Who Killed Vincent Chin.: A Critique of Who Killed Vincent Chin? III

Where then, should that screentime be directed? Fishbein asserts that many decisive facts were left unmentioned in the film.2 A black bystander testified that Ebens and Nitz were attempting to attack another Chinese victim. A black police officer confirms this testimony by asserting that Ebens and Nitz were in fact, planning to prey on Chin’s friend, Jimmy Choy, as well. This is a critical piece of information linking Ebens to racism, yet is omitted from the film because of the filmmaking style, where voiceovers and narrations are unable to fill in the missing information.2 If the film wished to gather a wide range of perspectives, why aren't these aforementioned participants, as well as Chin’s friends included in the film as well? In addition, Choy and Tajima fail to mention that Ebens’ original conviction of twenty-five years was only overturned when the trial moved from Detroit to Cincinnati, a different, more "conservative" landscape. When relocated from Detroit to Cincinnati, the trial judge neglected to submit taped evidence of purported coaching of prosecution witnesses.2 The prosecution for the case, had also failed to show up, which Fishbein asserts was a factor in the lenient conviction of Ebens.2 This information, had it been included more extensively in the film, would have transitioned into talking points about minority groups in the realm of white hegemonic society, where the judicial system fails to put its best effort to bring forth justice for them. The link between racism and this case NEEDS to be made.

Choy and Tajima traded off dry, but relevant facts about the case to create a more emotionally-driven film. Through the humanization of Chin, which admittedly, was much needed, they attempt to wake the audience's’ hearts rather than their minds. However, say all of the above to sayt this - feelings cannot stand alone in revolutionary movement. Emotions are fleeting. Knowledge of the history guides the movement towards a direction. Knowledge is power. Without knowledge, the pent-up frustration is misguided and the people are left aimlessly swinging punches in the dark. Racism is not a singular entity to destroy, you have to dismantle the roots and branches, yet Who Killed Vincent Chin? fails to fully explain these roots by omitting the previously mentioned details. Choy and Tajima fail to convey that those roots and branches lead to America’s tallest and oldest tree: white supremacy. With no distinct narrative of racism as the unquestioned cause of Chin’s death and shared grievance in the Asian American community, the movement cannot reach its peak. The pan-Asian movement that initially resulted from Chin’s death has for the most part, withered.

Chin’s aftermath and his legacy, or lack thereof, proves this. After more months of protesting, Chin is largely forgotten. Perhaps a paragraph or two in a standard American history book will speak about the tragedy as merely a sideshow to the African American Civil Rights Movement, if at all. However’s what’s most important is that Ebens got away with a sentence disproportionate to his crime and after 30 years, many of the racist mechanisms ingrained within our society still exist. The model minority and perpetual foreigner myth, which Vincent Chin embodied, continue to undermine Asian racism today. Ryo Oyamada, another Asian life that was taken away in 2013, draws striking parallels to Chin. In fact, the racial undertones were more transparent.

Ran over by a NYPD officer. Crime covered up.

However, in contrast, there was zero backlash against the justice system. There is no doubt in my mind that if Chin’s case was more well-known, publicized and better understood, that Oyamada’s case would be thrown into the mainstream. If Choy and Tajima were more fearless with challenging the white hegemonic structure, sparking more varied public perception with the film, Chin may not have achieved individual justice, but Asian Americans would be more united and empowered through a greater grasp of reality. Most today, to be frank, do not know their own history and subscribe to the mainstream, manufactured, white liberal ideals and schemas today such as "When a white man commits a crime, he is a 'lonewolf'" when in actuality, mountains of evidence suggest that most crimes are racially motivated. To be blunt, Choy and Tajima play the role of "model minority" by never attacking white supremacy head-on. Almost 40 years have passed and the our "activists" today still do the same - always maneuvering and finding excuses to not put our own interests first when every single other minority in America has unapologetically fought for their own justice.

