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Is it just me or has Hollywood shied away from Chinese villains?
The post about Bond versus Al Queda got me to thinking. I looked back at the recent films and franchises and it seems that everyone is shying away from portraying the Chinese as the bad asses.
Hear me out here, The Die Hard films use Germans, Americans; Jack Bauer gets off on fucking up Middle Eastern types; Bond fought rogue North Koreans in DAD. Though its actually a Canadian broadcast and I've yet to watch this week's Orphan Black episode but they seem to have veered away from those Chinese villains in Season 1; Cold War adventures had no problem dealing with evil Russkies; for years prior to WW1 British literature portrayed French and then Germans as bad guys. In USA we like to beat up on evil Nazis/Germans and now and then Russians (Indiana Jones); . The Taken films deal with bad Albanians.
I can't help but ask, what makes the Chinese so "hands off"?
Our leaders see the Chinese as a legitimate threat however our movies and TV won't touch them. I would think that Hollywood would be all over the Chinese but no... Not them. I just want to know Why not?
Hear me out here, The Die Hard films use Germans, Americans; Jack Bauer gets off on fucking up Middle Eastern types; Bond fought rogue North Koreans in DAD. Though its actually a Canadian broadcast and I've yet to watch this week's Orphan Black episode but they seem to have veered away from those Chinese villains in Season 1; Cold War adventures had no problem dealing with evil Russkies; for years prior to WW1 British literature portrayed French and then Germans as bad guys. In USA we like to beat up on evil Nazis/Germans and now and then Russians (Indiana Jones); . The Taken films deal with bad Albanians.
I can't help but ask, what makes the Chinese so "hands off"?
Our leaders see the Chinese as a legitimate threat however our movies and TV won't touch them. I would think that Hollywood would be all over the Chinese but no... Not them. I just want to know Why not?
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Comments
Weren't the invading armies in the 'Red Dawn' remake Chinese, then they changed them to North Korean before the film was released?
The 2006 Scorsese film The Departed was based on a Hong Kong film called Infernal Affairs. It's a really great foreign film for those who haven't checked it out. Plenty of villainy in that film.
O-Ren Ishii from Kill Bill Vol. 1 is half Japanese half Chinese, however, since she is the leader of a Japanese gang, the subject of her Chinese heritage is one that she tries to suppress and she even kills someone for bringing it up.
I get what your saying about American films not portraying Chinese as villains. It might be because the Asian market is one that they want to draw rather than repel. A villain in an action movie can easily fall prey towards portraying sterotypes. The purpose of this is because naturally the filmmakers want the audience to root for the hero and despise the villains. We see this with Middle Eastern villain all the time. It mIght also have to do with all the money USA owes China. It could also have to do with perceived stereotypes from the audience perspective as well. Many Americans don't readily associate Chinese individuals as physically threatening. Maybe filmakers don't think Chinese villains to be credible in the traditional sense (as most films tend to lead to a physical confrontation between the hero and villain). Could be a combination of all those things. Who knows. I suppose one day they might come up with a Chinese villain that can be sort of an anti-hero that audiences could love to hate. Just because the villain is the antagonist of the story doesn't mean that they should have to fall into the formulaic trappings of portraying stereotypes. I'm sure there will be a filmmaker who will realize this eventually.
It's an interesting subject though. Thanks for bring it up.
Money.
But now it is the Brits that are the clichés villains, to the point when they play practically every villain of every ethnicity! Even Khan Noonien Singh was played by Benedict Cumberbatch in the last Star Trek movie. With a name like that (not to mention his background), I thought they'd be a bit more daring and cast someone a bit less white looking.
Absolutely, they even admit it with a straight face.
No, that is the muslims.
I disagree. It's rapidly becoming everyone who isn't white. In this age of social justice warriors, everything has to be clean and safe.
True. Movies today need to stop being about the money and being about the art. that's my opinion.
I suppose, though not Chinese, we did have North Korean villains in the otherwise lamentable Die Another Day (2002).
Yes, I don't really think we'll see a repeat of the Yellow Peril era somehow as it was viewed (rightly, of course) as inherently racist and deeply suspect. I think we've moved on from tarring a whole peoples with a particular brush. All nations contain villainous peoples, including your own.
You hit the answer firmly on the head there! It's all about the box office take!
Yes, Chinese villains are a bit passé, because at some point they were overused. Now the issue is that too many Brits play villain, whatever the nationality of the characters. My main issue with Cumberbatch is that he looked nothing like Khan did.
Many of you bring up good points but I think chrisisall has hit it on the nose. Money. Hollywood execs want to make sure their films get shown in China. The Chinese are probably more sensitive and worry about the image that may be portrayed on the big screen. They must think that their 1.8 billion souls will be influenced and see that they are not such good guys after all. (Don't need movies to show them in a bad light just look at their history, Tiannamen Square for example)
Now that we've talked about the lack of Chinese bad guys I want to throw another one out there:
ISRAELIS
We never see any Israelis villains either.
When the Russians were the big film baddies, no one thought of marketing western films to the Russians. That´s a big difference to China today. And all those other countries are not interesting enough as a potential market, or they don´t react as sensitive as the Chinese.
The second season of The Wire has an Israeli henchman in the Greek syndicate.
But stay away from the Israelis and Chinese.
I just think its bullshit.
Is that true, Mel Gibson? If you read this...
Watch The Wire. You have Black villains, Greek villains, one Israeli villain and one of the most negative character is a Jewish lawyer.