There still is an audience for East Asian women dying for white men in Europe, America and Australia, places where Miss Saigon seems popular, more popular than M. Butterfly. It is still okay for white men to portray Eurasians and even Asians (witness David Carradine reprising his Kung Fu role on current day TV commercials) and yet one would guess that white people as black doesn't go down too well (although there is the case of Angelina Jolie playing Mariane Pearl, who is of Afro-Cuban and Dutch descent).
With the popularity of Memoirs of a Geisha and a disturbing movie realization of that novel (could you imagine a black heroine being the one who doesn't fight and flee?), these are questions that need to be asked. Why is the Western world still fascinated with the helpless Asian woman? Why, in 2007, can we expect more yellow face with Brian Dennehy as Genghis Khan in an NBC movie? Can the directors and producers still claim there was no Asian actor with enough skill to play the part?
Yellow Face is not, as Wikipedia suggests, a rehash of Face Value. It is also not perfect and could use some judicious editing. However, David Henry Hwang's new play brings us back to the essential questions of the Miss Saigon protests in a way that is both humorous and hopefully insures that they will not be forgotten, but re-considered.
Article comments