I did not remember "Breakfast of Tiffany's" being so racist.

[Snake Alchemist]

My wife and I wanted to watch a movie the other night and I suggested "Breakfast at Tiffany's" since she had never seen it (she's a bit younger than me). We turned it on and began watching it and in the very opening minutes we were witness to Mickey Rooney playing Mr. Yunioshi complete with buck teeth, thick glasses and a poor imitation of a Japanese accent. My wife looked at me and her jaw dropped open. I just looked back sheepishly. I had TOTALLY blocked out that character. Luckily, she enjoyed the rest of the movie, but it really put a damper on things initially.

[gateley]

1. I bet we didn't think much of it at the time -- we've come a long way, thankfully. nt

[GodlessBiker]

2. True enough. But it's Breakfast at Tiffany's or Breakfast of Champions.

[raouldukelives]

40. Goodbye blue Monday. nt

[n2doc]

57. Breakfast of Tiffany's sounds like a porn flick

Or a cannibal flick.

[RockaFowler]

3. Weren't all of the Charlie Chan's white??

I thought I remember that from way back when.

It is surprising that Hollywood did this in many movies.

I think even Tony Randall played a "Chinaman" once.

[Poll_Blind]

6. Yep, including Peter Sellars playing Chan in "Murder by Death" and...

...Tony Randall playing the main character in "The 7 faces of Dr. Lao".

Both of those are great movies, BTW.

PB

[sarge43]

9. The definitive Chan was - Warner Oland, Swedish by birth.

Randall played Dr Lao in 7 Faces of Dr Lao.

Early in her career Myrna Loy was often cast as an Asian character

I remember a minor stink about Rooney's casting and the racist cliches.

[el_bryanto]

16. And Peter Lorre as Mr. Moto - Japanese - Peter Lorre is at least talented

I recently watched a couple of the Charlie Chans and found them pretty entertaining trash.

Bryant

[LibDemAlways]

42. Even John Wayne got in on the act - played Genghis Khan

in The Conquerer - 1956. What the hell were they thinking?

[Poll_Blind]

4. Yeah, I've had that happen when I show old movies to my youngest son.

I'll recall the movie (or occasionally, an old cartoon) fondly, only to find myself wide-eyed during a scene where there is some obvious racial stereotype slur-type thing going on and I'm like "Whoaaa! OK, papa needs to explain what's going on here. This movie was made a long time ago and..."

PB

[JHB]

63. Yeah. "Say, Dad, 'Ug' is from which Native American language?". n/t

[KansDem]

5. I've seen it recently and thought the same...

There was really no need for that character. I wonder if Capote wrote the character that way or Rooney improvised...

I watch it now to see Audrey Hepburn and for the Henry Mancini score and "Moon River"

[joeybee12]

7. I know, it'a appalling...but that's what was accepted back then...

Thankfully it's not anymore.

[monmouth]

39. I still marvel at Italian Al Pacino playing a Cuban Tony Montana in "Scarface."..n/t

[vaberella]

62. That actually was not so bad considering the lack of Cuban actors at the time.

But the B at T was a gross and racist caricature of East Asians.

[brewens]

8. I never realized that was Mickey Rooney. The one I remember when this comes up is Hop Sing

from Bonanza. He was actually played by a Chinese actor that had a pretty good career. Still, could they have come up with a more ridiculous name?

[immoderate]

12. Then there was "Hey Boy" from "Have Gun, Will Travel"

And Joel Gray played a Chinese sensei in a Nick Carter movie.


--imm

[Snake Alchemist]

13. Yes, but Joel Gray almost seemed to be praising Koreans in Remo Williams.

Guilty pleasure of mine.

[immoderate]

18. Remo Williams, thanks for the reminder.

I agree. I liked Joel Gray in that. And though it did play to certain stereo-types, he was a sympathetic character.

Bottom line -- he's an actor. He could play a hippopotamus if he wants.


--imm

[MrScorpio]

24. You know what's funny?

I actually saw that movie for the very first time while I was stationed IN Korea.

Needless to say, I found it both embarrassing and not representative of Korean men at all

[Snake Alchemist]

26. "The Korean is the most perfect creature ever to sanctify the earth with the imprint of its foot."

nt

[Cleita]

21. I think Hop Sing was a nickname the white

characters gave him that was easy for them to remember.

