Popular Culture Review Vol. 10, No. 2, August 1999 | Page 72

66 Popular Culture Review descry the necessity not so much to “validate the culture and state of which” Asian American writers are “a part,” but to problematize the cultural, historical, social, and political configuration of the state they are associated with. Hollywood has been notorious in mis(sing)-representing Asian and Asian American experience and cultures. From silent movies such as Chinese Rubber necks (1903), The Yellow Peril (1908), and What Ho the Cook (1921), to the Charlie Chan and Fu Manchu series, Hollywood’s portrayal of Asian Americans and the Asian American community has always been driven by social and political condi tions rather than by the desire for artistic and authentic representation. In the “Introduction” to the anthology, Charlie Chan Is Dead, Filipino American author and critic Jessica Hagedom recalls cinematic images which populated Hollywood movies until the 1970s: The slit-eyed, bucktooth Jap thrusting his bayonet, thirsty for blood. The inscrutable, wily Chinese detective with his taped eyelids and wispy mustache. The childlike, indolent Filipino houseboy. Al ways giggling. Bowing and scraping. Eager to please, but un trustworthy. The sexless, hairless Asian male. The servile, over sexed Asian female. The Geisha. The sultry, sarong-clad. South seas maiden. The serpentine, cunning Dragon Lady. Mysterious and evil, eager to please, (xxii) In recent years, the portrayal of the Asian American experience in film has undergone some changes. Besides movies written, made, and produced by Asian American writers and directors such as Eat a Bowl o f Tea, Dim Sum, and Picture Bride, some mainstream movies such as Dragon, The Bruce Lee Story, Golden Gate^ and Heaven and Earth^ have demonstrated their sensitivity to issues related to Asian and Asian American cultures. There are, however, also images which have now evolved into subtle stereotypes, as Jessica Hagedom observes: There’s the greedy, c \ q \ qv Japanese Businessman, ready to buy up New York City and all the Van Goghs in the world. There’s the Ultimate Nerd, the model minority Asian American student, ex celling in math and computer science, obsessed with work, work, work....There’s The Lover, the pathetic Chinese millionaire boytoy completely dominated by his impoverished, adolescent, blondie waif dominatrix in both Marguerite Duras’ popular novel and the recent film version. (Charlie Chan Is Dead xxii-xxiii).