Was Inspector Wang ironically racist?
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Murder by Death
corbyz — 12 years ago(August 07, 2013 03:19 AM)
I think it's easy to say Peter Sellers as Sydney Wang is a mistake along the same lines as Mickey Rooney in (Truman Capote's) Breakfast at Tiffany's. But I'm thrown off by them casting an actual Asian guy for his son. Which made me wonder if maybe Wang being played offensively by a white guy was a joke in itself. Was Charlie Chan normally played by a white guy in makeup? Maybe it was a tongue-in-cheek joke acknowledging how ridiculous it was?
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Tjanssen411 — 12 years ago(October 20, 2013 10:13 AM)
Not to mention Peter Lorre's Mr. Moto
the films were sometimes so deep into 'Yellow-face' that when a Chan script was re-written as a Moto Movie (the Chan actor of the time was ill) they kept Chan's "Number 1 son" still played by a real Asian as Moto's sidekick for the film -
PillowRock — 12 years ago(October 10, 2013 01:06 PM)
Was Charlie Chan normally played by a white guy in makeup?
Two actors were commonly identified with playing Charlie Chan in the long series of movies spanning the 1930s and 1940s: Warner Oland (by my count on his IMDb page, 16 features as Chan) and Sydney Toler (by my count, 22 Chan features). Neither was Asian (although apparently Oland had one Russian grandmother with some Mongolian ancestry). In the 1970s those movies were in near constant rotation on some local TV stations (late shows, Sunday afternoons, etc.)
Having Chan's son played by an actor of Chinese decent also seemed pretty typical of those movies. -
bpollen — 10 years ago(September 08, 2015 03:19 PM)
Not appropriate for a movie forum. Besides, it's incorrect. China is not into beheading people. Neither are Native Americans or Indians from India.
The terrorists are arabic or persian Islamists from the Afghanistan/Pakistan/Saudi Arabian/Syrian/Libyan/Iranian areas. -
Mattfinbell — 9 years ago(April 30, 2016 01:50 PM)
no it was a comedy no respect to chinese people
Now it wouldnt be able to fly.
I personally liked wang but if I had to do this again I would change him a little bit
I would get rid of the buck teeth and he would wear oriental clothes but more modern
Look like Tarzan talk like Jane! HAHA -
j_w_pepper — 9 years ago(May 11, 2016 12:44 PM)
You don't seem to get it. MBD is
spoofing
those very things that you, with a lot of justification, consider racist in the original movies. It wouldn't work if the Charlie Chan/Sidney Wang character were played by a real Asian (which agains would not be politically correct, lumping Chinese and Japanese and Koreans and whathaveyou together as "Asians", as if a Spaniard and a German and a Greek could be merged into a "European") or if Milo Perrier/Hercule Poirot were played by a real Frenchie, er, Belgie. It's part of the satire that those characters are as ethnically fake in the spoof as they were in the originals. If some ethnic group were really offended by this, then sorry, they don't get it either.
Nobody cuts and runs on Sheriff J.W. Pepper. And it's him who's speakin' by the by. -
Mattfinbell — 9 years ago(May 11, 2016 06:24 PM)
j_w_pepper
You don't seem to get it. MBD is spoofing those very things that you, with a lot of justification, consider racist in the original movies. It wouldn't work if the Charlie Chan/Sidney Wang character were played by a real Asian (which agains would not be politically correct, lumping Chinese and Japanese and Koreans and whathaveyou together as "Asians", as if a Spaniard and a German and a Greek could be merged into a "European") or if Milo Perrier/Hercule Poirot were played by a real Frenchie, er, Belgie. It's part of the satire that those characters are as ethnically fake in the spoof as they were in the originals. If some ethnic group were really offended by this, then sorry, they don't get it either
well i dont lump them together since there very different cultures
although they are similar if you think about it.
No I wasnt offended by Inspecter wang since all of them were spoofed if I had to do a play I would tone down Inspecter wangs buck teeth and have him were like a regular suit then get in like a chinese Pajamas I love those things
Look like Tarzan talk like Jane! HAHA