Sessue Hayakawa: Implementation of Model Minority Stereotype Through Film II

Although Hayakawa primarily played “villainous” roles in a majority of his films where he was eventually “defeated” by the hands of a white character in each of his featured films, the portrayal of his characters were sadly, nonetheless “improvements” from the typical roles Asian actors were assigned because of the “Americanization” of his characters. Since Japan’s victory over Russia in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 and subsequent modernization and Westernization during its aftermath, the public perception of Japanese people shifted from “primitive” to “more advanced” than other “primitive” cultures (Miyao, 9). Essentially, because Japan was undergoing modernization and as a result becoming more Westernized, the people of Japan were considered the “closest to the Caucasian race” (Miyao, 9). In the eyes of Hollywood, and more notably, The Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company, the agency which Hayakawa was signed under, the “closer to the Caucasian race,” the better, which meant that the Americanization of ethnic characters was frequently seen on-screen (10). The Japanese became what we now call the “model minority,” and the “Americanization” of Hayakawa in film was one of the mechanisms Lasky used Hayakawa to promote to propagate the model minority myth.

As observed in his second feature film The Cheat (1915), Hayakawa’s Americanized persona was not only allow for white audiences to empathize with, but for Asian audiences to follow as a model for their assimilation (Miyao, 88). Tori, Hayakawa’s character in The Cheat, was shown to be wearing a Japanese gown over a Western-style tuxedo (Miyao, 40). Hayakawa was shown with two ornaments of clothing as opposed to one in order to represent the fact that as a Japanese man living in America, he needs to assimilate to American culture to be accepted, but as a Japanese man, will never be fully considered American. They are still trying to “other” him. This reiterates the notion that the “Japanese” were considered to be the “middle-class,” in between “colored” and “white,” but neither one or the other and still below white (Miyao, 15). Recurring subtleties such as these in occur regularly in Hayakawa’s films, which depict the idea that Asians belonged in the “middle class” in the grand scheme of white hegemonic society . Unfortunately, Hayakawa’s representation as somebody who could never fully be “up” the status of “white” was still considered to be an improvement with regards to the treatment of Asian Americans as well as Asian immigrants, who were to reiterate, previously grouped in the “colored” category for years prior to the The Cheat (1915). In another scene, Hayakawa’s character Tori, was seen as wearing a “white duster, cap, casual tweed suit, and bow tie… as a person who has been assimilated into Long Island high society,” which is another prime example of the intentional and continual efforts by Hollywood to promote Westernization (35). Essentially, Hollywood managed to sidestep yellow facing, but white-washed Hayakawa’s characters, which was the only way Asians were “accepted” and treated with a modicum of “respect” by American society. Racist Love.

Another example of Hayakawa’s Americanization occurs in The Tong Man (1919), where Hayakawa plays a “romantic genteel hero” who was “detached from the stereotypical images of savage Chinese people” (187). Once again, referring back to the notion of Americanization (white-washing) and the Japanese being perceived as “better” than the rest of the “colored,” Hayakawa was designed to be less of a threat due to the Americanization of his character. Americanizing Hayakawa, who by default represented Asians as one of the few Asians in the media, temporarily dispelled the irrational “Yellow Peril” ideologies of the past, which to a certain extent, tempered the negative perception of Asian residents in America. Although his roles were far away from ideal, they were necessary to counteract the otherwise Hollywood enemy-imaging.

In An Arabian Knight (1920), Hayakawa played the role of Ahmed, an “adventurous hero, with the feminine quality of ‘to-be-looked-at-ness,” a sex symbol (Miyao, 193). Hayakawa’s masculinity, albeit an element of his Americanization, was another reason for his ascent to his stardom. In the words of famous Japanese photographer Miyatake Toyo, “Sessue Hayakawa...The greatest movie star in this century...White women willing to give themselves to a Japanese man...dozens of female fans surrounding his car...Never again will there be a star like Sessue” (Miyao, 1). Hayakawa was a powerful sexual entity that almost single-handedly changed the perception of Asian males, who were typically typecast to play a “asexual eunuchs,” who resort “rape” in racist Hollywood (Marchetti, 2).

