The Asian American Male’s Fight to End Hollywood Genderization
Early on in Western cinema the visual construct of the Asian American male was solidified into the American zeitgeist. In the 1919 D.W. Griffith film, Broken Blossoms, a “yellow-faced” Richard Bartelmess depicted the character of Cheng Huan. Within Blossoms, the portrayal of a Chinese immigrant was something that morphed into an emasculated male with deviant perversion. Huan is a male that walks with a slight slouch in a subservient position to the white characters around him. He is a representation of the West’s xenophobic fantasy of the Asians in the East—flowery gowns, heavy facial make-up, long hair, and feminine facial expressions and features. An American filmmaker, Griffith uses the perceived stereotypes in order to make a presumably white audience feel more at ease and not as threatened by the other. Griffith’s direction is an