Thursday, November 8, 2012

Charlie Chan/Fu Manchu


Jessica B Ochoa
AS 3451
Charlie Chan/Fu Manchu
November 8, 2012

                Charlie Chan is an actor who is always been critized of speaking English with a heavy accent when in reality his English is perfect. This critique leads to movies viewers to see this actor with a good or bad stereotype because is creating a false image to the others of Asian people not speaking good English and having a very heavy accent. The world is full of stereotypes; blacks are criminals, Spanish are poor, whites are rich, Asians are smart, bad drivers and men have small penis.  These stereotypes in most cases are not true, but movies transmits this false ideas to the public and this same public without realizing it learned this unreal stereotypes and began to judge others without any support.
Adventures of Dr. Fu Manchu is another movie representing an Asian Dr. played by a white actor with fake mustache and speaking English with a heavy accent. Dr Fu Manchu is smart, has a strong and pacific personality, he is capable of killing innocent people in order to obtain power by using atomic bombs and making a relationship with Hitler who he helps to change his facial structure via a plastic surgery.
Charlie Chan and Dr Fu Manchu both represent an unrealistic Asian male far away from reality making others learned and believed a fake idea of Asian males in a negative way. Also, the fact that Asian roles in this movies are played by white actors and not real Asian people in a way shows lack of respect and lack of job  opportunities to this culture who is just another kind of many human beings in United States.
With all this been said, one of my main concern is how are these producers and writers getting their information about Asian culture and Asian people if they are reflecting the wrong image of what in reality it is. I believed more discretion, knowledge and respect to others cultures, in this case Asians, should be given even before thinking of making a film about something else rather than your own culture.  

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