We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
HOLLYWOOD AND THE IMAGE OF THE ORIENTAL, 1910-1950-PART II.
- Authors
Oehling, Richard A.
- Abstract
The article presents a discussion related to films concerning Orientals. Although China has been embroiled in civil war in one form or another since the fall of the Manchus in 1911, Hollywood seemed ignorant of it until the late twenties. When Americans finally did notice, their attitudes toward the Chinese and Japanese began to change rapidly. In the thirties, the Japanese disappeared from the screen and were replaced by the Chinese. The Chinese civil war provided both the setting and often the cause of the dramatic crises in several very important and successful films. Hollywood scrutinized the phenomena of the warlord, first in the film "The Bitter Tea of General Yen," then in the films "The General Died at Dawn," and "Oil for the Lamps of China." The film "The Bitter Tea of General Yen" was considered to be a thoughtful and sensitive confrontation between the cultures of an Oriental man and an Occidental woman; and it is to a degree. It is also, however, a model of the new stereotypes which were emerging. China is portrayed as a strange, exotic land of contrasts and General Yen, as one of the rising warlords, exemplifies the contrasts in his person.
- Subjects
CHINA; UNITED States; MOTION pictures; ASIANS; CIVIL war; WARLORDISM; CULTURE
- Publication
Film & History (03603695), 1978, Vol 8, Issue 3, p59
- ISSN
0360-3695
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1353/flm.1978.a487531