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Christine He

Josen Diaz

MCWP 50

7 March 2012

Cross-Ethnic Asian Casting in American Popular Culture (Rough Draft #3)

Within the last decade, Asian and Asian American actors have gained much more

screentime and recognition both in popular American movies and TV shows. Movies such as

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), Harold and Kumar go to White Castle (2004) and

Memoirs of a Geisha (2005) were commercially successful despite having mainly Asian casts,

while The Hangover (2009), Inception (2010), and others featured Asians in prominent

supporting roles. TV shows with notable Asian characters include Glee, Community, and more.

However, although there is an increasing overall Asian presence in American popular media, an

interesting practice can be observed in the casting of these Asian roles. One may see a Korean

actor playing a Chinese man, or a Chinese actress in the role of a Japanese geisha, and so on.

Such a phenomenon has been occurring for quite a while. Asian American film pioneers such as

Anna May Wong, Sessue Hayakawa, and Philip Ahn were casted in varying Asian roles without

much regard for ethnicity. In particular, Philip Ahn’s filmography consists of approximately 95%

non-Korean roles. Hollywood’s blatant disregard for ethnicity could be attributed to the fact that

“…most Americans are quite ignorant of, or unconcerned by, the distinctions between different

Asian countries, peoples, and cultures” (Zia 117). This trend of casting Asian and Asian

American actors and actresses into roles outside their own ethnicities has multifaceted

implications towards the goal of accurate representation for Asians – firstly, it seems to

encourage the misleading stereotype that all Asians look alike and are interchangeable; yet

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secondly, it may reflect the growing body of assimilated Asian-Americans who identify more

with American than Asian, and who are able to gain more representational power in America

through a pan-Asian label rather than being separated by ethnicity. This can be argued through

analysis of the primary sources Memoirs of a Geisha and Glee (Season 3 Episode 3 “Asian F”),

and the secondary critiques surrounding them.

In a time when political correctness had not yet been invented and yellowface was

incredibly common, Asian-American acting pioneers Sessue Hayakawa, Anna May Wong, and

Philip Ahn were mostly relegated to stereotyped bit parts as villains, dragon ladies, and

butterflies while leading Asian roles went to Caucasian actors; even when they were given parts,

they were often casted as characters of another ethnicity, setting the historical precedents for

cross-ethnic casting of Asian actors and actresses of today. Anna May Wong, the first Chinese-

American movie star, debuted as a Mongolian girl in the 1924 film Thief of Baghdad. Many of

her subsequent roles were Chinese characters, but producers seemed to harbor no qualms in

casting her for Eskimo (Hiko in The Savage Innocents), Arabian (Zahrat in Chu Chin Chow),

Singaporean (unnamed role in Across to Singapore), and other ethnic characters. Similarly,

Sessue Hayakawa played Japanese roles for the most part but there was no hesitation in casting

him for Chinese (Prince Hu-Long in The Cheat), Persian (Akbar Khan in The Devil’s Claim),

and other such characters. This shows that America’s ethnic blindness was even worse in the past

– the “all Asians look alike” umbrella extended not only to East Asians but also Middle

Easterners, Southeast Asians, and Eskimos.

Philip Ahn, a Korean-American actor and perhaps the best example of historical cross-

ethnic casting, built his extensive career (spanning 1930s to 1970s) on Chinese and Japanese

roles. In her semi-biographical book Hollywood Asian, Hye Seung Chung analyzes Ahn’s

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career, stating that “among some hundred titles in his filmography […] he only occasionally

played Koreans” (Chung 2006, 29) and attributed this difference to a lack of awareness of

Korean people in America at that time. Furthermore, Ahn’s film studio, Paramount, showed its

disregard for ethnic accuracy by “promot[ing] him as a Chinese actor”, masking his “exceptional

Korean heritage” (10) to make him easier to digest for American audiences during his pre-WWII

career. Chung claims that “this speaks to the interchangeability of Asian actors, regardless of

nationality and ethnicity, which was fostered by an industry insensitive to the diversities and

differences within the same racial group” (17). The industry’s insensitivity often causes

misrepresentations of Asians on screen when they ignore cultural differences, which translates

into audience ignorance of Asian diversity. During the war, some of these very important

differences came to the forefront when Philip Ahn was increasingly called on to play roles of

villainous Japanese officers and spies in anti-Japanese propaganda films. As the son of the

famous Korean nationalist leader Tosan Ahn Chang-Ho, Philip Ahn made it very clear that he

harbored a “tremendous, shall we say, hatred for the Japanese” (12). As a result, he claimed, “I

told myself that if I was going to play the enemy, I was going to play him as viciously as I

could…I took pride in being the most evil man alive” (12). These statements underscore the

differences that may exist between ethnicities within the same racial group, which get ignored by

the stereotypical view that all Asians are alike. Although actual Japanese people might not have

been so cruel and vicious, Ahn’s Korean heritage predisposed him to play them as such.