[XemaSab]

54. Both Hop and Sing are actually Chinese names

Which is a lot better than a lot of other ethnic characters have faced.

[Kablooie]

58. Movies are amazing windows into the past.

They show us what we actually thought without the rose colored glasses the present normally sees the past through. Even movies like Blazing Saddles that made fun of racism to put it down now appears embarrassingly racist even though that was not the intent.

[belcffub]

23. PBS did a series, Frontier House, where they reference a historical merchant with a similar name

I have not watched it for a while but just checked and it was Hop Sin Yin. I remember from the series that a local merchant of the same name had existed and it was who they based the store clerk on...

not saying Hop Sing also existed... and Bonanza was a little before my time... but who knows...

[intaglio]

10. 7 Brides for 7 Brothers

is now a hateful film; bullying, fighting, abduction, forced marriage ...

I cannot watch it now for although the dancing and the music are wonderful it is all in the service of hateful concepts.

[Johnny Rico]

11. It was certainly a different time.

While I would never want films from that era to be suppressed (such as Song of the South...Disney, I'm talking to you), one should certainly take it into account when watching them with children.

Similarly, I applaud Warner Brothers for making the infamous "Censored Eleven" cartoons available...but I wouldn't show them on Cartoon Network!

[MicaelS]

30. When were the "Censored Eleven" released?

Warner promised them back in 2010 for a 2011 release, but I have not seen the release anywhere.

[Johnny Rico]

33. My bad. I thought they'd released them last year, as they said they were going to.

[JustAnotherGen]

14. First

I love love love Audrey Hepburn - one of those screwy fans that has every book written about her, posters, picture of her in the entry way, etc. etc.

So that movie - though to me it's not the PERFECT Audrey Flick (Charade and a Nun's Story and The Children's Hour are much much better) - Is an all time fave.

Now - the Asian character played by Mickey Rooney is indeed racist - but it's a movie of it's time. Know what I mean? Minorities then and now are very often stereotype.


But if you really want to be scandalized? Read Capote's short novel. The N-Bombs fly out of Holly's mouth. We have to read it like we do Huck I think. She (Holly) was written precisely as Capote knew her to be.

[bart95]

15. cant blame this one on white christian straight males, Truman Capote wrote it

and those inclined to go back to 1961 to find society's faults have a reciprocal obligation to praise society's progress of the last 50 years

and there is some correlation to today's stereotypes of 'the unknown/undefined arab islamic extremist/terrorist 911 evildoer 'rag head' keep the pentagon in perpetual war', as the war with Japan was only 16 years ago, in 1961, and that generation's '911' pearl harbor was only 20 years old (and the guys in the pearl harbor planes were actually FROM Japan, unlike the countres we bombed after 911, who were from the untouched saudi arabia)

someday, i think our society need to build a 'statue of limitations' to honor long past wrongs that have been largly righted

[Tom Ripley]

27. Gore Vidal on Capote: "He's a full-fledged housewife from Kansas with all the prejudices."

[bart95]

36. seems like vidal had his own prejudices

as capote wasnt from kansas, he was from lousiana

and i doubt vidal spent much time in kansas, let alone with any of it's housewives

[Tom Ripley]

41. I thought you meant Vidal's anti-semitism

because there is that

You seem to have partly misread the quip; Vidal was well aware that Capote was not from Kansas.

[stevenleser]

43. That person doesnt think anyone has the right to be offended by anything bigoted, ever, unless...

they are white males. That person gets very offended at any slight, real or imagined, against white males.

[Mr Dixon]

17. LOL

I noticed a lot of popular shows back in the days that Black people were absent from LOL as I kid I didn’t notice, Happy days and Laverne & Shirley to name a few, Know worries I still loved those shows, Threes company also.

[Cleita]

20. There was never a black person in Mayberry either and this was supposed

to take place in North Carolina.

[Art_from_Ark]

47. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think maybe the first regular black character on TV

who was portrayed as someone besides a sidekick or comic relief was Sergeant Kinchloe (Ivan Dixon) of Hogan's Heroes, in 1965.

