ANNA MAY WONG: HAS REPRESENTATION PROGRESSED?
The actress was repeatedly pigeonholed and typecast by Hollywood, but has Asian representation changed since her time? We speak to MICHELLE KRUSIEC about her role and the progression of the film industry.
MICHELLE KRUSIEC as ANNA MAY WONG
NETFLIX
WRITER ROBYN NGAN
When we talk about the Golden Age of Hollywood, we often don't consider the minority actresses. The names that don't come to mind are Hattie McDaniel (the first African American actress to win an Oscar) or Anna May Wong. The foundations of much of our favourite industries are built on the back of, and at the expense of minorities, yet, their names are not remembered by most, if at all. Rather, they were pigeonholed into stereotypes and fetishised tropes. We remember those clichés, probably because as minorities, we are still associated with them and forced into an existence that is defined by them. The typecasts that have moulded ideas within media have not been erased, but the names and the lives that came at the cost of such have been.
Netflix's new series, Hollywood, created by Ryan Murphy and Janet Mock, delivers a retelling of Hollywood's history, in the hopes of correcting and doing right by those who were marginalised and wronged by their contemporaries. It is set in an alternate timeline, where there is progression and minorities are not belittled or cast aside. We see black actress, Camille Washington receiving accolades for her role in cinema, Rock Hudson being able to express his homosexuality openly and Anna May Wong receives an Oscar. It's a revisionist piece, which has been released at an exceptional time: the race-war is ever-present, and amidst this pandemic, it has surfaced that The Yellow Peril never subsided.
MICHELLE KRUSIEC as ANNA MAY WONG
NETFLIX
Anna May Wong was born Wong Liu Tsong in the Chinatown district of Los Angeles in 1905. A third-generation immigrant, her roots are akin to that of many other Asian Americans: her family owned a laundromat, and she grew up in a multicultural neighbourhood. Attending a predominantly white school, she was subject to much racism and ultimately, she transferred to a Presbyterian Chinese school; however, racism was something that plagued her life.
Her first major role was her appearance in The Toll of the Sea, loosely based on the opera Madame Butterfly, Wong played Lotus Flower, the forgotten wife of an Englishman who ultimately drowns herself. Her portrayal of this tragic heroine was met with acclaim and positive reviews, yet despite The New York Times describing that "she should be seen again and often on the screen", her name is lost. Anti-miscegenation laws banned interracial couples, meaning Wong was never allowed to kiss her on-screen lovers. Subsequently, the characters she was cast as would typically die, and her talent would be allocated to a pitiful and helpless "lotus girl" who would not get the Caucasian heartthrob. Alternatively, she would be cast as the cunning and conniving "dragon lady", manipulating the white leads with her sexuality, her murderous plans or just overall sinful ways. It would be reductionistic and far too credulous to call the latter of these roles a facet of the femme fatale. They were underpinned by stereotypes, making Wong an inaccurate symbol of her race: never the hero, she was either tragic or the causer of the tragedy. It was a simple choice: she could be the docile concubine, the evil succubus or she could leave.
There were circulating rumours in 1935 that Pearl S. Buck's, The Good Earth was to be adapted into a film and that casting directors were on the lookout for actresses. A story based on the struggle of Chinese farmers; it seemed a fitting role for Anna May Wong. Instead, the lead of O-Lan was given to German actress, Luise Rainer who had her appearance altered to "look Chinese". The film was released in 1937, and Luise Rainer won an Oscar for it. In an interview, Wong recalled that MGM wanted her to audition for the role of a concubine rather than the lead. "I'll be glad to take the test, but 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." The idea that one can buy into a culture, but not its people is far too common and one that transcends time and industry.
Supposedly, "Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life". If life were to imitate art, then our art – our folktales, our ancestors' struggles and our paintings – would have far more white saviours, which simply isn't true. Instead, we must opt for art imitating what life should have been: a triumph for those worthy and justice for the marginalised, which is what Hollywood aims to portray. Anna May Wong spent most of her career campaigning against the roles that depicted Chinese and Asian characters as temptresses and motivators of the fallen. Yet, equity was only bestowed to her in a fictional form. Art is supposed to reflect society, but lack of representation reminds us that art is often not universal.
MICHELLE KRUSIEC photographed by MIMI HADDON
The hardships Anna May Wong endured are still replicated and widespread today. Speaking to Michelle Krusiec, who played Anna May Wong in Hollywood, it was quite obvious that there is still very much a conversation that needs to be had about representation as the landscape has not changed as much as we would like to think.
Representation is a buzzword in the media: it's a friendlier way of addressing a more rampant issue of xenophobia and systemic racism. There's a demand to see minorities reflected on the screens, which is only now being heard. Kruseic remarked that the creatives who are now telling the stories come from more diverse backgrounds: the filmmaker will make a pivotal difference in what or who is seen. It's new and exciting, but there is still much debate concerning mainstream Hollywood's approach to inclusion: is it sincere? Or is it an empty attempt to implement a change with no real support? A placard on the door of an unoccupied office, if you will.
