Even Dragon Ladies Get the Blues: The Figure of Anne May Wong in Early Hollywood Cinema

In her article ‘When Dragon Ladies Die, Do They Come Back as Butterflies?’ Cynthia W. Liu argues that Anna May Wong, as a Chinese-American actress working in the hierarchal studio system of ‘20s – ‘40s Hollywood, drew the short straw when it came to not only the roles that were offered but also the resultant cinematic legacy or memory of her and her racial heritage. Wong became a symbol of ‘Asianness’, and her vulgar, one-dimensional characters were one of only a few representations of Asian people in the media. But is it really Wong’s fault for always playing ‘dragon ladies’ and ‘butterflies’? From a viewing of Dupont’s Piccadilly (1929), I would even come to suggest that by 1929 Wong had already begun to subvert the image-making machines of a white Hollywood through her mesmerising performances, which injected so much agency into her characters. Just as Matthew Sweet writes: “Hollywood used Anna May Wong to embody every Oriental stereotype in the book. But her talent shone through.” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/feb/06/china.world)
I feel that it is a moot point in debating the negative representations of Chinese people in Piccadilly. Everyone knows that early Hollywood (and to a lesser extent contemporary Hollywood) did not come up with the most realistic or nuanced representations of minorities. It ultimately becomes the actor’s or actress’s duty to bestow what ever agency that is left into his/her character. There is something very charming and inviting, yet enigmatic, about Wong’s presence in Piccadilly. She undoubtedly elevates the film, and Dr. Hardie even amusingly compared her vivaciousness to that of Angelina Jolie (back in the day when she was a man-eating Goth). Even though we, as 21st Century viewers, disapprove of Wong’s characters in an ideological sense, we cannot help but be seduced by her performance.

In acting, (I personally believe that) it is all about intuitively understanding your character’s personal and psychological properties, as well as the social, historical and cultural milieus from which they arise from – yet also paradoxically to be seemingly unaware of this. Another consideration is the acting conventions required for your certain medium (film or theatre), school (theatrical, method) and genre. For Wong, she also had to take into account the negative stereotypes that informed her characters. It is indeed very tragic to learn that Wong was refused the lead role of O-Lan in Sidney Franklin’s The Good Earth (1937) – a film which, because of America’s growing sympathy for China in its struggles with Japanese Imperialism, had finally begun to feature positive representations of Chinese people. The lead roles, however though, were given to white American actors who wore ‘yellowface’, and to add insult to injury, the German-American actress who played O-Lan, Luise Rainer, had received her second Oscar for the performance.

I also thought that the actress playing Mabel, Gilda Gray, was pretty good. In the scene where she is dancing and the man is complaining about his dirty plate, Gilda Gray, with her hands partially covering her face, somehow reminded me of Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard (1950) – especially in the promotion pictures. I haven’t watched Sunset Blvd. yet, but am well acquainted with the image of Swanson posing at the bottom of the staircase. This bizarre mental connection between the two actresses emphasises how certain moving-images of a film can exist autonomously as still-images; that film as commodity extends all the way through to the visuals on the DVD cover, and by recognising one still-image as belonging to a certain film, it also becomes part of one’s cinematic experience of that film. Maybe, my positive connotations of Swanson, unwarrantedly translated into a positive consideration of Gray.