Chin’s aftermath and his legacy, or lack thereof, proves this lack of cohesiveness in Asian America. After more months of protesting, Chin is largely forgotten. Perhaps a paragraph or two in a standard American history book will speak about the tragedy as merely a sideshow to the African American Civil Rights Movement, if at all. However’s what’s most important is that Ebens got away with a sentence disproportionate to his crime and after 30 years, many of the racist mechanisms ingrained within our society still exist. The model minority and perpetual foreigner myth, which Vincent Chin embodied, continuesto undermine Asian racism today.

Although Who Killed Vincent Chin? was well-received for introducing Vincent Chin to the public sphere, it was underwhelming with regards to its critical assessment. Fishbein’s criticism is unalligned with public perception, but more realistic in terms of bringing tangible, obserbvable social change. Rarely, does Asia America have the chance to represent themselves and speak their narratives in film. Filled with tremendous potential to unite and empower Asian America and ignite social change, Who Killed Vincent Chin? was that golden opportunity. However, as Fishbein asserts, instead of relentlessly asserting that race was a factor (which once again, EVERY other subjugated minority has done regularly through their own media), Choy and Tajima fell back on trying to promote “objectivity” through subjective perspectives. The answer to who killed Vincent Chin? should have been answered thoroughly with conviction, firing on all cylinders — through sociological, psychological and historical lenses. The answer, like most things, leads to white supremacy.Yet, the question is answered passively answered with a general, surface-level murmur of “racism.” Who Killed Vincent Chin? did fairly well in retelling the incident, but falls flat with weaving the concept of race in the context of America at large. As a result, its potential to affect the national movement toward “equality” is disappointingly finite.

Asian America needs to go harder. Attack white supremacy full throttle; moments like these do not come often. By giving these white criminals opportunities to speak everytime they commit a crime, it perpetuates the notion that these whites are individually bad apples, when in actuality, they fall off the tree of white entitlement. White supremacy and the collective deeds and atrocities of white individuals need to be put into trial. Until then, expecting change here for Asian America is irrational. Our leaders have sold us out.

End Notes

(1) Canby, Vincent. "Review: New Directors/New Films; 'Who Killed Vincent Chin?': Answer Is

Complex." The New York Times. 1988. Accessed May 19, 2016.

http://www.nytimes.com/1988/03/11/movies/review-new-directors-new-films-who-killed-vincent-chin-answer-is-complex.html.

(2) Fishbein, Leslie, Christine Choy, and Renee Tajima. "Who Killed Vincent Chin?" The

American Historical Review 95, no. 4 (1990): 0-7. doi:10.2307/2163497.

(3) Smith, Mark Shalon. "MOVIE REVIEW : Rhetorical Question: 'Who Killed Vincent Chin?'

Thought-provoking Documentary Leaves Conclusions to Viewers at UCI's Asian/Pacific

Film and Video Festival." Los Angeles Times. 1993. Accessed May 19, 2016. http://articles.latimes.com/1993-05-28/entertainment/ca-40752_1_vincent-chin.

Who Killed Vincent Chin.: A Critique of Who Killed Vincent Chin? II

Although Choy and Tajima speak of the complexity of the Chin’s case, they do little to explain the flaws within society through the sociological imagination. By choosing the route of cinéma vérité, they omitted significant facts. Rather than arming the American people, particularly Asian Americans, with a clearer understanding of the systematic methods the United States has disenfranchised Asian Americans with throughout the past century, Choy and Tajima rely on audiences to empathize with Chin through the crosscutting of interviews.

Specifically, a sequence within the film that demonstrates the Rashomon-like structure occurs in the interview with Ebens, followed by an interview with Chin’s mother. (37:00-37:30). Ebens of course, nonchalantly maintains that the incident was not racially motivated and demonstrates zero signs of remorse. His perceived “logical” rationalizations are juxtaposed with Lily Chin’s emotional outbursts. His dismissive attitude in this sequence represent the ignorance of society at large whereas Lily Chin’s reaction represent the real-world consequences of these dismissive attitudes. Essentially, this parallel editing by Choy and Tajima is utilized to gather audiences to empathize with the Chin family and condemn Ebens.