Sessue Hayakawa: Implementation of Model Minority Through Film I

Although the emergence of Asian actors into the “big screen” was initially considered to be “progressive” for Hollywood because of the lack of ethnic diversity in the film industry beforehand, the intentionally dehumanizing portrayals of the majority of Asian characters in an overwhelming number of Hollywood films, actually perpetuated the already widespread prejudice directed towards Asian Americans and Asian immigrants living in America. While having Asian actors play caricatures of grossly exaggerated stereotypes led to anti-immigration ideologies resembling the sentiments of “The Yellow Peril” materializing in all aspects of life for Asian and Asian Americans, a glass ceiling for success amongst Asian American actors was subsequently created in Hollywood as a trickle down effect. Rising against the rampant racism of America and greeted with barriers bounded by anti-immigration semitism, with his “childlike ferocity” and “painful beauty,” Sessue Hayakawa transcended into universal superstardom. Despite primarily being used by Hollywood to propagate the assimilation of Western ideals and cultures, Hayakawa's masculine on-screen persona simultaneously alleviated the savage perception of Asians living in America during the dawn of the 20th century.
                                             

Hayakawa’s ascent to worldwide renown was rather unexpected, given the turbulent time for Asians living in the United States during the latter half of the 19th century, who not only had to completely abandon their previous lives back East, but were forced to face a barrage of legislation that limited their opportunities for success. What initially gave birth to these isolated, discriminatory laws directed toward Asians in America, however was the widespread belief that the mass immigration of Asian peoples, also known as the “irresistible, dark, occult forces of the East,” would lead to the takeover of Western civilization (Marchetti, 2). This belief, which was rooted from the medieval fear of Genghis Khan’s Mongol invasion was known as the “Yellow Peril” and was coined by German Emperor Wilhelm II in 1895 rose due to the limited knowledge of Asia and Asians in America held by surrounding countries during the time (Marchetti, 2). Generally, in regards to the racism in America held by white, the underlying belief was that non- white people were intellectually and physically inferior to white people, and are in addition, “morally suspect, heathen, licentious, disease-ridden, feral, violent, uncivilized, infantile, and in need of the guidance of white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants” (Marchetti, 3).

In response to the mass influx of Asian immigrants to the West, as well as their concurrent economic uprising, the American government subsequently created laws targeting those categorized as “yellow” that stripped away what would have been their “unalienable rights”  (54). Examples of this type legislation includes the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Law, which ceased the immigration of Chinese laborers for ten years, except for “merchants, students, teachers and diplomats, and travelers” and after years of amendments to the Chinese Exclusion Law, it was made indefinite in 1904 (Chan, 55). The discrimination of Japanese immigrants also materialized, but was much more indirect. With legislation not explicitly including the words “Japanese” in them, such as the Gentlemen’s Agreement in 1907, Executive Order 589 and the Immigration Act of 1924, they limited the immigration of Japanese immigrants just the same (Chan, 55).

Hollywood’s treatment and utilization of non-whites in film did not stray much away from the American government’s conduct toward Asian American and Asian immigrants, which meant that prejudice carried over to the film industry. Hayakawa was regarded as the first male sex symbol of Hollywood, but his on-screen presence was an aberration from what Asian male actors were routinely perceived as, which were as “rapists or asexual eunuchs” (Marchetti, 2). In other words, Hayakawa's success did not well represent the reality of the Hollywood film industry, where typecasting and stereotyping remained prevalent forms of hiring actors (Marchetti, 2). According to Marchetti, Hollywood’s primary use of Asians, Asian Americans, and Pacific Islanders representation in films was to “avoid the far more immediate racial tensions between blacks and whites or the ambivalent mixture of guilt and enduring hatred toward Native Americans and Hispanics” (6). In other words, the implementation of Asians actors and actresses in Hollywood served as a diversion from the other types of racism directed toward different ethnic groups. Additionally, Hayakawa’s presence in the films that he starred in was to reinforce the idea that Asians could never achieve the supposed "higher" status of whites, while promoting the adherence and assimilation of Asians into American culture (Miyao, 15). With these additional boundaries in Hollywood on top of the legislation outside the film industry, Hayakawa’s likelihood of leaving an imprint on the film industry seemed slim — that is, until he broke through with his performance in The Cheat (1915).