Most egregious example of "yellowface"

That guy at Jaded Lounge in Philly in the late 90s. You were MEXICAN!!!

Marlon Brando, "Teahouse of the August Moon."

Sidney Toler, Charlie Chan movies

Alec Guinness, "A Majority of One"

Fred Astaire & Lucille Bremer

[quote] —Costumes Designed by SHARAFF

Does that include the gowns?

Gale Sondergaard in The Letter (although I guess she was supposed to have been half Asian, not full, in the role). But it was a small role, good performance, and also the 1940s, so who really cares?

Ona Munson as Mother Gin-Sling in SHANGHAI GESTURE.

Featuring breathtaking Gene Tierney and slimy Victor Mature as a slimy Egyptian.

Definitely Mickey Rooney as he spoils an otherwise enjoyable movie.

Let's hear your definition of "egregious" first, OP, since it's one of those words that so often are misused by those feeling the need to apply it?

What about Alec Guinness in A Passage to India?

What color face was that?

Oh, I came on here thinking we were going to talk about Ariana Grande's turn at being Asian.

R8 It’s the same as “obscene”.

You know it when you see it.

(Not OP)

Look it up, r11.

Many of these are bad performances, but as awful as Luise Rainer is, I think she was trying to be sincere. Mickey Rooney feels like he’s actively trying to be offensive. That makes his performance the most egregious.

Shout-outs to the modern examples of white actors in Asian roles: Emma Stone in Aloha and Scarlett Johansson in Ghost in the Shell.

R13, you're so young and naive. Luise Rainer won an Oscar for that role!

Linda Hunt, The Year of Living Dangerously

Birgit Nilsson, Turandot

I'm with R13. Whatever we may feel about yellowface or other cross-racial performances, the ones in OP's list are basically well-intentioned -with the exception of Mickey Rooney's, which is so over-the-top it was bound to be offensive, even by 60s standards. The character of Charlie Chan may be stereotypical, but he is essentially a hero: brave, smart, kind, and with great integrity.

You picked Jerry Lewis for the photo/link but didn't choose it for the poll? Nice work, OP,

Rooney made me cringe when I first saw the movie back in the 60s. Those bits have never been funny. Blake Edwards taste level has always been questionable.

Linda Hunt wasn't playing Asian in that film, but she was playing a man.

[quote] Blake Edwards taste level has always been questionable.

It was.

Does Yul Brynner as King of Siam count?

R2 has it all. Good to see that (pop)-cultural literacy is alive and well on DL.

[quote] Linda Hunt wasn't playing Asian in that film

She wasn't?

[quote] It also stars Linda Hunt as a Chinese-Australian man with dwarfism, Billy Kwan

R10 is correct, why is the "donut licking I hate America no talent Bitch looking like an Asian slut"? Her eyes look slanty...DL we need to know.

^^^^ I was going to type "CHINKY" but that's Racist^^^^

Juanita Hall in South Pacific

While not the worst, Sean Connery as James Bond, under cover in Japan, in You Only Live Twice stands out in my opinion. Fucking tragic.

Shirley Maclaine wasn't playing Asian per se in "My Geisha." She was playing an actress pretending to be Japanese to get the lead role in her husband's movie of "Madame Butterfly."

Jerry Lewis was such a loathsome individual.

Cartman, when he was obsessing about the "Chinese invasion plan." He and Butters infiltrate a Chinese restaurant in 'Chinaman' drag, complete with conical hat and fake buck teeth.

Cartman, to a bemused Chinese family dining at one of the tables: "So nice to see other Chinese people. As you can see, we are Chinese ourselves. So, what are the plans to take over America again? I forgot"

R11 proves the point.

OP was fishing and mixed dramatic with comedic roles.

Dramatic roles are not problematic, unless every black, Latino and Asian playing white characters are considered equally egregious (sic).

The comedic roles are "egregious." They are comedic. Several are regrettable, some deeply so. But comedy has a license and either hits well or doesn't.

Personally I'm more sorry about the waste of good Asian actors who could have played Charlie Chan and the fact that Louis Armstrong was made to play black stereotypes in his few talking roles.

And the word is "disgusting" for that.

Quit collecting the wrong false grievances, OP.

[quote]Juanita Hall in South Pacific

AND in "Flower Drum Song."

I guess she was Rodgers and Hammerstein's favorite fake Asian.

Peter Ustinov played Charlie Chan in "Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen" with an all star cast and newbie Michelle Pfeiffer.

I'd like to see "Charlie Chan and the Curse of the DRAG Queen."

Don’t forget me!

Mong Chong Ching Chong

[quote] Don’t forget me! —Emma Stone

R13 didn’t.

[quote]Does Yul Brynner as King of Siam count?

Of course, and so does Rex Harrison in the same role in the non-musical version.

Swedish actor Max Von Sidow playing Ming the Merciless in the 1980 Flash Gordon movie.

R22 Yul Brynner was of partly Asian descent (Mongol) so he's given a pass here

[quote]Yul Brynner was born Yuliy Borisovich Briner on July 11, 1920, in the city of Vladivostok. He had Swiss-German, Russian, and Buryat (Mongol) ancestry. He also identified as having Roma ancestry; however, recent scholarship does not support that claim.

