It has been suggested that Portrayal of East Asians in American film and theater#Yellowface, Examples of yellowface and Asian_Americans_in_arts_and_entertainment#Portrayal_of_Asian_Americans_in_media be merged into this page. (Discuss)

Yellowface, a form of theatrical makeup used by European-American performers to represent an East Asian person (similar to the practice of blackface used to represent African-American characters), continues to be used in film and theater. In the 21st century alone, Grindhouse (in a trailer parody of the Fu Manchu serials), Balls of Fury, I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry, Crank: High Voltage, and Cloud Atlas all feature yellowface or non-East Asian actors as East Asian caricatures.

Welsh American actress Myrna Loy was the "go-to girl" for any portrayal of Asian characters and was typecast in over a dozen films, while Chinese detective Charlie Chan, who was modeled after Chang Apana, a real-life Chinese Hawaiian detective, was portrayed by several European and European American actors including Warner Oland, Sidney Toler, and Peter Ustinov. Loy also appeared in yellowface alongside Nick Lucas in The Show of Shows.^{[citation needed]}

The list of actors who have donned yellowface to portray East Asians at some point in their career includes Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, Anthony Quinn, Shirley MacLaine, Katharine Hepburn, Rita Moreno, Rex Harrison, John Wayne, Mickey Rooney, Marlon Brando, Lupe Vélez, Alec Guinness, Tony Randall, John Gielgud, Peter Sellers, Yul Brynner, and many others.^{[citation needed]}

American cinema has featured Asian characters into films since 1896; however, it was historically common to hire white actors to portray Asian characters.^{[citation needed]} Although some Asian characters are played by Asian actors in early films with an Asian story or setting, most of the main characters are played by white actors, even when the role is written as an Asian character.

In 1929, the character Dr. Fu Manchu made his American film debut in The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu played by the Swedish-American actor Warner Oland. Oland repeated the role in 1930s The Return of Dr. Fu Manchu and 1931's Daughter of the Dragon. Oland appeared in character in the 1931 musical Paramount on Parade, where the Devil Doctor was seen to murder both Philo Vance and Sherlock Holmes.

In 1932, Boris Karloff took over the character in the film The Mask of Fu Manchu.^[1] The film's tone has long been considered racist and offensive,^[2][3] but that only added to its cult status alongside its humor and Grand Guignol sets and torture sequences. The film was suppressed for many years, but has since received critical re-evaluation and been released on DVD uncut.

In a series of films in the 1930s and 1940s, Chinese-Hawaiian-American detective Charlie Chan was played by white actors Warner Oland, Sidney Toler and Roland Winters. The Swedish-born Oland, unlike his two successors in the Chan role, actually looked somewhat Chinese, and according to his contemporaries, he did not use special makeup in the role. He also played East Asians in other films, including Shanghai Express, The Painted Veil, and Werewolf of London (decades later, Afro-European American TV actor Khigh Dhiegh, though of African and European descent, was generally cast as an East Asian because of his appearance, and he was often included on lists of East Asian actors).

The Good Earth (1937) is a film about Chinese farmers who struggle to survive.^[4] It was adapted by Talbot Jennings, Tess Slesinger, and Claudine West from the play by Donald Davis and Owen Davis, which was itself based on the 1931 novel The Good Earth by Nobel Prize-winning author Pearl S. Buck. The film was directed by Sidney Franklin, Victor Fleming (uncredited) and Gustav Machatý (uncredited).

The film's budget was $2.8 million, relatively expensive for the time, and took three years to make. Although Pearl Buck intended the film to be cast with all Chinese or Chinese-American actors, the studio opted to use established American stars, tapping Europeans Paul Muni and Luise Rainer for the lead roles. Both had won Oscars the previous year: Rainer for her role in The Great Ziegfeld and Muni for the lead in The Story of Louis Pasteur. When questioned about his choice of the actors, producer Irving Thalberg responded by saying, "I'm in the business of creating illusions."^[5]

Anna May Wong had been considered a top contender for the role of O-Lan, the Chinese heroine of the novel. However, because Paul Muni was a white man, the Hays Code's anti-miscegenation rules required the actress who played his wife to be a white woman. So, MGM gave the role of O-Lan to a European actress and offered Wong the role of Lotus, the story's villain. Wong refused to be the only Chinese-American, playing the only negative character, stating: "I won't play the part. If you let me play O-Lan, I'll be very glad. But you're asking me—with Chinese blood—to do the only unsympathetic role in the picture featuring an all-American cast portraying Chinese characters."^[6] MGM's refusal to consider Wong for this most high-profile of Chinese characters in U.S. film is remembered today as "one of the most notorious cases of casting discrimination in the 1930s".^[7]

