A history of anti-Asian racism and yellowface in Hollywood after the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack. | dG1fMmxUZXNTYVVMRmM
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Short filmTranscript
00:00 Hollywood has a bad track record from way back, of course,
00:03 showing ethnic minority groups of all kinds.
00:06 Native Americans, African Americans were always caricatured,
00:10 almost always, Japanese Americans, Chinese Americans.
00:14 All these groups were depicted usually in stereotypical ways.
00:19 The Japanese character is somewhat stereotypical, you know.
00:22 It is controversial, of course, when you have what they call "yellow face" now,
00:26 with white actors doing Japanese parts.
00:30 Christopher Lee is the dreaded Dr. Fu Manchu.
00:33 The Dr. Ingrid Koch will die an extremely painful death.
00:38 In Hollywood, white actors are really at the top of the food chain.
00:43 They get access to all the lead roles.
00:46 They even can play characters of color.
00:50 Robert, ladies, kind gentlemen, please introduce myself.
00:56 Sakini by name, interpreter by profession.
01:00 That is very different from actors of color,
01:06 especially Asian American actors, who rarely even get to play themselves,
01:10 because white actors are sometimes taking that role.
01:13 And so not only are Asian American actors not part of the lead
01:19 and being able to kind of build their star power,
01:23 so then it becomes this cyclical problem where they're not getting cast as leads,
01:28 and so then they don't become A-list actors.
01:30 So then people are thinking, "Oh, well, we can't cast an Asian to play this role
01:34 because they're not A-list. They're not going to be able to draw any audiences.
01:38 So let's cast an A-list white actor instead to play that."
01:41 And that has been the historical trend
01:44 amongst the casting of Asian actors compared to white actors.
01:49 [♪♪]
01:53 [♪♪]
01:56 (electronic music)