Yellowface

Yellowface is the practice in cinema, theatre, and television where East Asian characters are portrayed by predominantly white actors, often while wearing heavy makeup in order to approximate "Asian" or "Oriental" facial characteristics.

Comparable to blackface, yellowface was once a commonly accepted practice in the motion picture industry, with many legendary Hollywood actors launching their careers by playing yellowface roles. Remarkably, the use of yellowface makeup endured well past the point when blackface makeup was regarded as a taboo.

Robert Ito explains that job protection for caucasian actors was one reason yellowface persisted. "With the relatively small percentage of actors that support themselves by acting, it was only logical that they should try to limit the available talent pool as much as possible. One way of doing this was by placing restrictions on minority actors, which, in the case of Asian actors, meant that they could usually only get roles as houseboys, cooks, laundrymen, and crazed war enemies, with the rare "white hero's loyal sidekick" roles going to the big name actors. When the script called for a larger Asian role, it was almost inevitably given to a white actor."

In some cases, these Oriental characters are portrayed by partially Asian actors, and some may argue that in order to make them appear "more" Asian, yellowface would have to be utilized. Fact|date=July 2008 Directors and film studios employed this practice for a variety of reasons, the most common being the lack of English-speaking Asian actors during the earlier decades of cinema. The most controversial reason was the desire to avoid onscreen romantic interaction between white and Asian actors in intimate contexts. Fact|date=July 2008

Notable examples

*Mary Pickford in "Madame Butterfly" (1915)
*Richard Barthelmess in "Broken Blossoms" (1919)
*Lon Chaney Sr. and Renée Adorée in "Mr. Wu" (1927)
*Warner Oland in the Fu Manchu (1929 - 1931) and Charlie Chan (1931 - 1937) film series; as well as in "Shanghai Express" (1932), "The Painted Veil" (1934), "Werewolf of London" (1935), and "Shanghai" (1935)
*Edward G. Robinson and Loretta Young in "The Hatchet Man" (1932)
*Boris Karloff and Myrna Loy in "The Mask of Fu Manchu" (1932)
*Nils Asther in "The Bitter Tea of General Yen" (1933)
*Luise Rainer and Paul Muni in "The Good Earth" (1937)
*Peter Lorre in the Mr. Moto film series (1937 - 1939)
*Anthony Quinn in "Island of Lost Men" (1939)
*Boris Karloff in "The Mystery of Mr. Wong" (1939)
*Katharine Hepburn, Walter Huston, Aline MacMahon, Turhan Bey, Agnes Moorehead, J. Carrol Naish, and Hurd Hatfield in "Dragon Seed" (1944)
*Rex Harrison, Linda Darnell, and Gale Sondergaard in "Anna and the King of Siam" (1946)
*Fred Astaire and Lucille Bremer in "Ziegfeld Follies" (1946)
*Anita Ekberg, Berry Kroeger, Paul Fix, and Mike Mazurki in "Blood Alley" (1955)
*Jennifer Jones in "Love is a Many Splendored Thing" (1955)
*John Wayne in "The Conqueror" (1956)
*Yul Brynner and Rita Moreno in "The King and I" (1956)
*Marlon Brando in "The Teahouse of the August Moon" (1956)
*Ricardo Montalban in "Sayonara" (1957)
*Curd Jürgens and Robert Donat in "The Inn of the Sixth Happiness" (1958)
*Mickey Rooney in "Breakfast at Tiffany's" (1961)
*Juanita Hall in "Flower Drum Song" (1961)
*Henry Silva in "The Manchurian Candidate" (1962)
*Shirley MacLaine in "My Geisha" (1962)
*Alec Guinness in "A Majority of One" (1962)
*Tony Randall in "7 Faces of Dr. Lao" (1964)
*Anna Karina in "Pierrot le fou" (1965)
*Woody Strode and Mike Mazurki in "7 Women" (1966)
*David Carradine in "Kung Fu" (1972 - 1975)
*John Gielgud in "Lost Horizon" (1973)
*Peter Sellers in "Murder by Death" (1976)
*Peter Sellers in "The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu" (1980)
*Max von Sydow in "Flash Gordon" (1980)
*Peter Ustinov in "Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen" (1981)
*Jerry Lewis in "Hardly Working" (1981)
*Linda Hunt in "The Year of Living Dangerously" (1982)
*Joel Grey in "" (1985)
*Pete Postlethwaite in "The Usual Suspects" (1995)
*Jonathan Pryce in "Miss Saigon"
*Ciarán Hinds in "Miami Vice (2006)"
*Rob Schneider in "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry" (2007)
*Eddie Murphy in "Norbit" (2007)
*Nicolas Cage in "Grindhouse" (2007)
*Christopher Walken in "Balls of Fury" (2007)

ee also

*Blackface

ources

*" [http://www.imdiversity.com/Villages/Asian/arts_culture_media/archives/winfrey_yellowface_asians_hollywood.asp Yellowface: Asians on White Screens] ", by Yayoi Lena Winfrey, "IM Diversity.com".
*" [http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/18/18_yellow.html A Certain Slant] ." by Robert B. Ito, "Bright Lights Film Journal".
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