The Good Earth was nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Direction (Sidney Franklin), Best Cinematography (Karl Freund), and Best Film Editing (Basil Wrangell). In addition to the Best Actress award (Luise Rainer), the film won for Best Cinematography.^[8] The year The Good Earth came out, Wong appeared on the cover of Look magazine's second issue, which labeled her "The World's Most Beautiful Chinese Girl."^[9] Stereotyped in America as a dragon lady, the cover photo had her holding a dagger.^[10][11]

The 1961 film Breakfast at Tiffany's has been criticized for its portrayal of the character Mr. Yunioshi, Holly's bucktoothed, stereotyped Japanese neighbor. Mickey Rooney wore makeup to change his features to a caricatured approximation of a Japanese person. In the 45th-anniversary-edition DVD release, producer Richard Shepherd repeatedly apologizes, saying, "If we could just change Mickey Rooney, I'd be thrilled with the movie".^[12] Director Blake Edwards stated, "Looking back, I wish I had never done it ... and I would give anything to be able to recast it, but it's there, and onward and upward".^[12] In a 2008 interview about the film, 87-year-old Rooney said he was heartbroken about the criticism and that he had never received any complaints about his portrayal of the character.^[13]

Despite increasing representation, the act of yellowface still remains, albeit through whitewashing. In 2009, Justin Chatwin portrayed Goku, in Dragonball: Evolution.^[14] In 2011, Noah Ringer, also a white actor, portrayed an Eastern Asian monk in The Last Airbender.^[15] In 2015, Emma Stone portrayed a local Hawaiian character, Allison Ng, in Aloha.^[16] The most recent account of historical yellowface was in Disney on Ice's 2015 Dare to Dream production, in which Li Shang, a Chinese general from Mulan, was cast as a white male who wore a black wig and painted slanted eyes.^[17] Other recent films that have whitewashed traditionally Asian characters include Star Trek Into Darkness,^[18] The Martian,^[19] Doctor Strange,^[20] Ghost in the Shell,^[21] 21^[22] and Death Note.^[23]

