Yellow Face Play Summary

The Phantom of the Opera also issued a similar type of casting method when naming Norm Lewis as the first black actor to play the Phantom. However, the idea of “color blindness” is not a problem on stage so much as it is off stage. The biggest problem that many black playwrights and directors face is not that their work is not being produced, but that the pieces written about black communities by white men are often racist. “Because much of white privilege doesn’t have any interaction with blackness they have a tendency to congregate around pathology, and only focusing on particular things in the urban environment—high crime, single parenthood, things like that— and then they sort of tag that as being the black experience” (Nichloson). Properly representing a culture different than the playwright’s or producer’s without being racist is a very tedious and difficult task which is why it is very important to have diversity in a show’s production team. Black people are needed on the creative team of a show about a black community in order to “have a fuller perspective of what black is, what black story is, and what black voice is” (Nichloson). American theatre has its definite struggles with gender and racial injustices, but theatres in Britain are facing the same problems on an even greater

August Wilson’s 1996 address entitled “The Ground on Which I Stand”, sparked a vigorous debate in the world of theater over the idea of “colorblind casting” and he presented the need for a Black Theatre. Mr. Wilson was outraged by the fact that of the 66 major companies belonging to the League of Resident Theaters, only one was black. He felt that the supporters of black theatre used their funds to increase black hiring in primarily white theatres as opposed to creating a theatre for the black community. Hw wanted to have more black theaters established to cater to the black actors as well as draw in black audiences. He attacks the increasingly popular trend of “colorblind casting” which basically meant casting black actors in roles traditionally

The play uses stereotypes and biased cultural

Theatre has evolved over the many years. As it has grown, it moved to include more diverse performers, crew, producers, and audiences. This is an exploration of the expansion of diverse theatre.

Whether it is on TV or movie screens, the faces of white actors and actresses have always been prevalent in the media. For generations, many teenagers have been exposed to countless movies with white people in major roles. Moreover, the few roles that are cast to minorities feature the characters in their stereotypical personas (Bonilla-Silva 179). Even in advertising, Asians are placed in business settings, upholding the hard-working Asian stereotype (Taylor and Stern 50). As Taylor and Stern mention in their paper, the “model minority” has made the issue of stereotyping seem less important for Asians. The majority of these actors that are examined, regardless of race, are typically middle-age and well established in their acting careers. However, there is a lack of research behind Asian youth acting and their perceived roles. To account for this knowledge deficit, I examine how whiteness influences the media to portray youth actors as individuals that stray from their stereotypes in an attempt to achieve whiteness. My research site centres around Fresh Off the Boat (FOB), a comedic television series featuring a Taiwanese family. The title of the show Fresh Off the Boat or “FOB” is also a term used to describe a person that is considered too ethnic and as a term of denigration. I utilize Pyke and Dang’s categorization of “FOB” and “whitewashed” to analyze the narrator, Eddie Huang. I chose to limit my research primarily to the first “pilot” episode where the audience is

Despite the fact that Asian Americans have been in Hollywood for decades, there are very few positive representations of them in film. More often than not, they’ve been depicted as stereotypical caricatures, and more specifically, as foreigners who can’t speak grammatically correct English. Moreover, the negative representations of Asian Americans in film has perpetuated certain misconceptions about their culture. Chan is Missing (1982) calls for more genuine representations of Asian American identities through its cast of complex characters and defiance of Asian stereotypes. The film also urges its viewers to critically think about their own notions of identity through the use of several recurring themes and filmmaking techniques.