Furthermore, Ahn’s cross-ethnic performances actually did result in promoting audience

ignorance – movie fans, unaware of his Korean heritage, “confused his onscreen evil persona

with the real Ahn” and subsequently sent him “hate mail and threats on his life” (13). This shows

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that inaccurate representations in mass media may become imprinted in audiences as real

representations, and alters their behavior towards the people being represented.

Cross-ethnic casting has persisted to this day and similarly, may reinforce the misleading

stereotype of all Asians being alike. The popular 2005 movie Memoirs of a Geisha specifically

generated controversy about its casting choices, both for Japanese and Chinese people alike. The

three main geisha roles, an identity so culturally unique to Japan, were given to Chinese actresses

Ziyi Zhang, Michelle Yeoh, and Gong Li. A BBC article about the movie stated that “some

Japanese viewers have complained about the use of Chinese women over actresses from Japan”

and “critics in China say it is insensitive because of Japan's atrocities during their Chinese

occupation of the 1930s” (1), referring to such acts as the Rape of Nanjing and the use of

Chinese “comfort women” during WWII. This demonstrates that historically, Chinese and

Japanese people also have great differences between them that may not be perceived by

American audiences, yet these differences are an important part of understanding a culture.

However, the producers’ decision to cast Chinese actresses as if they were just as valid as

Japanese actresses is characteristic of how American media habitually categorizes Asians into a

singular group.

Perhaps the most jarring real-life consequence of American media’s failure to distinguish

between Asian ethnicities is demonstrated in the death of Vincent Chin, a young Chinese

American man who was chased and murdered by two Caucasian auto workers who were angry at

Japanese people for causing the American auto industry to decline. Clearly, these men saw all

Asians as being alike and therefore murdered an utterly unrelated person. In her book Asian

American Dreams, the famed political activist Helen Zia, who was instrumental in the APA

uprising following Chin’s death, states that “Asian Americans felt deeply that what happened to

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Vincent Chin could have happened to anyone who ‘looked’ Japanese…as though every Asian

group were the same” (Zia 63). Furthermore, Zia corroborates that this perception is perpetuated

in popular culture – “Characters in mass media often blend the wildly diverse traits from distinct

Asian cultures into an unimaginative, one-size-fits-all Asian stereotype” (Zia 117). Cross-ethnic

casting is a factor in the creation of the singular Asian image in America’s eye, combining the

different faces from different races by passing one ethnicity as another. If Asian people continue

to be grouped and represented under one generalized identity, progress towards accurate

representation and understanding of diversity within Asians will be hindered.

And yet, many people still dismiss the importance of such ethnic bending in casting,

claiming that Hollywood must choose actors for roles based on popularity, talent and probability

of box-office success rather than ethnic accuracy. Why not then, as Editor-in-Chief of the

monthly arts magazine “Theatre Bay Area” Sam Hurwitt sarcastically implies, just cast white

actors? He humorously declares, “The only reason this movie doesn't star Nicole Kidman and

Charlize Theron in Asian makeup is because people might think that was tacky” (Hurwitt 2). He

seems to point readers to the conclusion that American producers bank on the idea that American

audiences believe all Asians are alike; as long as there is some kind of Asian face filling the role,

their cultural heritage and understanding is largely unimportant in portraying the role. Michael

Yaki’s article is similar to Sam Hurwitt’s in that he criticizes the casting choices of the film

Memoirs of a Geisha. Yaki emphasizes that although many Americans may believe that all

Asians are alike, the difference between Chinese and Japanese during the time period that

Memoirs of a Geisha is supposed to be situated in, in the midst of World War II, was the

difference between enemy and ally. He refers to the internment camps for evidence - if one was

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Japanese, they were sent to the camps, but if one was Chinese, they were left alone. Again, the

idea that two ethnicities under the same Asian label can be vastly different is reiterated.

Some argue that it should be all right for Asian actors to play different ethnicities because

their Caucasian counterparts do the same, but this argument is faulty. AsianWeek columnist

Philip Chung contends that while some believe that “only Japanese actors should play Japanese

characters, and so on…[he] think[s] that line of thinking is flawed and ultimately limiting”

(Chung 2005, 1). As a counterexample, he brings up the point that Caucasian actors are

“allowed” to portray different ethnicities within their own racial group with no significant

controversy nor repercussions – “British actors have always played Americans…and no one

complains when Brad Pitt plays an Irish or Russian character” (1). However, Caucasians are the

majority within America, and there are a vast number of different representations reflecting the

diversity within that racial group. Asians and Asian Americans, conversely, are a small minority

and are rarely represented in a significant manner (such as in the leading roles) in a widespread

medium such as a movie. The problem is that when they do get represented, they are too often

represented inaccurately in ways such as cross-ethnic casting and generic, stereotypical behavior.

