Breakfast
at Tiffany’s is a well known film classic starring
Audrey Hepburn. Released in 1961, this film has had a huge influence on
fashion, film, and Hepburn’s career. Like all big things though, this film is
not without fault.
Mickey Rooney plays the character Mr
Yunioshi which is fraught with complications. For a start, Rooney, being white
himself, dons yellow-face in order to play the Japanese character. I understand
the 60s were a different time, but were there no Japanese actors around?
Not only this, but the character is not a
good or accurate representation of Japanese people. He is a one-dimensional,
bucktoothed, clumsy, all around bad character. This coupled with the poor
Japanese accent makes the character a huge mistake from an otherwise good film
as it demonstrates Eurocentrism and Othering of Asian characters.
Rooney’s poor portrayal along with terrible
writing demonstrates a power over Asian characters. Although there was
opportunity for a Japanese actor to play the role and potentially minimise its offensiveness,
a white man was picked in order to carry out and reinforce the stereotypes of
loud, impatient and unreasonable Asian people who cannot speak ‘proper’ English.
These attributes Other Yunioshi, particularly as a form of Orientalism. He isn’t
seen as ‘normal’, he is actively dehumanised. This is a demonstration of Foucault’s
ideas, that the dominant group use power to create knowledge – in this case, to
create an idea of Asian people.
I feel that Breakfast at Tiffany’s is a
prime example of Edward Said’s statement ‘The Orient at large … vacillates
between the West’s contempt for what is familiar and its shivers of delight in
– or fear of – novelty.’ The film simultaneously rejects positive Japanese
stereotypes, but gives no doubt of Yunioshi’s ‘strange’ ethnicity in order to
create humour, particularly through his pronunciation of ‘Miss Gorightry’.
Whilst this character is absolutely
shameful, it doesn’t stop praise for Breakfast
at Tiffany’s nor does it substantially hinder its success. I wonder though,
if the film would have reached such acclaim had it been released in 2016. I’d
like to think not having developed so much in terms of anti-racism, however, I’m
not sure society has developed enough to completely reject it.
Think you make some really strong points here. Like you say, I'd be really interested to see the reaction that the character representation would get in modern society. It seems so easy to distance ourselves from society 50 years ago, but then again, it was our grandparents who probably sat in the theatre and laughed at the 'comical asian character'. When I look at it like that it scares me a little, because it shows that the audiences that accepted these racial stereotypes as a means of entertainment are still an influence on modern society, and are still a target audience for someone. Although racial representations are no where near as uncivil or discourteous now, I think its only because the media industry has become more cleaver and sly in the way it shows racial stereotypes, and its representation of ethnic characters in order to entertain a predominately white audience.
ReplyDeleteYES!Absolutely the same feeling!! The more I watched older Hollywood films, the more I found Asian characters being portrayed funny and silly. There do not share the same independent and critical thinking with the white people, but more tends to be a pet element or even animal figure. I am glad that non-white ethics do not play those funny little characters in the Hollywood market any more (at least I haven't seen one recently) and hope for a more multicultural environment which includes those non-whites who can show their cool and characterised personalities in the future.
ReplyDelete