Year	Title	Actor(s)	Director	Notes
2003	Micukó: A világ ferde szemmel	Judit Stahl as Micukó		Hungarian version of Ushi & Van Dijk. Canceled after Hungarian TV channel TV2 received protest letters from the Embassy of Japan in Budapest, claiming the program was discriminatory towards the Japanese people.[24][25]
2003	Oumi	Mi Ridell as Oumi		Swedish version of Ushi & Van Dijk
2004	Noriko Show	Outi Mäenpää as Noriko Saru		Finnish version of Ushi & Van Dijk
2005	Little Britain	Matt Lucas as Ting Tong Macadangdang	Declan Lowney	Matt Lucas plays Ting Tong, a kathoey mail-order bride. The character repeats such catchphrases as "Please Mr. Dudley!" (in a stereotypical accent) "My name Ting Tong, Ting Tong Macadangdang." "Did you have good time?" The character also appeared in Little Britain Abroad (2006)
2005	We Can Be Heroes: Finding The Australian of the Year	Chris Lilley as Ricky Wong		We Can Be Heroes: Finding The Australian of the Year is an Australian Television series, Ricky Wong is a 23-year-old Chinese physics student who lives in the suburb of Wheelers Hill, Melbourne, Victoria. He is often exuberant and tells his colleagues that "Physics is Phun" and that they are in the "Wong" laboratory. This character is largely a vehicle for parodying the stereotypical "Chinese overachiever", or model migrant.
2006	Cloud 9	Paul Rodriguez as Mr. Wong		Cloud 9
2007	Balls of Fury	Christopher Walken as Feng	Ben Garant	Feng is a parody of the yellow peril and Fu Manchu stereotype.
2007	Norbit	Eddie Murphy as Mr. Wong	Brian Robbins	For his portrayal Eddie Murphy received a Golden Raspberry Award. Worst Supporting Actor (Eddie Murphy; as Mr. Wong)[26]
2007	Grindhouse	Nicolas Cage as Dr. Fu Manchu	Rob Zombie	Fake Trailer: Werewolf Women of the SS[citation needed]
2007	I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry	Rob Schneider as Morris Takechi	Dennis Dugan	Schneider's use of prosthetics for his role were criticized as an offensive stereotype.[27] Nominated for the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actor but lost to Eddie Murphy.
2008	My Name Is Bruce	Ted Raimi as Wing	Bruce Campbell
2009	Crank: High Voltage	David Carradine as Poon Dong	Neveldine/Taylor	Poon Dong, played by David Carradine, is the head of the Chinese Triad. The name of the character is a pun, being both a stereotypical Chinese-sounding name and slang for genitalia.
2009	Chanel – Paris – Shanghai A Fantasy – The Short Movie	Freja Beha, Baptiste Giabiconi	Karl Lagerfeld	Karl Lagerfeld Opened His Pre-Fall Show in Shanghai With a Film That Included Yellow Face.[28] Lagerfeld defended this as a reference to old films. "It is an homage to Europeans trying to look Chinese", he explained. "Like in The Good Earth, the people in the movie liked the idea that they had to look like Chinese. Or like actors in Madame Butterfly. People around the world like to dress up as different nationalities." "It is about the idea of China, not the reality."[29] Chinese persons played the maid, a courtesan and background characters.[citation needed]
2009	Hanger	Wade Gibb as Russell	Ryan Nicholson	A black comedy in which a Chinese man with Down syndrome is portrayed by a White actor under heavy prosthetics and make-up.
2009	Ushi & Dushi	Wendy van Dijk as Ushi Hirosaki		Spin-off from Ushi & Van Dijk
2010–2011	Come Fly with Me	David Walliams and Matt Lucas as Asuka and Nanako	Paul King	Walliams and Lucas play two Japanese girls who have flown to the airport to see their idol, Martin Clunes.
2010	Ushi & Loesie	Wendy van Dijk as Ushi Hirosaki		Spin-off from Ushi & Van Dijk
2011-2012	Ushi & The Family	Wendy van Dijk as Ushi Hirosaki		Spin-off from Ushi & Van Dijk
2011	Angry Boys	Chris Lilley as Jen Okazaki		Jen Okazaki is the mother of fictional teen skateboarding superstar, Tim Okazaki, who live in the city of Santa Barbara, California after migrating from Japan. Jen is portrayed as a stereotypical tiger mum, often pushing her son with extremely strict homeschooling and training regimes. She also has excessive control on Tim's skateboarding career, marketing him as not only a cute Japanese boy, but as a homosexual, of which she monetises by selling phallic merchandise under the name "GayStyle Enterprises."
2012	Cloud Atlas	Jim Sturgess, Hugo Weaving, Halle Berry, Hugh Grant, James D'Arcy, and Keith David	Lana and Lilly Wachowski	A significant number of cast members applied makeup, focusing mostly on the eyes, to make their features appear more Korean/East Asian in one of the film's stories. The film is based on the idea of having the same actors reappear in different roles in six different story lines, one of which is set in 'Neo Seoul' in the year 2144. The film thus also has Asian actresses Bae Doona and Zhou Xun appear in non-Asian roles, and African-American actress Halle Berry portrayed a white character. Blackface is not used in the film, however.
2012	Wrong	William Fichtner as Master Chang
2013	Ushi Must Marry	Wendy van Dijk as Ushi Hirosaki	Paul Ruven	Spin-off from Dutch TV show Ushi & Van Dijk. Last work in which Wendy van Dijk plays Ushi Hirosaki.
2013	The Walking Dead: A Hardcore Parody	Danny Wylde as Glenn Rhee	Danny Wylde	A pornographic parody of The Walking Dead, controversy erupted over the character Glenn being portrayed by a White actor under heavy make-up and prosthetics.[30][31]
2014	Baby Geniuses and the Treasures of Egypt	Jon Voight as Moriarty	Sean McNamara
2014	How I Met Your Mother	Cobie Smulders, Alyson Hannigan, Josh Radnor		Season 9, Episode 14 "Slapsgiving 3: Slappointment in Slapmarra"; main cast dressed as East Asian martial arts masters using stereotypical garb, makeup, and Fu Manchu moustache[32]
2015	Aloha	Emma Stone as Alison Ng	Cameron Crowe
2016	Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie	Janette Tough as Huki Muki	Mandie Fletcher
2017	Ghost in the Shell	Scarlett Johansson as Motoko Kusanagi	Rupert Sanders	The film was criticized in the United States for casting Johansson (who is not of Japanese descent) as Motoko Kusanagi. However, some fans in Japan pointed out that Motoko Kusanagi has an artificial (cyborg) body, and thus, does not have to be ethnically Japanese.[33] Michael Pitt also plays the villain Hideo Kuze, a role that is ethnically Japanese in the source material.

• Portrayal of East Asians in American film and theater
• Dragon Lady
• Whitewashing in film

• Made-Up Asians: Yellowface During the Exclusion Era (2022) by Esther Kim Lee^[34]