Examples of yellowface

Examples of yellowface mainly include the portrayal of East Asians in American film and theater, though this can also encompass other Western media. It used to be the norm in Hollywood that East Asian characters were played by white actors, often using makeup to approximate East Asian facial characteristics, a practice known as yellowface.

American media portrayals of East Asians have reflected a dominant Americentric perception rather than realistic and authentic depictions of true cultures, customs and behaviors. Yellowface relies on stereotypes of East Asians in the United States.

Fu Manchu, Charlie Chan, and Madame Butterfly

• Fu Manchu and Charlie Chan were the most common East Asian characters in film and television of the mid-20th century, and they were almost always played by white actors in yellowface, although Asian actors did portray the Chan character in three silent film productions. (Swedish actor Warner Oland, the first Charlie Chan in sound films, did not use yellowface. He was considered to look Asian, and was typecast in such roles from early in his career.) An updated film version of Charlie Chan was planned in the 1990s by Miramax; this new Charlie Chan was to be "hip, slim, cerebral, sexy and ... a martial-arts master", but the film did not come to fruition.
• Madame Butterfly, an opera about a Japanese woman who falls in love with an American sailor who leaves her, and when he returns with an American wife, the devastated Cio-Cio San commits suicide. This immensely popular opera is often performed with a non-East Asian singer playing the role of Cio-Cio San.

Before the Civil Rights Movement

After the Civil Rights Movement

Note: This is also after the anti-miscegenation laws were repealed in the United States of America that prevented East Asian actors from playing opposite white actors as love interests.

21st century

Yellowface worn by a character in a film

In some films, white characters, played by white actors, have played East Asians, often as a disguise.

Books about yellowface

• Made-Up Asians: Yellowface During the Exclusion Era (2022) by Esther Kim - provides history and examples of yellowface

See also

• Chung Ling Soo, stage name of white American magician William Ellsworth Robinson
• Ghost Bath, an American black metal band who claimed to be from Chongqing, China.
• Michael Derrick Hudson, a white American poet who was accused of "yellowface" for employing a Chinese female pseudonym
• Portrayal of East Asians in American film and theater
• Racebending
• Yellowface (novel)
• Whitewashing in film

References

1. Racebending
2. My Geisha
3. Chung Ling Soo
4. Dragon Seed (film)
5. Portrayal of East Asians in American film and theater
6. List of entertainers who performed in blackface
7. The Teahouse of the August Moon (film)
8. Yellow Peril
9. Flower Drum Song (film)
10. Beheading the Chinese Prisoner
11. The Vermilion Pencil
12. Mad TV
13. Kung Fu (1972 TV series)
14. The Krankies
15. The Purple Dawn
16. I. Y. Yunioshi
17. Whitewashing in film
18. Polish profanity
19. Brownface
20. Academy Awards