Examples of yellowface

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Examples of yellowface includes the portrayal of East Asians in American film and theater and other Western media. It used to be the norm in Hollywood that Asian characters were played by white actors, often using makeup to approximate East Asian facial characteristics, a practice known as yellowface.

Media portrayals of East Asians have reflected a dominant Americentric perception rather than realistic and authentic depictions of true cultures, customs and behaviors. Yellowface relies on stereotypes of East Asians.

Video Examples of yellowface

Fu Manchu, Charlie Chan, and Madame Butterfly

• Fu Manchu and Charlie Chan were the most common East Asian characters in film and television of the mid-20th century, and they were almost always played by white actors in yellowface. (Swedish actor Warner Oland, the first Charlie Chan in sound films, did not use yellowface. He was considered to look Asian, and was typecast in such roles from early in his career.) An updated film version of Charlie Chan was planned in the 1990s by Miramax; this new Charlie Chan was to be "hip, slim, cerebral, sexy and ... a martial-arts master", but the film did not come to fruition.
• Madama Butterfly, an opera about Japanese woman who falls in love with an American sailor who leaves her, and when he returns with an American wife, the devastated Cio-Cio San commits suicide. This immensely popular opera is often performed with a non-Asian singer playing the role of Cio-Cio San in yellowface.

Maps Examples of yellowface

Pre Civil Rights Movement

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After Civil Rights Movement

Note: This is also after the anti-miscegenation laws were repealed in the United States of America that prevented East Asian actors from playing opposite white actors as love interests.

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21st century

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Yellowface worn by a character in a film

In some films, white characters, played by white actors, have played Asians, often as a disguise.

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See also

• Chung Ling Soo, stage name of white American magician William Ellsworth Robinson
• Ghost Bath, an American black metal band who claimed to be from Chongqing, China.
• Michael Derrick Hudson, a white American poet who was accused of "yellowface" for employing a Chinese female pseudonym
• Portrayal of East Asians in American film and theater
• Racebending
• Whitewashing in film

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References

Source of article : Wikipedia