Lily Chin

While this conscious cinematographic technique is employed to strike a chord with the audience on a visceral level, Choy and Tajima never come full-circle and build a connection between the personal and sociological. Where is the dismantling of Ebens’ argument through narration of the model minority myth, perpetual foreigner or other schemas forged by the United States to dehumanize Asians? Again, this type of editing resurfaces to continually induce the same effect as the previous sequence; Choy and Tajima juxtapose Ebens’ overall ignorance, with a montage of Lily Chin crying in a memorial service for Chin (57:00-57:30). Without invalidating the grief of Lily Chin, the emotional elements of the film became superfluous, as the omission of other social elements was necessary to generate screentime for them.

To reiterate, there is nothing inherently wrong with the Rashomon-like structure, however, in a film created to empower and inform, it is suboptimal. One sequence which utilized crosscutting very well occurs after Chin’s mother goes off on the injustices of the court, where she asserts that “if they[the defendants] were Chinese, it would be so different!”(39:40-40:10). Lily Chin explicitly asserts that the courts were negligent to her demands because of her race which is what Fishbein implies the film needs more of: A more direct calling out the legal system's incompetency for what it is, unjust and racist.

This is immediately followed by Starlene, the dancer at the scene of the crime, as well as two other officers agreeing with her assertion. They state facts about their involvement with the case, expressing their shock that where they weren't called in as witnesses and were the last to know about the developments (40:10). Starlene’s testimony, as well as her fellow dancer, Racine Colwell, especially, were of the utmost importance because they were the only sources of testimony that prove Ebens’ assault was racially motivated. To reiterate, it was these two witnesses that heard Ebens shout “It's because of you little motherfuckers that we’re out of work!” yet, the film only relies on these two, who have barely a minute or two in the film, to prove evidence that race was a factor. Instead, we have a significant amount of time to hear Ebens’ and his cohorts’ rambling rationalization after the court's ruling in his favor (49:40-50:10).  Why are media-makers so scared to talk about race and call it out for what it is: a hate crime. Why are we once again trying to give the man, the criminal, an opportunity to defend himself, when everytime an Asian man is killed or commits a crime, media outlets never try to humanize him? If a minority man in America commits murder, he is locked up immediately, not interviewed, not given a chance to speak the American public, photographed with his "best" picture with his accomplishments on the headlines and with headlines avoiding the word rape, murder, etc

Who Killed Vincent Chin.: A Critique of Who Killed Vincent Chin? I

Fueled by the hysterical outbursts of Chin’s mother, Lily Chin, the unwavering stubbornness of Chin’s murderer, Ronald Ebens, and the perspectives of the scene’s eye-witnesses, Who Killed Vincent Chin? (1987) was nationally revered by mainstream pundits for thrusting the subject of race relations into the United States’ Overton Window. However, after closer inspection, Who Killed Vincent Chin? failed to reach its potential in sparking an analytical discourse on the manufactured, prejudiced systems that led to Chin’s demise, never explicitly condemning the tragedy as racially motivated. Consequently, a very surface-level discussion regarding race arose, and like the feelings Catherine Choy and Renee Tajima attempted to convey, Chin was a forgettable and fleeting talking point in United States history. Rather than narrowing in on the film’s original intent —revealing the ruthlessly rampant undercurrent of Asian and Asian American racism in the United States—  Choy and Tajima fracture the narrative into diametrically opposed pieces in effort to establish "objectivity" within the film, limiting the film’s capacity for social change.

Released in 1987, the film in question.

Depending on what you read, Who Killed Vincent Chin? is either lauded as thought-provoking and successful, or acknowledged as noble, but flawed. In heavily-read, mainstream media outlets, the film is the former, while in lesser-known, analytical critiques, the film is the latter. Renowned film critic of The New York Times, Vincent Canby asserts that “Choy and Ms. Tajima have so successfully analyzed this sudden, sad, fatal confrontation that almost everything except the Big Mac becomes implicated in the events.” Similarly, veteran film critic of The Los Angeles Times, Mark Chalon Smith, described Who Killed Vincent Chin? as “though-provoking.” In contrast, however, Associate Professor of American Studies, Leslie Fishbein, declares the film a “babble of competing discourses,” a scattered narrative.2 Which one of these reviews are more accurate and why is there a disconnect between the two conclusions?  

