"How would we feel about their works if they had been written and produced by
non-Asians?"
Where are the Asian men in this universe? I realize that this pastiche of
stories is supposed to be about mother-daughter relations, but how validly
and interestingly can that be explored in a world devoid of credible Asian
males? Not even the most radical feminist, I suspect, would argue for that
particular vision of the universe.
The net effect of the Joy Luck Club -- which could more aptly have been titled Joyless, Luckless Club -- is to reinforce existing strereotypes in which Asian life is miserable and cheap and Asian women are
plentiful and available in the absence of virile, sympathetic Asian males.
What's more, it subtly supports the notion that the faults of white
males are superficial, even cute, and easily correctible (i.e.,
learning to use chopsticks, learning not to slop soy sauce on the
mother-in-law's culinary masterpiece) while Asian males are incorrigible
sadists and hopeless geeks. An Asian girl -- or boy for that matter -- would likely come away from the movie thinking that anything is preferable to marrying an Asian and suffering unrelenting misery.
All this is made worse by the fact that the movie is directed by an Asian
American though Tan's book was adapted for the screen by a veteran
Hollywood screenwriter who probably had much to do with making the
changes calculated to make the movie play to white audiences (like
making the miserable tightwad, a White in the book, an Asian).
Putting Wayne Wang's name on the thing as director says it's okay to look at
Asians as a race of women without men.
Despite all their rhetoric about being solicitous of the Asian image, neither Amy Tan nor
Wayne Wang evidences concern about the stereotypes that Asian men must
.suffer day in and day out. They've been turned into willing
accomplices by the lure of Hollywood success.
Then there's David Henry Hwang's
M. Butterfly which not only won a Tony but will be turned into a
movie. The main characters are a French diplomat and a Chinese male spy
who becomes a drag queen to seduce the diplomat and steal state secrets.
Don't ask me how the couple manage to be lovers for some ridiculous
number of years. I know that this is supposed to be based on a real-life
incident. I know that Hwang's artistic rationalization for writing the play is
to show that racial preconceptions hurt both sides. But there's no escaping
the play's visceral impact. The handsome, slightly effeminate John Lone
playing a devious and cunning drag queen not only undercuts Asian masculinity
on a fundamental level, it reinforces the image of Asians as being so debased that we would do anything for a cause.
Rising Sun, starring Sean Connery and the charismatic Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, provided a badly needed relief from the usually sorry portrayal of Asian males but was booed by some on the ground that it made Japanese seem too threatening.
Amy Tan and David Henry Hwang have rubber stamped
the most egregiously offensive exploitation of Asian stereotypes in recent
memory and we're supposed to applaud just because they're Asian. Yet
we're supposed to rise up in outrage over a movie like Rising Sun which treated Asian males with far more dignity than either of the so-called Asian American works. At least Rising Sun portrayed
Asian men as effective, fun-loving and virile.
Rather than blindly applauding the likes of David Henry Hwang, Amy Tan
and Wayne Wang just because they're Asians, no matter what kind of offensive
drivel they produce, let's ask ourselves this question: How would we
feel about their works if they had been written and produced by
non-Asians? By that test we would be outraged. Should
our response be different because Asians are the nominal creative
forces behind them? On the contrary, I think we should be even more
outraged that they've let themselves be used as proxies for the
white imagination. Asian artists who let their imaginations
get coopted that way are the saddest victims of racial strereotyping.
