Popular Culture Review Vol. 10, No. 2, August 1999 | Page 80

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Popular Culture Review

Chinese Beijing Opera singer. Bouriscot fell in love with a male singer who played
female roles in Beijing Opera. In the play, Hwang challenges the “Madame But
terfly” myth through role reversal, turning the French diplomat into modem day
Madame Butterfly and the Beijing Opera singer into the manipulator.^
The movie version of Thousand Pieces o f Gold, however, seems to sup
port and reinforce the stereotype of white-male-Asian-female relationships. The
Chinese who appear in the movie are oppressors of their own people: Li Ma is a
cmel smuggler of humans, Jim a jealous and uncouth transporter of illegal immi
grants, and Hong King a despotic slave master. The rest of the Chinese appearing
in the movie are apathetic and aloof. On the contrary, Lalu’s savior is a Caucasian
man, Charlie Bemis. It is true that Lalu’s relationship with Charlie, as it is por
trayed in both the book and the movie, is built on mutual understanding and re
spect. He saves her from Hong King’s control and she nurtures him back to life
after he is wounded by a sniper at a Chinese New Year festival. But the movie
follows along the same line as those which exploit the myth of “Caucasian male
and Asian female relationship”: the white man is muscular, powerful, protective,
and supportive, whereas the Asian woman is feminine, dependent, subordinate,
and respectful; the man is heroic in rescuing the woman from a dangerous situa
tion, while the woman is grateful and feels forever indebted to the man.
Come See the Paradise is another movie which follows a long line of
Hollywood tradition in rehashing, romanticizing, and perpetuating the “Madame
Butterfly” myth. It is true that it is one of the first Hollywood movies which
dramatizes the Japanese American experience before and during the Second World
War from a sympathetic perspective. There are realistic depictions of discrimina
tion against Issei (first generation Japanese immigrants) in California^, anti-Japa
nese riots on the West Coast after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, Japanese American
evacuation from the West Coast, and life in the relocation camps. But the movie
also follows the white-male-Asian-female formula in its portrayal of Jack, an Irish
sweat shop lawyer, and Lily, a Japanese American seamstress. As a Nisei (second
generation Japanese American who was bom in the United States), Lily, whose
name is as indicative as it is question-begging about her sense of identity, is por
trayed as a stranger from her own culture: she does not speak very good Japanese;
she does not like Sake, a Japanese rice wine; and she is rebellious against her
father’s dictatorial control. Again, a white man to the rescue. Jack saves Lily from
a prearranged marriage, sweeps her off her feet, and emancipates her from the
oppressive traditional Japanese culture practiced by Lily’s parents.
In the “Introduction” to The Foucault Reader, Paul Rabinow recalls that
during Michele Foucault and Noam Chomsky’s debate on a Dutch television pro
gram on the topic “Human Nature: Justice versus Power,” Chomsky revealed that
he believes that there is a human nature: “a bio-physical structure underlying the