Arthur Dong documents the depictions of Asians in studio films in Hollywood Chinese

BY MATTHEW HAYS

For a documentary filmmaker, it's rich territory. Take the struggles of one minority as they strive for better representation on the big screen and place it in a historical context. In 1995, San Francisco-based filmmakers Jeffrey Friedman and Rob Epstein did just that for gays and lesbians with The Celluloid Closet. Now, L.A.-based filmmaker Arthur Dong has created another stirring feature, this one about the history of how Chinese-Americans have been — and continue to be — treated in Tinseltown.

Titled simply Hollywood Chinese, in this entry, Dong takes what could have been a dry subject and makes it truly moving and dimensional. There are alternately hilarious and disturbing clips of films in which every manner of Asian stereotype was trotted out. There are interviews with heavyweights like Ang Lee and Wayne Wang, and there are even interviews with white actors who donned “yellow face” to portray Chinese onscreen, including Christopher Lee, who Dong treats with great respect despite his questionable spot in this litany of misrepresentations.

For Dong, this subject represented something of a shift. “My last three films covered some pretty heavy-duty issues: gays in the military (Coming Out Under Fire), murderers of gay men (Licensed to Kill) and conservative Christians with gay kids (Family Fundamentals),” Dong says. “So Hollywood Chinese was a welcome break.”

Dong manages a delicate high-wire act with Hollywood Chinese, criticizing the studios for their crude stereotypes while also celebrating the rarely-told story of Chinese contributions to cinema. “I love film history and I wanted to make a film for film lovers. I'm also a fan of that genre of documentaries that examines cinema from a specific point of view. So my goal was to combine those interests and make a film that was fun, yet thought-provoking. I've seen documentaries that deconstruct the media's representation of marginalized groups, and while their content is important, sometimes they can be a bit too argumentative and didactic for me. I certainly didn't want to ignore criticism about the industry, but I also wanted to celebrate some pretty remarkable milestones and achievements as well.”

Given Dong's own status as an Asian-American who is also out, it prompts the obvious question: what does he see as the biggest difference between homophobia and racism? “However out you are with what is generally perceived as gay behavior, you can still be in the closet because the status quo wants you there—think Don't Ask, Don't Tell. But when you're yellow, black, red, or brown, there's no closet that's gonna make folks think you're white.”

So what's worse in Hollywood, homophobia or racism? “I can only speak from personal experience as a gay Asian-American independent documentary filmmaker working in L.A. Choose any one of those labels and you're automatically marginalized from the get-go, but I don't walk around with a chip on my shoulder or with an axe to grind. I'd be naïve to think that anti-gay bigotry and racism haven't affected my opportunities, but you know, I couldn't really pit one against the other as being any worse except for what I said before—a gay person can play straight but you can't erase your skin color.

“There was one situation back in 1987 that I'll never forget. I attended the American Film Institute to study narrative filmmaking and came out of that institution with a half hour short, Lotus, about a family of women in 1916 China grappling with the custom of footbinding. Part of AFI's service is to set you up with executives and agents. At more than a few of these meetings, they'd heap praise on my talents as a director, but then offered, “You did a film about China, with all Chinese characters, and you're Chinese. We don't know what to do with you!” Now, this was 1987, pre-Ang Lee, pre-John Woo, pre-Justin Lin, so they wouldn't dare say that today—at least not so bluntly. My feeling is that the people I met were actually trying to help spare me the trouble of getting caught up in an industry that couldn't see past race.”