These inaccurate images are sometimes the only impression that a person might have of Asian

cultures, unlike Caucasians, whose diverse images are pervasive throughout American culture

and balance each other out. Thus it is extremely important to begin representing Asians and

Asian Americans in an accurate manner within American popular media.

The second half of this paper deals with the possibility that, as the generations pass by,

Asian Americans are in fact becoming more assimilated into American culture, and feel more

comfortable identifying with a pan-ethnic “Asian American” identity rather than Chinese-

American, Korean-American, and so on. As a result, American media may seek to represent the

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general population of Asian Americans rather than specifying a certain ethnicity. It is

understandable that third or fourth generation Asian Americans might lose touch with some of

the mother country’s culture and language, and instead become more Americanized. A study of

linguistic retention over three generations done by Professor Richard Alba of New York’s

University at Albany concluded that “by the third generation (grandchildren of immigrants), only

a minority in any group maintains bilingualism” (Alba 1). More specifically, “Among [third

generation] Asians, the percentage who speak only English is 92 percent, with the Chinese at 91

percent and Koreans at 93 percent. The only groups for which the level of English

monolingualism is below 90 percent are the Laotians, Pakistanis and Vietnamese” (2). Similarly,

the level of cultural practices such as celebrating Asian holidays sees a downward trend from

third generation and onward. In popular media, this translates to the production of more

generalized Asian characters who may still have underlying Asian values such as filial piety, yet

who don’t necessarily associate being Asian as a very important part of their identity. Although

they have an Asian face, they are essentially American. When asked to describe her character,

Glee actress Jenna Ushkowitz (who is Korean) says, “Tina is a gothic, punk/geek rocker who

likes to sing and dance. She has a dark rebellious side to her but really feels at home in the Glee

Club with her friends” (Ilustrisimo 1). She neglects to mention Tina’s Chinese heritage, implying

that being Chinese is not a large part of Tina’s identity. Instead, she focuses more on the personal

aspects that Tina has created for herself – being a “gothic punk/geek rocker who likes to sing and

dance” is Tina’s choice, unlike her cultural heritage, which she was born with. Thus, the Glee

character Tina can be seen as a step forward for the representation of Asian Americans as regular

Americans instead of being outright typecasted as an Asian stereotype such as the model

minority.

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Although Tina is undoubtedly an improvement over the stereotyped dragon ladies and

butterflies of Anna May Wong’s day, there is still much progress that can be made in fairly

representing Asian Americans. Joseph Lin of the online blog Generasian seeks to progress even

further into the area of assimilating Asians into America in his article “Hey Gleeks: Why does

couples therapy have to be Asian?” Within the show, there are two Asian characters: Tina and

Mike Chang, who are jokingly identified by their nicknames “Asian” and “other Asian”, but who

are both fairly rounded out with their own backstories. Lin acknowledges that there has been

advancement in Asian American representation since the movie Mean Girls, in which the Asian

characters speak exclusively their Asian language (Vietnamese) without seeming to understand

or speak English. Glee at least does not outright otherize its Asian characters like Mean Girls

does, but there are still problems with latent racialization rather than identifying them as mainly

American. For example, “Mike offers to kiss and make up to Tina by offering two words: ‘Asian

Kiss?’” (Lin 1) when Tina and Mike are arguing. Mike also brings up the idea of going to “Asian

couples therapy”, which to Lin seems unfair – why is the word “Asian” always randomly

brought up whenever Tina and Mike are involved? The African American character Mercedes

never has a “black kiss” with her boyfriend. “Does that mean the “Asian” part of ourselves as

Asian Americans is always inexplicably foreign, strange and therefore not belonging, in the

United States?” (2). Lin invokes the ideas of Robert G. Lee’s “Yellowface”, in which Lee

explains the Asian Americans’ constant struggle with being portrayed as perpetual aliens and

being otherized under the same stereotypes. This shows that even though Glee may be better at

portraying Asian-American characters than movies from before, it still represents America’s

problematic way of stereotyping Asians. However, by just trying to portray Asian Americans, it

allows cross-ethnically casted actors to represent the larger racial label.