“Giving Anna May Wong the Oscar felt like the right thing to do in this fantasy retelling of history. We want and need a moral compass around this kind of injustice because we rarely get to see it. Until you see something like this Oscar moment happening, you don’t realise how emotionally deprived you are of seeing people who don’t usually win, win. It’s a powerful image to see a woman of colour holding Hollywood’s most famous statuette.”
We posed the question: How did it feel to portray Anna May Wong winning an Oscar in the show? "Giving Anna May Wong the Oscar felt like the right thing to do in this fantasy retelling of history. We want and need a moral compass around this kind of injustice because we rarely get to see it. Until you see something like this Oscar moment happening, you don't realise how emotionally deprived you are of seeing people who don't usually win, win. It's a powerful image to see a woman of colour holding Hollywood's most famous statuette".
The Oscars were a huge topic of discussion this year, with Parasite taking home four of the awards. When discussing this with Kruseic, she told us that she was truly surprised, "as an Asian American woman, I'm very used to having the rug pulled out from beneath me". It was a sobering moment to hear such a remark. She continued to explain that Asian Americans within the film industry are often based on contingencies, whilst she may view herself as equal, that is very much not the perception within America. She acknowledges that Hollywood is an industry that requires money and risks have a monetary weight attached to them, but investment into representation isn't a risk. In reality, streaming has completely changed the way we consume media. The content we see is becoming more and more international, which challenges the expectations of audiences and requires adaptation and not just regurgitation of outdated archetypes. We cannot rely on a Euro-centric view of the world anymore.
Representation requires more than just new faces on the screen, and it cannot only be surface level. It needs to go deeper and bring fresh perspectives. Hollywood is ultimately an enterprise that aims to make money, but their products haven't changed much in the last century, what they have changed is the label. Good stories will find their audience, but you cannot expect every single product to be marketable to everyone. Krusiec emphasised that diverse talent is available; it's just whether or not Hollywood is willing to buy into them and offer us more than stereotypes. Despite the pale and stale landscape of Hollywood, they are not unaware, they know what is trending, and they understand the signalling and sometimes, outrage that is communicated. The actress continued to say that there needs to be a fight for journalists to be bolder and riskier in the news they choose to cover, the people they choose to feature and the complexity of the stories they want to tell. This is what creates ripples and ultimately causes waves: it requires the understanding of one another's experiences, and this can be done through storytelling. Visibility needs support from the media and consciousness is a direct derivative of this. Not speaking out and remaining invisible is more damaging than being outspoken, "what happened to Anna May Wong is a great example of this" Krusiec added.
MICHELLE KRUSIEC photographed by MIMI HADDON
We praise Hollywood for doing the bare minimum: for giving the roles to actors of the character's designated and given ethnicity. In fact, we celebrate it – often, the ethnicities aren't even the same, but it's a step in the right direction, no? After all, all Asians look the same, right? Realistically, it's not a triumph, it's barely artistic justice, but it allows us to see ourselves on the screen. It gives us hope. We want to think that we have progressed and that minorities are finally afforded and given the recognition and opportunities they deserve, but for every Kim's Convenience Store and every Fresh Off the Boat, we are given a Scarlet Johansson as Motoko Kusanagi or a white saviour in the form of Matt Damon atop The Great Wall. We revel in the fact that Mulan is played by a Chinese actress; isn't that strange? The fact we deem it celebration-worthy that the Chinese protagonist of an ancient Chinese epic is given to a Chinese actress. That's not newsworthy. That's the bare minimum. Hollywood has long capitalised on fetishisation and fear-mongering through the adoption of crude jingoist typecasting: the slanted eyes meant one of two things: you're the neutered subservient type which is meant to bow to the white man, or you're a calculating villain, both of which are rooted in sex. The question is, are you sexless or sex-crazed?
We would love to think that Crazy Rich Asians was a cultural reset, some even paralleled it to Black Panther, but it was merely surface-level representation, tokenism. To compare it to Black Panther would be insulting. Yes, the cast was Asian and that is conceivably representation, but it was like Panda Express, it was through the lens of the western world, palatable but not authentic. It somewhat exemplifies what Michelle Krusiec was saying, that it's an attempt at the change which lacks real substance.
