “Piccadilly” (1929) Wong's character Shosho is an integral part of Dupont's vision of “marvelous excess; she seems to be part of Alfred Junge's surreal art direction for the film come to life.” Dupont left Anna May Wong’s race on the side, he was open minded toward allowing people of a different race to take on bigger roles. He didn’t pass judgement of others based on race. He freed Chinese actors performance in his movie. In his movie mixed racial characters interact with each other equally. In one scene Shosho takes the nightclub owner to a lowlife pub. She dresses elegantly as any white urban girl. The pub is like a paradise for people of all races. The long shot of the dancing scene is a revolutionary image. In this shot, people are all having fun despite their racial differences. "This is MY Piccadilly", Wong says.
There is also a scene that represents the director’s point of view regarding racial problems. A white male interrupts a white woman and black male dancing. He grabs the black man and a written card comes up saying: ”In my club, you are not allowed to dance with a white girl. Get out!” Wong realistically react as a non white person. She turns around back to the chanting crowed. She is ashamed and embarrassed by her race. Her white boy friend gently leads her out of the club while still treating her as a lady. His attitude doesn’t change because of the other’s racist action. It shows that the character loves Shosho as a person and doesn’t thinkg of her as a racially stereotyped character. It also shows that the director recognized Wong by her talent, regardless of what her race was.
“Piccadilly” is an important film in Wong’s career because she creates a lively leading character in Shosho who is less imited by her race than previous characters she played. Wong hypnotized audiences with her powerful presentation of modern womanhood. Audiences can truly appreciate her artistic talent, regardless of her race. Shosho lives as any other modern white girl in her twenties. She wears standard flapper outfits, cloche hats, striped tops, eats steak and has dates with white men, such as the night club boss.
Shosho is an iconic character that has the depth of a realistic, independent, working woman. In the film, she maintains a sparkling sex appeal and a vast psychological depth. ShoSho is a sweatshop worker who works in the Piccadilly restaurant. She works at the lowest position as a dishwasher in the downstairs scullery, but she is very talented and dreams of achieving success as a dancer. The nightclub boss accidently enter Shosho’s environment, the scullery room. First, he is angry that the staff is distracted by a girl who dances on a table while they should be washing dishes. Eventually, though, he is conquered by her performance. The tilt shot of her dancing on a dish wash table from the Boss’ (a white man’s) point of view, is stunting beautifully to show Shosho’s talent. Dupont's camera offers Wong several long dreamy close-ups, transforming her into a Jazz Age siren like Louise Brooks or Clara Bow.
Shosho is prepared to achieve success. She is confident enough to talk to the boss. She has strategies to make her show and to attract the nightclub boss. He is in control of making the decision to hire Shosho to dance in the nightclub. Shosho tries to exercise artistic control. In one scene, she leads the boss to a store in Chinatown that sells "oriental” costumes. She drives a hard bargain. She challenges his power by demanding,” Expensive costume or I don't dance”, and she insists Jim, her Chinese boyfriend, be made the live musician for her performance. Shosho is imposed as a modern western woman, who has intelligent to invest her career. In reality, Anna May Wong was a westernized modern independent woman as well. She was very passionate in her career. She was very honest to play each character, and always did the best job she could with the parts she was given.
Audiences have to fully understand both cultures to understand the cultural limitation of western filmmakers. Often, western filmmakers such as Dupont unconsciously attack the Asian culture. Shosho’s name isn't Chinese, but this fact was overlooked because “Piccadilly” was a movie made for audiences who didn't know any better. Western audiences of that time had a very limited knowledge of Asian culture. The visual presentation of Asian images in “Piccadilly” is like a pot of culturally mixed stew with all kinds of Asian ingredients; the implication being that all Asians look the same to white society. Even details such as Shosho’s dance are misinformed: her dance is based on drawings of Thai dancers, a style completely different to that of Chinese dancers. She also wears sexy faux samurai outfits, which is a western fantasy completely unacceptable to Chinese sensibilities in those days.
As one of the most out spoken Chinese Americans in the early twentieth century, Anna May Wong was a publically stereotyped character used to represent Chinese Americans. Asian is one of the most underrepresented groups in American society, especially Chinese women. Anna May Wong never could get out of her skin mark as a Chinese woman, which meant being judged by both traditional Chinese Confucius social rules and American racial and gender limitation in early twenty century. She was not just Chinese; she was a Chinese woman. Among the Chinese in America at the time of her birth, there were seven men for every woman. The Chinese at that time thought girls were meant to be nothing more than wives who bore children for husbands. The Chinese girl had to obey her parents and marry the man picked for her, whether she liked him or not.
In Anna May Wong’s case, all Chinese men would reject her because of her modern American womanhood. They wouldn’t allow their wife to pursue an acting career, because it would interfere with taking care of a family. In 1936. Wong visited her family's ancestral village and studied Chinese culture. "Her role as a sexually available Chinese woman also earned her resentful criticism in China." Wong was stung by the attacks. "It's a pretty sad situation," she said, "to be rejected by the Chinese because I am too American." This was the social and cultural reason why Anna May Wong was among the only women to represent Chinese women in the media at that time. Since she often played sexy, Oriental characters, her roles were shocking to Chinese conservatives in America and the rest of the world.
Wong was badly limited by her stereotyped characters. After Hollywood rejected her from playing the main Chinese character, O-Lan, in “The Good Earth,” Wong rejected an offer to play the mistress, second wife in the film. She said, ”Why a movie about china, but the only character for Chinese to play is mistress.” In the late 1930s, she starred in several
B movies for
Paramount Pictures, portraying Chinese-Americans in a more positive light. Anna May Wong's second film for Paramount, “Daughter of Shanghai” (1937), is one of her efforts to change the stereotypical view of Chinese Americans.