According to interviews prior to the film’s release, Choy and Tajima initially sought out to produce Who Killed Vincent Chin? to expose anti-Asian violence in the United States, specifically through Chin’s case, as well as empower Asian Americans. Essentially, Fishbein, with her expertise in humanities, researched herself the entire background of the case and criticizes the film with the directors’ objectives in mind. Smith and Canby, however, appear to be similar to the average American audience member, likely equipped with surface-level knowledge of everything surrounding the film. They do not understand the gravity of the film for the Asian and Asian American community nor contextualize the film with any other analytical framework. As a result, we will primarily be focusing on Fishbein’s critique, which speaks on how the film failed to adequately address Asian and Asian American racism in the United States and as a result, reach a broader social impact.  

Racist Ebens

While there is an inherent struggle in compressing such a layered subject into a limited timeframe, Who Killed Vincent Chin? could have greatly benefited from a change in filmmaking style that emphasized the primary narrative. Fishbein describes the storytelling structure of Who Killed Vincent Chin? as “Rashomon-like.” The “Rashomon effect,” described as “contradictory interpretations of the same event by different people,” is precisely what Who Killed Vincent Chin? constructs through its series of interviews and eyewitness accounts.2 If the intention of Choy and Tajima were to take audiences to the scene and aftermath of the incident, than the utilization of these interviews were perfectly executed. However, the intention of Choy and Tajima was to condemn the prejudiced thought-patterns held by Ebens and catalyze change, and thus, a Rashomon-like retelling of the tragedy strayed away from that critical sociological analysis necessary for that to happen.2

Instead of a concrete point of view that criticized the United States’ government for manufacturing the conditions that led to the antagonization of Asian American citizens— enemy-imaging through propaganda— or the institutionalized racial biases of the legal system held against ethnic minorities, Choy and Tajima opted to showcase a multitude of perspectives from all those involved in the case. Canby asserts that Who Killed Vincent Chin? is “about many things, including Detroit, the economics of the automobile industry, the history of Oriental immigrants, blue-collar aspirations, American justice and the ways Americans talk,” which ideally should not be the prime takeaway from the film.1 The crux of Fishbein’s argument is that racism should have been the film’s principal motif, not about “many things,” yet it is de-emphasized by Lily Chin’s bawling, Ebens’ denial and the inclusion of other narratives such as Detroit’s economic downturn.

Mental Colonization Through American Intervention: The Host Part III

What’s interesting about the creature in the film is that it is not really its own character; it is devoid of emotion, unlike in typical monster-horror films, where the monster has motive. As a result, it serves solely as a prop symbolizing the aforementioned combination of all the adverse effects of  unwelcome and unnecessary American intervention. As a product of an American military pathologists’ mistake and pressure, the creature delivering the death of hundreds of South Korean civilians is an explicit reference to exactly that, Korean lives lost due to American intervention. Perhaps Joon-ho’s references past United States-Korean diplomatic relations, in which the United States alliance with South Korea led to thousands of Koreans massacred in North Korea during the Korean War. However, the death of Korean lives should not be interpreted on a personal level, but rather on an aggregate scale in Joon-ho’s critique.

Running around places unwanted and unwarranted terrorizing innocent civilians.

Simply put, when Korean lives die, so does Korean identity, along with the spirit of Korean nationalism. As previously mentioned, the creature represents the combination of all the detrimental effects of American intervention, but in this context, more specifically, the influence of Western media. Combined with the screen quotas and United States’ presence in the state, the safety of South Korean culture and political power is at risk in its own country. What Bong Joon-ho allegorizes by allowing both Hyun-Seo and Se-joo to survive throughout most of the film is that despite the youth being victims of mental colonization, they are the ones that are most capable of resisting the status-quo and reversing it.

