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Playful Yellowness: Rescuing Interculturalism from Millennial Orientalism

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Interculturalism and Performance Now

Part of the book series: Contemporary Performance InterActions ((CPI))

Abstract

This chapter investigates performing “yellowness” in a playful but sincere way, as a recent trend of portraying Asianness and presenting Asian bodies in performance. Three methods are examined: yellow face, yellow drag, and yellow play. A number of performances, both theatrical performances and online cosplays from the 2010s are discussed. Postracial and transracial discourse, colorblind and diversity casting, as well as a form of renewed model minority mystique and yellow phobia all contribute to the formation of the practice of playful yellowness. Instead of engaging in critical dialogues and negotiations about cultures, aesthetics, and powers, which are essential elements of intercultural theatre, playful yellowness as a form of Millennial Orientalism acts as a racial and cultural equalizer and poses a threat to intercultural performance.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Very often, the terms “Asian century” and “Chinese century” are used interchangeably. Despite the rising power of Southeast Asia and the diversity within Asia, the Asia/China conflation suggests that the international political discourse today generally follows the conventional conceptual model that Asia means East Asia. Similarly, Asian/Asianness generally implies East Asian aesthetics in the discourse and practice of intercultural performance, such as in the discussion of yellowface. This essay generally follows such conceptual geography of yellowness.

  2. 2.

    David Polumbo Liu suggests that Asia has arrived in the twenty-first century before America (1999, 338).

    Joseph E. Stigliz, the Nobel Prize winner in economics, says in 2014 that the “Chinese century” has begun, since China now has the world’s largest PPP (purchasing power parity) (see Jin Kai 2015).

  3. 3.

    The current participating nations are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. After the refusal of the US to join, the name has been changed to CPTPP (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership).

  4. 4.

    The 2016 US Census report shows a picture of income and poverty inequality in term of race. The report puts the Asian median household income on top, followed by white, Hispanic, and Black. The study is from 1967 to 2015; even though Asians only entered the picture in mid-1980s, this trend was consistent in the past decades. The disparity is large: Asian families earn about $20,000 above national average, and twice as much as black families (Proctor et al. 2016).

  5. 5.

    The “merits” seem to be defined as “highly skilled, well-educated immigrants who speak English and can support themselves.”

  6. 6.

    HIT generally refers to a “classic” form of intercultural theatre, such as when a Western director incorporates traditional Eastern stylization in an adaptation of Shakespeare. See Daphne P. Lei, “Interruption, Intervention, Interculturalism: Robert Wilson’s HIT Productions in Taiwan.” Theatre Journal 63 (2011): 571–586.

  7. 7.

    Perhaps we can characterize new interculturalism as a twenty-first-century phenomenon. Here are some representative ones: Royona Mitra (2015) writes about Akram Khan’s parallel counternarrative specific to non-white diasporic lives and his strategic code-switching between exotic and mainstream aestheticism, between subversion and conformism. Khan’s new intercultualism is a politicized and non-white intervention to intercultural theatre.

    Ric Knowles (2010) discusses the “rhizomatic (multiple, horizontal, non-hierarchical) intercultural performance-from-below” as a new phenomenon in the increasingly globalized and diverse world. Charlotte McIvor’s (2016) analysis of contemporary Irish theatre goes beyond aesthetics; social policies and theatrical interculturalism are closely connected.

  8. 8.

    Here I refer to any kind of racial binary system in any culture, be it black vs. white, or majority vs. minority (minorities). In a country traditionally dominated by the black/white racial discourse, such as in the US, Asians are routinely excluded from mainstream racial discourse.

  9. 9.

    Claire Jean Kim (1999) considers two dimensions—relative valorization and civic ostracism in positioning Asian Americans on the American racial map. The triangulation of Asian, African, and white Americans provides a more dynamic way of analyzing Asianness.

  10. 10.

    Shannon Steen proposes to think of race as a means to “organizes international power, global space, and the bodies within it”; it is a kind of “geometry” (2010, 5).

  11. 11.

    Examples of hipster racism include South Park, Tosh. O, and others.

  12. 12.

    Masquerading as racial other is not a new phenomenon. The recent controversy started when Rachel Dolezal, a chapel head of NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), was revealed as a white woman presenting herself as black for years. Dolezal was ridiculed and condemned, whereas, around the same time, the celebrity Caitlyn Jenner’s new transgender identity (from Bruce Jenner) was widely accepted or even praised and glamorized. Using transgender rhetoric as a way to examine all the objections against transracialism, Rebecca Tuvel (2017) argues that the societal consideration of the transracial possibility can be a way to open up identity discourse. Tuvel’s argument for transracialism is generally rejected.