We can say that we have come a long way since Anna May Wong, but in many ways, we haven't. Representation requires deeper respect and understanding than just seeing a face that looks like mine or yours. It requires systematic change and defiance of stereotypes. It relies on communities and the media supporting movements and minorities. There is so much more complexity that comes from the interior, but we often focus on the exterior. But it's a cycle, we've been forced into stereotypes which we usually will adhere to fit in, but it can back us into a corner. We see Asians represented as quiet, passive and intellectual, supposedly polite, once again, we're pushed into the docile stereotype. If we speak out though, we're domineering and sly – we're Dr. Fu Manchu. They're all reductive, which in turn, reduces our voice. Representation demands far more than denial of stereotypes; it requires denial of humiliation and a movement away from systematic racism. Representation is respect and the conferral of dignity. It means that minorities, in this case, Asians and Asian Americans are looked at, not looked through
Q&A with MICHELLE KRUSIEC
THE WOW: How did you find taking on the role of a historical figure? What research went into it?
MICHELLE KRUSIEC: I absolutely loved playing her. I'm someone who loves doing research and Anna May Wong had such notoriety and significance, she had the full package of glamour and substance. I was able to find a lot written about her. I knew a couple of documentaries had been done on her. She was an icon. I watched as many of her films as possible from her youth to her later films.
I didn’t have a lot of time for preparation, but I tried to capture her presence, her vocal tenor, her speech, most importantly. I found that I was simply never exhausted by news of her, I carried a recording of her everywhere I went. The production had me work with dialect coach Tim Monich and together we tried to figure out what her natural accent was when she wasn’t doing her adopted mid-Atlantic accent and Tim did an extraordinary job of helping me understand period references in the language.
TW: Representation is such a contemporary issue and discussion right now, what is your stance on this in regards to your own industry experience? How far do you think it has come, especially since the times of Anna May Wong?
Representation is a nice contemporary name for addressing something that’s been around for a long time: xenophobia and systemic racism. Those of us who’ve never had a chance to see ourselves reflected in the culture are now demanding that we have representation and I think it’s finally being heard. The primary difference I see is that filmmakers who are now telling stories (the creatives) are quite diverse and those are the people who are changing the game for representation. Women, people of colour, LGBTQ filmmakers typically will hire diversity cast/crew in front and behind the camera, those are the people who are making the difference. And more of them are getting us into the room. That’s new and exciting. Mainstream Hollywood is trying to take on inclusion and diversity…but the question is whether their efforts are truly sincere or if it’s just a placard on an office door, occupied by a single person who’s stuck attempting to implement change with no genuine support.
What’s different from Anna May Wong’s time and now? We’ll soon have our first Asian male superhero in Shang-Chi, that’s major progress. Our voice as an Asian American community is getting stronger, for example, when Hollywood whitewashes characters now, they’ll be called out for it and it doesn’t look good for them to rely on tired racist tactics of taking away employment opportunities for Asian Americans. The idea that films with Asian American faces don’t make money is now debunked. Some of the top streaming films on Netflix feature Asian American leads. What hasn’t changed? Anna May Wong couldn’t star opposite a White male lead due to the Hayes Code. To date, I don’t think I can name one Asian American actress who’s starred opposite a White male lead not in an ensemble picture and isn’t set in Asia. Can you?
TW: What do you think is most important when considering representation?
MK: The way we tell stories can reflect much more dimensionality when you involve underrepresented voices. I’m not talking just actors, I’m talking about writers/directors/creators. They bring a perspective that hasn’t been told yet, we haven’t seen their perspective in the last 100 years, we’ve been seeing the same ones told and retold. When great stories are told, they find their audience. You don’t need to attract the lowest common denominator. It’s very difficult as a storyteller to tell one story that can be sold to everyone. You will lose some complex value when you approach cinema in that regard. If you start with a point of view that we haven’t seen before, trust that it also works with casting and representation in front and behind the camera. The authentic voice and story will dictate the way it’s made (if you allow it). So seek out those stories that have been missing from our cultural landscape these last 100 years of cinema, produce that and representation will naturally follow.
TW: What would you like to see more of in the media?
MK: I would like to see journalists cover more issues on diversity and representation. I would like media and press to explore the themes we discussed above with more in-depth pieces, featuring women over the age of 40, people of colour and underrepresented points of view.
The way media covers culture and news is how Hollywood mimics culture and regurgitates it. When Andrew Yang ran for president in the US, the media largely ignored him. Why? One major outlet couldn’t even get his name right. I interpret this as a kind of laziness or irresponsibility, rather than recognising that this was the first time we were witnessing the country's first Asian American Presidential candidate. Instead, the messaging was clear, it wasn’t being taken seriously.
Hollywood sees what’s trending in the media, it takes the messaging, assigns value by deciding where the audience is and they run with it. So if media is riskier in the news it covers, the people they feature, the complexity of stories told and if journalists fight to tell those stories, then you create movements, like the #MeToo movement and that’s what creates source material for Hollywood. Now more than ever, trying to understand one another’s experiences feels more vital. We do this through storytelling. Media plays a powerful role in creating visibility around subjects, people, culture; they should wield this power with greater consciousness. And the opposite is true, if they don’t write about something, they render the thing invisible and that, in my opinion, is just as damaging, if not more.
A longer version of this article will be published in our upcoming The WOW N° 3.