White Actors in Yellowface from the 1870s to 1920s

From the 1870s to 1920s-during Broadway’s formative years- Broadway produced more than 80 musicals and plays with Asian characters, which cluster around four different representative types: Chinese immigrant as comic foil (Ah Sin type), Asian female who sacrifices herself for the love of Western man (Madame Butterfly type), Oriental villain (Mr. Wu type), and vengeful vamp (Madame Goddam type). These four types of Asian character became widely popular not only for their dramatic appeal but also for the histrionic ability of the actors who originated and sensationalized those characters. Most Americans, who rarely traveled to Asia or had direct contact with Asians, had their first impression about Asia from the performance of these actors which had a significant power to shape America’s perception of Asia/Asians. The methods of these yellowface actors employed to make their characters appealing and entertaining help us to understand how the image of Asia/Asians was constructed in the mind of American public. This paper examines how these “founding” yellowface actors perceived, imagined, and performed Asia/Asians as America’s Other at the turn of the century and delves into the cultural meaning of these performances. In spite of variations in gender, class, and temper, the four representative Asian types-Ah Sin, Madame Butterfly, Mr. Wu, and Madame Goddam-all represented and underscored the alien body and inscrutable mind of the Orient-the ultimate Other. The yellowface acting, which excluded Asians from portraying their own images, also exemplified Orientalism, “a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient.” American culture gained in strength and identity, as Said argues, “by setting itself off against the Orient as a sort of surrogate and even underground self.”