  13. 13.

    See my analysis of her visit in “Chinese Theatre and the Eternal Frontier in Nineteenth-Century California” (2006) and “Orphan à la Crouching Tiger” (2014).

  14. 14.

    I am alluding Brandi Catanese’s (2011) “bad manners” metaphor: seeing race or being racially conscious in public is often considered “bad manners” because race is legislatively suggested as a “private” matter.

  15. 15.

    The entire list of cast and production team of Nightingale can be found at http://www.lajollaplayhouse.org/about-the-playhouse/playhouse-highlights/production-history

  16. 16.

    The play opened on July 10, 2012, and the forum was on July 22.

  17. 17.

    The entire list of cast and production team of Orphan of Zhao can be found at the RSC website: https://www.rsc.org.uk/the-orphan-of-zhao

  18. 18.

    For instance, a whole issue of Contemporary Theatre Review (2014), edited by Amanda Roger and Ashley Thorpe, is devoted to the topic.

  19. 19.

    British East Asian actor Paul Courtenay Hyu echoed this sentiment when he described the casting practice of RSC’s Orphan as “an incredible gob-smacking episode.” He says: “They have an all-black Julius Caesar (2012) and an all-Indian Much Ado (2012), but when they decide to do the Chinese Hamlet, they cast fourteen out of seventeen actors and all of the major parts as non-Chinese. In the 21st century, that’s unbelievable” (quoted in Trueman 2012).

  20. 20.

    See Michael Cooper’s “Reviving ‘The Mikado’ in a Balancing Act of Taste” (2016) and Tammy Kim’s “An Asian-American Reimagination of Gilbert and Sullivan’s ‘The Mikado’” (2016). Josephine Lee’s The Japan of Pure Invention: Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado (2010) points out that such yellowface practice is both a historical and contemporary problem.

  21. 21.

    Only 1 out of 12 members is not Asian.

  22. 22.

    The clichéd yellowness includes ceremonial bowing, walking with fast tiny steps while fanning, and mumbling Chinese nonsense.

  23. 23.

    The play premiered in Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) in 2012. I saw the production in the Old Globe in San Diego, 2015.

  24. 24.

    Such as the famous dance The Legend of the White Serpent (premiered in 1975, with the original title Xu Xian) by the Cloud Gate Dance Theatre. The Legend of the White Snake (Xin Bainiangzi chuanqi), a very popular primetime TV series in Taiwan with multiple reruns (with famous actors from Hong Kong and Taiwan, 1992–1993). A new TV series based on the Taiwan version is being remade in China right now. There are countless performances of The White Snake in different forms of Chinese opera, both in traditional style and in innovated forms today.

  25. 25.

    There are many portraits of Wong as Turandot at Westport, in the Van Vechten Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

  26. 26.

    The book contains synopses of 50 popular Chinese plays and 240 illustrations.

  27. 27.

    For the original quotation, see Zung 1964, 99–101.

  28. 28.

    Zimmerman also defends the relevance of The White Snake: “It must be relevant because it’s so old.”

  29. 29.

    Her facebook page has the most up-to-date images. https://www.facebook.com/AnastasiyaFukkacumiShpagina

  30. 30.

    There is an online open forum devoted to her: “Pretty Ugly Little Liar” (https://prettyuglylittleliar.net/topic/912-anastasiya-shpagina/?page=4)

  31. 31.

    The commercial (Qiaobi detergent) can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X27dvuBSyXE

  32. 32.

    The commercial (Coloreria Italiana detergent) can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo9k79ijMVs

  33. 33.

    The “clone” effect is a well-known phenomenon in Korean pageants as many contenders look uncannily alike because of plastic surgery.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Drama, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA

    Daphne P. Lei

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  1. Daphne P. Lei
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Correspondence to Daphne P. Lei .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Drama and Theatre Studies National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland

    Charlotte McIvor

  2. Irish Heritage Trust, Dublin, Ireland

    Jason King

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Lei, D.P. (2019). Playful Yellowness: Rescuing Interculturalism from Millennial Orientalism. In: McIvor, C., King, J. (eds) Interculturalism and Performance Now. Contemporary Performance InterActions. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02704-9_10

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