"Juanita Hall in South Pacific AND in "Flower Drum Song." I guess she was Rodgers and Hammerstein's favorite fake Asian."

Roles for Asian actors were so scarce back then (unlike today -ha!) that there were very few in Equity. Producers of a big Broadway musical would often cast whomever they could find in smaller/chorus roles, but regularly used yellowface for leads. Richard Rodgers in particular was obsessed with singing voices. When he found Ed Kenney in Hawaii he struck gold -a very handsome man with an exquisite singing voice. But little acting experience. He was cast as the romantic lead in Flower Drum Song. Other Asians (though not necessarily Chinese) in the cast included Miyoshi Umeki, Keye Luke, Pat Suzuki, Patrick Adiarte, and Jack Soo. For the more comedic roles they went yellowface with Larry Blyden and Juanita Hall. Wouldn't fly today, but it was at least an attempt to cast Asian actors in Asian roles. This was seven years after The King and I, and shows that times were changing -albeit slowly.

By 1975, when Hal Prince was trying to cast Stephen Sondheim's Pacific Overtures things hadn't changed all that much. They had to give up completely on the idea of an all-Japanese cast, resorting to casting various Asian ethnicities. Some were only partly of Asian descent, and so middle names were used where needed to show the actor was truly Asian-American (Mark Hsu Syers, who would later appear as Magaldi in Evita as plain Mark Syers).

Serious question: With the heavy Kabuki makeup in Pacific Overtures, if they had used a couple of non-Asian actors would it still have been yellowface?

This thread is full of happy talk.

R43 Damn you! Now it's in my head!

R42 I’m Asian, and the first time I saw Flower Drum Song Juanita Hall fooled me. At least in the Chop Suey number.

I was more distracted by Japanese Myoshi Umeka playing Chinese Mei Lei.

R45, that’s the “delicate, some say the flower-like” Miyoshi Umeki.

It's shocking that this kind of casting continued through the 80s.

[quote] Swedish actor Max Von Sidow playing Ming the Merciless in the 1980 Flash Gordon movie.

Ming the Merciless is not from Asia; he is from the planet Mongo.

I understand why people object to white actors in yellowface, but the obsession that all parts of a certain Asian national heritage must be played by actors of only that exact same national heritage makes no sense to me. Cher was not Italian-American but she won an Oscar for playing one in "Moonstruck," and her Italian-American mother was played by Olympia Dukakis, who also won an Oscar. Should they not have played those roles? Should Renee Zellweger not have played a Brit in "Bridget Jones's Diary" since she's American? If you start over-obsessing with this it gets to be ridiculous and no one takes you seriously anymore--it's just hairsplitting after a while.

Charlie Chan was played by white actors but Number One Son by Asians, babel’s Keye Luke. Hell, they even did that type of casting in “Murder by Death”.

[QUOTE]I understand why people object to white actors in yellowface, but the obsession that all parts of a certain Asian national heritage must be played by actors of only that exact same national heritage makes no sense to me.

It may not make sense to you or the majority of American movie goers, but films get released in populous Asian countries nowadays. A Chinese main character played by another Asian would stick out like a sore thumb.

A German commercial for instant Chinese food, from 1988:

I consider myself pretty anti-woke, but I've never been able to watch Breakfast at Tiffany's past the first appearance of Mickey Rooney in the film. It's really bad.

I want to punch the guy with glasses at R52 in the face really hard.

[quote]I was more distracted by Japanese Myoshi Umeka playing Chinese Mei Lei.

But Japanese Jack Soo and James Shigeta were OK?

[quote] playing Chinese Mei Lei.

I can play Chinese Taipei.

[quote] I consider myself pretty anti-woke, but I've never been able to watch Breakfast at Tiffany's past the first appearance of Mickey Rooney in the film. It's really bad.

I grew up watching a lot of stupid British sitcoms and movies of the 1960s and 1970s , so Mickey Rooney was in that mode for me, just sort of madcap bullshit.

Eye haf maake slanty eeeyes, leuck like chink. Fuuxk Kreestmas!

r31 I actually like that example, because it shows the idiocy behind racism, and the Asian family subverts the stereotype. Same with It's Always Sunny, Dee does these stereotypical characters in yellowface and brownface, and she gets called out over it for being racist and looks like an idiot.

That German commercial is appalling!!

Cartman & Butters

To be precise, Shirley Maclaine in "My Geisha" played a Caucasian actress pretending to be Japanese to land the coveted lead in "Madame Butterfly."

Miss Ball and Miss Vance.

[quote]Luise Rainer, The Good Earth

The Good Earth also had Paul Muni and a host of other Caucasian actors in yellowface.

[quote] As "Wang, the Farmer"

Haha. They said "Wang".

Betty Grable performs "Japanese Girl Like American Boy", staged by Busby Berkeley of all people.

Nice tap finish with The Three Dunhills.

I didn't realize that David Carradine wasn't Asian until I was in my late 20's. My dad told me and I remember being shocked about that because he pulled it off so well. To me anyway. I remember John Wayne playing Genghis Kahn and how awful he was. My dad really liked John Wayne and didn't like it that I was laughing about that. I didn't know until now that the guy who played Charlie Chan wasn't Asian!