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This falls in line with Peter Feng’s article “Being Chinese American, Becoming Asian

American”, in which he explores the difference between the identities of “Chinese American”

and “Asian American”. He claims that by identifying with “Asian American”, one may gain

greater political power in America, but at the same time must trade off with one’s cultural

heritage. He says, “Our racial unity has been contributing to our strength, to our efforts to build

community, and to the maintenance and development of a vital Asian American culture” (Feng

93). Feng then discusses the film “Chan Is Missing” as grounds for his claims. In the film,

viewers are presented with a confusion of “Chinese American” identities through the main

character of Steve, but Feng uses this confusion to state that “by showing us why it is impossible

to know precisely who we are as Chinese Americans, [Chan Is Missing] shows us how we might

discover how we become Asian Americans” (Feng 110). Feng breaks away from the film itself to

devote a section to ponder the casting – Steve, a Chinese character, is played by Marc Hayashi, a

Japanese American. That casting decision itself is a testament to the ethnic blurring represented

in the label “Asian American”. Feng contends that by identifying with Asian American instead

of Japanese American, it becomes acceptable for Hayashi to play Steve. Thus in modern TV

shows such as Glee where a specific ethnic identity is not billed as an important theme of the

story, it may be seen as acceptable for Korean-American Jenna Ushkowitz to play Tina Chang,

because they are both more strongly Asian American than ethnic. This also provides Asian

Americans in general a greater amount of representation in American popular media. Perhaps

what Asian America needs right now is simply power in numbers, that cannot be gained if

different ethnicities continue to separate themselves. Although greater America should also

recognize the diversity within the “Asian American” label, that goal can be realized with the

passing of more time.

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Audrey Smedley goes one step further in her article “‘Race’ and the Construction of

Human Identity” to claim that race is not even a good way to identify human beings by. She

claims that before the 18th century, the notion of race based on physical traits simply did not

exist, and only came about during the colonization of the West as a way to rationalize the harsh

treatment of Native Americans and Africans by relegating them to an inferior position based on

their skin. Her grounds are that before, people would derive their main sense of identity from

factors such as language, kinship, occupation, location, and later, religion. Skin color mattered

little. Her second claim is that today, racial categorizing by physical traits has become the

dominant form of identity, resulting in huge problems for those who are deemed inferior, such as

slavery and exclusion from social privilege. She denounces the idea that there exist distinct

populations of biologically separate people; instead, they are always in a process of mixing and

changing. Another myth is that biological traits are connected to culture - instead, culture is

learned and adapted from surrounding people. If one inteprets Asian cross-ethnic casting through

her eyes, it becomes almost a non-issue. She criticizes the entire institution of race-based

thinking and instead tries to foster an understanding that we should not judge and categorize

others based on traits that they cannot control.

These two interpretations of the Asian/Asian American cross-ethnic casting phenomenon

within American popular culture may seem to clash with each other and contradict, but it is the

reality of the complex world in which we navigate today. The idea that Asian/Asian Americans

should be recognized for their diversity is important, yet the idea of breaking down racial barriers

to further communication and understanding is just as important. There is no one way to interpret

right or wrong in binary terms in regards to cross-ethnic casting, and different people may come

to different understandings of the trend. However in the current situation of Asians being

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underrepresented in American popular media, quantity of Asian characters may be desired over

quality. Yet accurate representation (quality) is also desired, but may come at a later time as

American audiences continue to become used to a greater Asian presence on screen.

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Works Cited

Alba, Richard. “Bilingualism Persists, But English Still Dominates”. Migration Information

Source. February 2005. Web. 20 February 2012.

Chung, Hye Sung. Hollywood Asian: Philip Ahn and the politics of cross-ethnic performance.

Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2006. Print.

Chung, Philip W. "Memoirs...A Casting Controversy." Asianweek: 20. Ethnic NewsWatch. 2005.

Web. 14 Feb. 2012.

Feng, Peter X. “Being Chinese American, Becoming Asian American: Chan Is Missing.”

Screening Asian Americans. New Brunswick, N.J. : Rutgers University Press, 2002. 88-

110. Print.

Hurwitt, Sam. "The Mysterious Chinese Geisha: The New Yellowface." Kitchen Sink. 1 January

2006: Alt-Press Watch (APW), ProQuest. Web. 20 January 2012.

Illustrisimo, Jinra. “Glee’s Jenna Ushkowitz”. Ningin. Mixr Media, LLC. 12 April 2010. Web.

20 February 2012.

Lee, Robert G. “Yellowface.” Orientals: Asians and Popular Culture. Philadelphia, PA: Temple

University Press, 1999. 1-14. Print.

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Lin, Joseph. “Hey Gleeks: why does the couples therapy have to be Asian?” Generasian. 1

December 2010. Web. 14 February 2012.

Smedley, Audrey. “‘Race’ and the Construction of Human Identity.” American Anthropologist.

September 1998: 690-702. Web. 10 February 2012.

Yaki, Michael. “Ethnic slippage/Chinese geisha cross too many boundaries.” SFGate. 18

December 2005: SFGate.com. Web. 22 January 2012.

Zia, Helen. Asian American Dreams. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000. Print.

“Geisha film makers defend casting”. BBC News. 8 December 2005. Web. 7 February 2012.