Three sources analyze the racial conflicts of white actors playing colored parts, and all agreed that it was not a trivial situation, for audiences, or actors. Racial tensions are very popular with the media. While there is some minor tension today, the movies and plays of Othello top the charts for most racial conflicts. First, The article, “Othello: the role that entices and engages actors of all skin colours,” by Andrew Dickson shows the history of the actors that played Othello, and when the actors were black, they were either not cast, due to segregationists, or were criticized in their performance for the same reason. Also, this article uses diction to convey the seriousness of white vs. minority crisis. Next, the video, “SHAKESPEARE UNCOVERED White Actors Playing Othello” by PBS, shows the performances of many Othello actors that were white. Additionally, the video shows one white actor who used makeup to make himself more than than black. The video uses hyperbole to describe the absurdity of Othello movies. For example, Laurence Olivier, the 1964 Othello was black-top showing how far film industries will go to cover-up racial tensions, and the narrator describes the makeup as ridiculous,and dramatic. Finally, the last article, “Aladdin: putting a white character in Disney’s live-action remake is offensive,” by Hannah Flint displays that film industries feel obligated to please a white audience, keeping the minorities second fiddle by adding characters white people

“The Chinese Must Go”, a play written in 1879 that displays how white people viewed Chinese people during this time. The beginning of the script is written as if a Chinese man was speaking but it was obviously written by a white man due to

There has been always a belief that human races have distinctive characteristics that determine their respective cultures. In most cases, the idea that one 's race is superior and is assumed to provide the right to rule or dominate others. There is also the distinct personality in which people are concerned with the persisting entity to particular individuals. The theme of racism and personal identity are evidenced in the plays; Fires in the Mirror and Twilight: Los Angeles in various instances. In the two plays, offensive and aggressive behaviors are demonstrated to members of another race stemming from racism and the inferior belief of skin color. The issues of racial discrimination happen in the two plays, and some people are treated less fairly than others similar situation just because of their race, color, and ethnic origin.

The film Ethnic Notions present how the media have exaggerated black American’s Image throughout centuries. For example, TD Rice a white comedian who performed in blackface (Ethiopian

He pointed out that at the time he wrote this article, most American theatres are “racially mixed”. Black actors could cooperate with a white playwrights. It was no need to separate which theatres are “black” and which are

Who’s next? It seems that the issue about race in American history never reaches an endpoint. The intersection of race, gender, contradiction has been continually crucial to shape the identity of minority American. As early as the first wave of Asian immigrants, Chinese immigrants, arrived in west coast, Asian Americans was haunted by anti-Asian movement and intense hostility. Foreign Miners’ Tax passed in 1852 was a representative of racial campaign between whites and nonwhites. The requirement of monthly three dollars’ tax intentionally crashed the earliest American Dream of Chinese immigrants who expected to lead a better life in the US. Such Anti-Asian movement was eventually ushered into legalized level. California Supreme Court declared in People v. Hall in 1854 that Chinese migrants were not entitled to testify against the white citizens in US court based on the fact that people, other than whites, could never enjoy the same rights as white Americans. Since then, Asian immigrants were subjected to numerous social and legislative initiatives that specifically targeted them on a racial basis. In David Henry Huang’s semiautobiographical play Yellow Face, he mixed his own memory and fiction to depicting an image of Asian American racial identity. In 1990, Hwang led a group of Asian-Americans to protest the casting of a white British actor as a Eurasian character in the musical Miss Saigon. However, later in his own play Face Value, he mistakenly casted a white actor,

In David Henry’s movie depicts how Asian Americans are stereotyped in the media and movies. During the movie a Caucasian fools a director in audition and pretends to be a stereotyped Asian American. “Yellow Face” is an Asian American movie that explains how Asians are used in mass media. In doing so I would begin to explain how much negative effect it will be on society.

I was in a predicament, and I had to decide immediately. Because of my lack of auditioning experience, I wanted to respect their choice, but my morals held me back from stereotyping Asian-Americans. This was the first time I was dealing with this type of blatant racism in the theatre industry, and I knew I had to make a decision in a matter of seconds. With much hesitation, I politely asked to not do a Vietnamese accent and proceeded to perform my monologue in my natural dialect. My rejection to this note perhaps hindered my audition, but I wanted to correctly portray Asian-Americans through the media, even if this was a small role. As much as I wanted to be this character, my morals made me think twice about misrepresenting

Although viewers have their prejudices on film adaptations, they normally attack the structure of the story, exclaiming that film did not stay faithful to the original story; only when a role is poorly cast do the scrutinizing viewers point out the acting. In some cases, however, the actor’s performance is so precise that it, in itself, carries the