In the end of the film, Gang-du and Se-joo are watching television, when the Korean channel is interrupted by a press conference held by the United States’ Senate regarding the virus. There is a hidden layer of depth in the closing scene, as once again, a Korean entity is abruptly interrupted by an American one. This doubles as a reference to effects of the lowered screen quotas for homegrown Korean films with Western media filling in the media waves. During the press conference, we hear one of the officials declare that the virus could be “wholly attributed to misinformation,” without of course, taking responsibility for their mistake. Se-joo innocently asserts that “there is nothing good to watch,” which is Joon-ho’s final reiteration that Western media is “not good.” The conditions, however, that make it “not good” are not its production values, cinematographic technique, or narratives, etc., but rather the fact that they impose the distortion of reality to maintain their own economic dominance and supposed “superiority.”

The Host, when more carefully observed, is really a deviation of the standard Hollywood science-fiction horror as opposed to a derivative; it functions successfully on its own as purely entertainment, but at the same time, holds intriguing insight to one of South Korea’s most accomplished minds on the subject of American intervention. While his condemnation of American intervention and media are very ambitious, he is rightfully disturbed at the injustices experienced by South Korea. Bong Joon-ho was very successful in inspiring audiences to recognize the power of film as a cultural influencer, the hypocrisy of the American vision, as well the importance to all nations subjugated and victimized by white supremacy to preserve their own culture and identity.

Mental Colonization Through American Intervention: The Host Part II

In the film’s opening, an American military pathologist orders his Korean subordinate to dump chemicals into the Han River, who reluctantly follows his commands. The scene is very symbolic of a lot of things. First, the fact that the American military pathologist is in charge of a laboratory in Korea reflects that despite being a local minority, Americans still wield authority. Despite not being the most qualified, due to the effects of imperialism,inhabitants of the native country are so brainwashed into the colonial mentality, that they feel that they can't well enough without the supprt of the colonizer. To reiterate: The poisonous chemicals are a direct allegory of the toxicity of American intervention in South Korea, with “mental colonization” being one of these adverse spillovers. The American pathologist's carelessness with dumping the chemicals in the Han River is symbolic of past colonial ventures, where European colonizers depleted the natural resources of underdeveloped countries without care for the well-being of the country’s inhabitants and years of history. The interaction between the Korean subordinate and his American supervisor serves as an additional allegory of the United States pressuring Korea to carry out behavior against their will, such with the aforementioned implementation of the screening quota. Further, the dialogue between the American military pathologist and the Korean subordinate exposes the hypocrisy in the American justification of colonization. The American pathologist, of course, representing America, demands his Korean subordinate to be more “open-minded,” while in reality, America has been force-feeding Hollywood films and imposing Western schemas to not only just South Korea, but Asia, Latin America and Africa for decades. Within the first five minutes, in a barrage of allegories, Bong Joon-ho voices his strong disdain for the detrimental effects of American intervention, the American government’s unwillingness to cooperate with Korea and the general amount of disrespect that Americans have towards the natives of the colonized countries.

Attempts to silence the truth through lobotomy of Gang-du

After being taken hostage by the government, Park Gang-du, the father, is taken to the hospital where he learns that there is no “virus” surrounding the creature. The threat of a “virus” was fabricated by the government, who are in reality the film’s primary antagonist, to distract the citizens of Korea from discovering the true origin of the creature. This is admitted by an American scientist to once again, a Korean subordinate. In order to silence Park Gang-du from speaking out, the American scientist lobotomizes him. This blatantly allegorizes “mental colonization.” The American surgeon literally wants to remove the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that enables higher cognitive functioning and thinking from Gang-du. The American scientist represents the ruthlessness of the United States propaganda machine, subtly wiping away the nationalistic views of the colonized country to submit to American ideals. Park Gang-du was completely innocent and yet, the American scientist calls for his lobotomization on a whim, ignoring the laws of South Korea, as well as the morals of the world in general to advance his own objectives. The fact that the virus had been made up to prevent the South Korean citizens from discovering the truth, is symbolic of the tactics that Hollywood programming utilizes to shield audiences, including their own domestic audiences, from learning about America’s history of colonization and the hypocrisy of the nation, diverting their attention away from their own faults and failures through "entertainment."

