Popular Culture Review Vol. 11, No. 2, Summer 2000 | Page 30

26 Popular Culture Review “Breaking” the Japanese American Stereotype Director Robert Pirosh wanted real Nisei to portray the 442nd soldiers, but he could not anticipate the difficulty of finding Japanese American actors, even some six years after the war’s end: “There were no Japanese-American actors, 1was told, except for a few old-timers in Hollywood and one in New York” (Pirosh 3). The director needed men of military age, preferably Army veterans, but could find none with any professional acting experience. Eventually, the film’s technical consultant, Mike Masaoka, a veteran of the 442nd and at the time the national director of the Japanese-American Citizens League, helped Pirosh in getting the film cast: “Among those selected were a Hawaiian importer, a college psychology student, two civil service employees, a high school professor, a real estate agent and a gardener” (Pirosh). None had acted before due to lack of opportunities: “They weren’t wanted on stage or screen” (Pirosh 3). The success of the film hinged on the use of Japanese American actors. Hollis Alpert, in the Saturday Review, noted that “it is the Nisei actors who are to be most lauded even though many of them are of the non-professional type” (30). As John McCarten wrote in the New Yorker: “ .. .it is the Nisei to whom the picture is most indebted for its air of authenticity” (93). After the numerous movies before and during that war that depicted cartoon-like stereotypical Japanese, Go fo r Broke!, in its portrayal of the Nisei soldier, in a sense “broke” the image of the Japanese—and certainly the Japanese American. As portrayed in the film, these soldiers embodied a wide range of personalities. These portrayals only reinforced the idea that Japanese Americans were “real” people, no different than other U.S. citizens. The film also broke the stereotype of the World War II American hero: the Caucasian soldier. While the Japanese Americans were not able to go into combat in the Pacific theater, their contribution on the European front had a much more direct impact on the spread of Nazism. The 442nd and 100th Infantry Battalion tours in Italy and France and the units’ recognition as the most highly decorated in U.S. military history provide evidence for the Nisei soldiers’ bravery. In tenns of physical stereotypes of the Japanese American, Go for Broke! shows that the American soldier need not meet the idealized physical attributes of being tall and broad-shouldered, and having a long stride. Instead, the film accentuated the physical characteristics of the smallness and short stature of the Japanese American soldier who had the face of the enemy, without using caricatures. It took what viewers might consider as shortcomings of the Japanese Americans’ physical presence and emphasized the fighting spirit of the Nisei soldiers. The film challenged the stereotyped, Hollywood version of the American “G.I. Joe,” and offered a portrait of U.S. citizen-soldiers who, despite the circumstances of their families and loved ones in their own country, continued to defend American ideals and values.