#18: Perpetually Cool: The Many Lives of Anna May Wong
#18: Perpetually Cool: The Many Lives of Anna May Wong by Anthony B. Chan
While this book is a solid biography of Anna May Wong, detailing her parents lives, her childhood, and her film career, it's also much more. A third of the way through, Chan deviates from the structure to provide a brief look at women in Chinese history (a really neat section). He also explores the history of Yellowface, Orientalism, and anti-Asian hatred through stage and screen. The final part of the book is made up of an examination of some of Wong's most notable roles.
I liked the wide variety of material covered, and didn't feel like the book was too jumpy. However, it did feel like each part could have been longer.
Chan obviously feels great affection for his subject, and this isn't a book that tries to be clinically objective. However, I was occasionally uncomfortable with how he went about expressing that. The beginning of part two includes a rant about Chinese-American's who don't feel the right way about China. Not being Chinese-American, there's very little opinion of value I can offer, but I suspect that there's not one single correct way to feel.
In other parts of the book, Chan compares Wong favorably to her European and European-American costars by emphasizing how slim she was, and emphasizing how "chubby" they were. I wasn't happy with the equating of thinness to worth. Also, after justifiably denouncing the stereotype of Chinese men as emasculated and weak, Chan goes on to use "emasculated" to insult European and Japanese men. Between this and the "thinness equals value" I was ready to start shouting that sexism is not the way to combat racism. Insulting a man by calling him emasculated is to say that he's worth less because he's too like a woman. It's a sexist insult no matter who the man is. And notably Chan describes the Japanese press covering Wong's arrival in Japan as "effete," thereby pushing the stereotype onto another group of Asian men. Chan also describes the Japanese press as "content to scribble down any nonsense about the world's most famous actress from Chinese America." Exactly what made the Japanese reporters different from the reporters of any other country who covered Wong's actions is not made clear. Chan makes no apologies for his disgust over Japan's imperialism in Manchuria. But I was uncomfortable that he used the same bigoted European stereotypes to attack the Japanese as a whole.
Overall, I consider Perpetually Cool to be an interesting and valuable work, even if there were moments that made me flinch.
While this book is a solid biography of Anna May Wong, detailing her parents lives, her childhood, and her film career, it's also much more. A third of the way through, Chan deviates from the structure to provide a brief look at women in Chinese history (a really neat section). He also explores the history of Yellowface, Orientalism, and anti-Asian hatred through stage and screen. The final part of the book is made up of an examination of some of Wong's most notable roles.
I liked the wide variety of material covered, and didn't feel like the book was too jumpy. However, it did feel like each part could have been longer.
Chan obviously feels great affection for his subject, and this isn't a book that tries to be clinically objective. However, I was occasionally uncomfortable with how he went about expressing that. The beginning of part two includes a rant about Chinese-American's who don't feel the right way about China. Not being Chinese-American, there's very little opinion of value I can offer, but I suspect that there's not one single correct way to feel.
In other parts of the book, Chan compares Wong favorably to her European and European-American costars by emphasizing how slim she was, and emphasizing how "chubby" they were. I wasn't happy with the equating of thinness to worth. Also, after justifiably denouncing the stereotype of Chinese men as emasculated and weak, Chan goes on to use "emasculated" to insult European and Japanese men. Between this and the "thinness equals value" I was ready to start shouting that sexism is not the way to combat racism. Insulting a man by calling him emasculated is to say that he's worth less because he's too like a woman. It's a sexist insult no matter who the man is. And notably Chan describes the Japanese press covering Wong's arrival in Japan as "effete," thereby pushing the stereotype onto another group of Asian men. Chan also describes the Japanese press as "content to scribble down any nonsense about the world's most famous actress from Chinese America." Exactly what made the Japanese reporters different from the reporters of any other country who covered Wong's actions is not made clear. Chan makes no apologies for his disgust over Japan's imperialism in Manchuria. But I was uncomfortable that he used the same bigoted European stereotypes to attack the Japanese as a whole.
Overall, I consider Perpetually Cool to be an interesting and valuable work, even if there were moments that made me flinch.