From news outlets to television commercials, American media waves have been overwhelmingly biased. The schemas present in Hollywood films are based on false and exaggerated schemas to divide people of “Non-Western” qualities in battles against one another, condition minority groups to chase unachievable American ideals, and carry self-destructive ideologies, such as hedonism (David, Okazaki, 11). This is why government officials of ASEAN, India’s Hindu nationalists, as well as Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew have all spoken against the oversaturated inflow of Western media (Trice). Joon-ho alludes to the unfortunate fact that many innocent civilians, unknowingly internalized the schemas churned out by the Hollywood media machine, and this is referenced by the Korean masses not questioning the government’s treatment of the “virus” and the creature. They have been “mentally colonized” with the schema that they should always obey orders from the American government due to Hollywood never portraying the failures of the American government, only the glory. Without challenging corrupt authority, injustices like these, created by Western hegemony have happened(swept under the rug however) and CONTINUE to exist

Mental Colonization Through American Intervention: The Host Part I

While The Host initially appears to function solely as an immensely suspenseful, high-production science-fiction horror film, there are actually deliberate, underlying motifs that transcend the film into a multidimensional masterpiece, capable of being analyzed in a variety of perspectives. Under a historical lense, scenes which include the hapless reactions of the South Korean masses, to the mercilessness of the American surgeon in one of the film’s most pivotal moments, reflects Bong Joon-ho’s own assessment of the United States and Korea’s flawed diplomatic and political relations. Through the characterization and dialogue of the film’s primary protagonists and antagonists, as well as the unfolding of the narrative, Bong Joon-ho’s allegorizes the ruthlessly absurd effects of mental colonization, criticizes American intervention in Korea, and presents a potent rationale against Western media.

In order to fully comprehend the strength of Boon Joon-ho’s arguments, there has to a consensus agreement and admittance that we all have been conditioned unwillingly— and to a great extent, brainwashed— to hold unnatural biases through the media (Loomba, 7). There are intentional, subliminal messages scattered all across the seemingly innocuous advertisements, films and television programs that are virtually unavoidable (Berry, 218). These repeated messages form schemas—”organized patterns of thought or behavior that organizes categories of information and the relationships among them” and manufacture the perception of reality, regardless of whether or not these messages are objectively true (DiMaggio). While the West’s colonization of developing countries can be physically observed through their military occupation, controlling the minds of the citizens in these developing countries further serves as a subtle but equally devastating, augmentation of colonization (David, Okazaki, 3). In other words, the West has been utilizing the media to force-feed schemas that maintain Western hegemony, “mentally colonizing” the inhabitants of the colonized country into believing schemas, such as “White is right” (David, Okazaki, 11). Derogatory stereotyping of “un-Westernized” individuals, as well as portraying America in an unrealistic and overwhelmingly positive manner are just two recurring themes—schemas— that secure America’s global authority and economic opportunity.

As a testament to the effects of mental colonization, Joon-ho satirizes the effects of mental colonization of Hollywood films on its own domestic audiences, when a young, white American male decides to, on a whim, battle the creature himself. Because Hollywood has been saturated with fantasy films of, white males playing the role of savior in foreign lands, the self-esteem of white males are disproportionately high (Goldberg). It is not a coincidence that an average American male, in a sea of South Korean citizens is the only one to stand up against the creature. In similar studies, girls, as well as minorities growing up in America, have demonstrated lower self-esteem due to the schemas of eurocentric television programs (Goldberg). To say that the media does not play a role in unknowingly influencing the behavior of others is nonsensical, yet others are very unaware of just how much the media conditions its audiences. From the perspective of South Korea, we could see why it is critical for them to monitor the schemas displayed at their local theatres and diversify the schemas presented through their own films.