As a Paramount B-movie, “Daughter of Shanghai” is well executed. The film is an improvement in its less eroticized portrayal of Asian characters. “Daughter of Shanghai” was touted as a positive depiction of Chinese people. Chinese characters are the protagonists in the movie. As the leading actress, Wong plays the role of a middle class, well-educated Chinese woman, Lan Ying. Lan Ying is an independent modern woman. Lan Ying holds a strong family value, which is a mixture of traditional Chinese and American middle class family values. As a daughter, she loves her father and helps him take care of his business. When her father is murdered, Lan Ying steps out and vows to avenge his death. She has strong independent notions and never seeks men’s protection; she is brave enough to become the spy inside a smuggler’s organization.
“Daughter of Shanghai” exposes unknown facts about illegal immigration, one of the most violent social problems in America. In terms of race identification, illegal immigrants were truly the modern slaves in American society. They were the new “colored” social group in America. China was one of the biggest sources of illegal immigration into America in the twentieth century. There were thousands of Chinese illegal immigrant labors being sold to Americans as cargo to work in America as slave-like workers. As Quan Lin (Lan Ying’s father) says, “They are smugglers who import the misguided human being among the man of my own blood.” The director Robert Florey opens “Daughter of Shanghai” with a small airplane loaded with Chinese people. The airplane plays “hide and seek” with an American homeland security airplane in the sky. When they are about to be caught by the officer, the smugglers dump their Chinese human cargo into the ocean to destroy the evidence. The smugglers only feel sorry about the loss of their six thousand dollars. Florey follows this scene with a montage juxtaposing San Francisco newspaper headlines reading “Whole Sale Murder,” ”Alien smugglers Drown Victims.” This is a scene that takes place a lot in real American society.
Another scene inside Lan Ying’s Chinese art shop, shows smuggles forcing Quan Lin to buy their human cargo. They say, “I have some good laborers cheap…you only need pay them eat and sleep…we are selling, you are buying… we will deliver to you tonight.” When Quan Lin (Lee Ching-Wah), refuses to cooperate with the thugs in this 'business venture,' he is killed. His daughter has to suffer the consequences of her father’s death, which she vows to revenge.
By comparing this scene with the images of Chinatown in “Old San Francisco,” which portrayed evil Chinese mafias seeking to destroy western civilization. “Daughter of Shanghai” more realistically represents what was happening inside Chinatown. Chinese Americans’ economic success in America brought about hostility from other racial groups. The racially isolated Chinatown was a safe haven for Chinese people to gather around and help each other. Since most Chinatown residents were hardworking laborers, they preferred not to fight for their legal rights. This is the reason why Anna May Wong’s character Lan Ying is very important for the Chinese American community. Lan Ying sends a message to Chinese Americans through her actions in the film. Lan Ying is a female detective, who solves the crime against her father using her bravery and intelligence. She is a “woman of action,” who has an independent mindset. Lan Ying encourages Chinese Americans to always step forward to protect their rights. The way for them to become American is not only by learning English, but also by learning the social structures of America. Chinese Americans should know how to use democracy as a weapon to fight against social injustices.
“Daughter of Shanghai” was significant in expanding the range of possibilities for Asian images on screen. It’s a Chinese American story played by Chinese Americans. It revolutionarily shows the first “happily after” Chinese couple as the leading characters. The anti-miscegenation laws criminalized marriages between whites and Chinese. Hollywood strictly followed such race codes in their productions so that relationships between white and non-white characters were strongly limited. Anny May Wong was forbidden to kiss or have successful relationships with white male characters. She played so many mistress characters that she called herself “a Woman with a thousand deaths.”
In “Daughter of Shanghai” she is paired with another Chinese American actor Philip Ahn. Together they successfully expanded the range of possibilities for Asian characters on screen. Kim Lee (Philip Ahn), a federal agent, is trying to discover the identity of the smuggling operation's head honcho. Lee and Lan Ying initially pursue leads separately: he goes undercover as a cargo handler on a ship, and she heads to a night club in Central America. To finish their tasks, they need help from each other. Their relationship develops through the process of working together. This is a typical love story, which represents a common life experience for a lot of middle class Chinese American families. This was a big step forward for the representation of Chinese Americans and Chinese movie characters in general. Chinese Americans were not being portrayed as a stereotyped group, they were becoming the story tellers for the media and audiences were allowed to feel a connection with them by observing their families and individual personalities.
Anna May Wong went from laundryman’s daughter to Hollywood legend. As Chan writes in Perpetually Cool: "She was always a 'Chinese' because she looked Chinese even when she sought to be and act American, with her flapper slang and costume during the early 1920s. She was, in fact, truly American in being and action. She even walked and stood like a European American. But she was neither European American nor 'white'." Her talent and her hard work made her shine as a movie star. As a non-white movie star in the first half of twentieth century Hollywood, Anna May Wong had to embody a whole canon of western fantasies about the Chinese through her characters. Her talent is locked in those stereotyped characters, which are created by the dominant white society for entertaining mainstream audiences.
As a professional actress, Anna May Wong had a great work ethic but she was limited to what Hollywood studios were offering her at the time, which were usually stereotypical roles. As one of the most out spoken Asian American in the early twentieth century, she demonstrated love for her homelands, America and China. During
World War II she devoted her time and money to helping the
Chinese and Americans fight against Japan.
Understanding the history will guide our future with a clearer vision. By analyzing the roles Wong plays in these three films and race representation in these films, we not only explore the racial situation of Asian America in early twenty centuries, but also develop our current individual judgment and believes of race in American society. Chinese Americans are one of the many diverse immigrant groups that make up American society. Chinese Americans proudly carry their Chinese cultural background while helping to build America. They deserve a fair chance to enjoy the American dream.