South Korean protests (against cultural imperialism)

To bring this back in the context of South Korea’s film industry, South Korea had been enforcing that homegrown Korean films be shown 146 days a year, implementing a quota system that had lasted for over 40 years (Lee, 58). However, due to pressure from the United States government and the World Trade Organization to open up their trade barriers, Korea was forced to lower their quota to 73 homegrown films a year (Lee, 58). This allowed more Hollywood films to flood the screens at the expense of Korean films that weren’t modeled after the blockbuster, decreasing the diversity of Korean films exhibited at the theaters (Berry, 219). Unaware of the tremendous capability of the media to influence and shape society and conditioned by a eurocentric point of view, a typical American citizen might ask, “Why is Korea so ardently defending the screen quota?” In the words of Shin Ki-Nam of South Korea’s Committee for Cultural Tourism, “Supporting the quota system does not mean we are excluding other films. It is about preserving our uniqueness.” This “uniqueness” encompasses Korean traditions and values, distinguishing South Korea from America and without this “uniqueness,” the world would be irrationally homogenized under Western standards. And what are these Western Standards founded by, other than a series of violations of human rights? The Europeans left “skeletons” of colonized countries behind, and South Korea, as with the rest of the world, is cautious of American (Loomba, 7).

Sessue Hayakawa: Implementation of Model Minority Stereotype Through Film III

What also has to be considered were laws forbidding interracial marriage, otherwise known as miscegenation laws, that prevented on screen interracial romances from ever coming into fruition (Chan, 60). Hayakawa’s roles were frequently described as “villainous,” but what was typically meant was that he was a threat to violate the miscegenation laws that were heavily enforced by certain states. As a result of these miscegenation laws, the success and “masculinity” of the characters Hayakawa portrayed on-film were capped, as his many roles as the “exotic lover” primarily revolved around him in love affairs with Caucasian women (Miyao, 2). At the time, what was considered the most “masculine” course of action for an Asian character in Hollywood was essentially sacrificing himself for the betterment of a white person. Of course, this metaphorically represented the adherement of the racial hierarchy, where the desires of white Americans were placed above every other ethnic group. More specifically, Hayakawa’s onscreen roles propagated the offscreen role of Asians as a “model minority,” subservient to white Americans.

For instance, referring back to An Arabian Knight (1920), Hayakawa’s character Ahmed becomes a “hero” for saving a white couple (192). In The Call of the East (1917), Hayakawa's character, Takada, falls in love with a white woman, Sheila, who initially reciprocates his love until she realizes that she should not, because of the aforementioned miscegenation laws (Miyao, 122). Sheila’s brother, Alan, however, has been “fooling around” with Takada’s sister. Takada initially plots revenge against Alan, but ultimately decides against it, dropping his “villainous” ideas of revenge for once again, the betterment of the two main white characters (Miyao, 122).  

Essentially, despite not “getting the girl,” or whatever the typical white protagonist would achieve in Hollywood films, Hayakawa’s characters expressed “masculinity,” in a different form. Of course, that frame was rigged, for he was considered to be “masculine” in the frame established by whites, for the betterment of whites. While the motivations of his casting in films, as well as the results of his on-screen roles were obviously used to further Hollywood’s propaganda, he uplifted the image of Asians living in the United States by unprecedentedly shattered the stereotype of the asexual, emasculated, impoverished, laboring Asian immigrant. Once a star amongst the sky with Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin, his name is now largely unknown or in better terms, erased.

Although Hayakawa’s roles primarily sought to encourage the assimilation of Asians into American culture, his performance in many leading roles as a capable, masculine Asian man were monumental improvements of the images for Asian Americans men in America. However, that's not to say he was perfect. In essence, he was the personification of the “heightening of [his] characters racial and cultural status beyond that of other nonwhites to the middle-ground position, but not necessarily to equal that of white American characters” (15). He changed the perception of Asians from unskilled laborers, coolies - ruthless savages to essentially a watered-down version of what we would call today as “model minority,” a “better” stereotype. While that is in the bigger picture still immensely flawed as it merely shifted the stereotype for reinforcement of the rigid white power structure in Hollywood, Hayakawa’s presence was ultimately a net-positive for Asians in the United States. Belive me brothers, no stereotypes against Asian men are for your own good. Survival was what Asians living in the United States wanted at the time, and with Hayakawa's ascent, they live to fight another day. The battle still rages on, but Hayakwaka's tale serves as a reminder to the Asian American community, looking to break down their self-limiting mentalities that their supposed “inferiority” is nothing but a lie wrapped by white fragility.