[Cleita]

49. I remember him and that show. I don't remember if he was the first.

I think there was a black kid on one of the fifties sitcoms that was a schoolmate of one of the white children characters, but I can't remember the show. I don't think I'm imagining it.

[Art_from_Ark]

52. Now that I think about it, I Spy, starring Bill Cosby, also debuted in 1965.

[Art_from_Ark]

53. Are you thinking of "Julia"?

Julia was a comedy-drama that aired in 1968 and starred Diahann Carroll as a single black mother with a son whose best friend was a white boy named Earl J. Waggonor (whom the son always addressed by his full name).

[Cleita]

72. Maybe that was it. n/t

[daligirl519]

51. Actually

There were a few blacks in town in Mayberry crowd scenes in the later seasons. Also, there was a black fex-pro ootball player, played by Rockne Tarkington, character Flip Conroy, who is in a season 7 episode, who teaches priorities to to Opie Taylor. He ends up showing Opie that he can play piano as well as play football. Episode ends with Tarkington playing a Chopin Waltz for the Taylors. This guy was a New York Giant at some point. Andy Taylor was a good guy!

[Cleita]

56. That's good. I never watched it after the first few years.

It just seemed like there were no AA characters in a southern town and it struck me as very weird.

[Tom Ripley]

66. There was also the episode where Grand Kleagle Ernest T Bass killed those civil rights workers

"Tonight...A Very Special Andy Griffith Show"
or maybe I was drinking...

[daligirl519]

74. LOL. . .

Pure grain, I think.

[Cleita]

19. Or Marlon Brando playing an Okinawan in "Tea House of the August Moon".

There's a lot of racist stuff in the old movies before 1965.

[Bigmack]

22. I think much of the problem was that Hollywood..

..didn't know what to actually do with minorities.

There were no minority writers and directors and producers, so nobody had any experience with what minorities actually did in real life... their personal lives.

And the white community - culturally segregated - had no idea what minorities did, either.

If you inserted a black character into the sitcom cast, what would that character do? Each player had a role.... the dufus, the jock, the ladies man, the sage.... what would the black character be?

"All In the Family" introduced minority characters, but, as with all sitcoms, they were stereotypes, too. Lionel was the radical, Jefferson was the black conservative...

It took a show like "Julia" to show that minorities were just like anybody else. Got up, went to work...

I particularly like "Everybody hates Chris". The kid's parents are crazy, but no crazier than the parents of the white kids watching the show. And Chris is just a kid.

It is absolutely amazing how racist early movies and tv were.

But I feel better about the situation. We have come a long way... a long way to go... but we've started.

[Speck Tater]

25. That's the first one that came to my mind. You beat me to it. nt

[Cleita]

50. Actually, Hollywood back then was run by another minority, Jews.

However, they knew in order to make marketable entertainment which would make money, they had to pander to the white non-Jewish majority. But you are right they knew practically nothing about the black or Latino experience either.

[ZHerolds73]

28. Yeah, I hear you

I actually just saw it for the first time last year, and I remember thinking to myself, 'how could that possibly be acceptable', then again, it was not the only movie to have those types of racial themes at the time. I can't even begin to imagine what people in 50 years are going to think of the ethics in today's modern movies.

[Bucky]

29. ...or that scene when George Pepard takes Audrey Hepburn to a Klan picnic

We remember the splendor of their romantic brunch on the grass, but forget the big "Whites Only" sign on the park gate and the big cross they roasted their marshmallows by. But I was particularly disturbed by Martin Balsam's running joke where he just shakes his head and mutters, "Damn I-talians are just ruining this city." It really spoils the whole movie for me.

[Tom Ripley]

45. I really did laugh out loud

[unblock]

31. hollywood and tv thrive on stereotyping. it's a shorthand for introducing characters.

i'm not saying it's justified, and surely better writing and acting can overcome it, but the argument is that it takes precious screen time to develop a character, and any way you can lean on a stereotype saves valuable time.

anyway, hollywood has always propogated stereotypes, down to wearing glasses to communicate intelligence. it continues this to this day. it doesn't seem as jarring in today's movies and programming only because it's better tuned to today's sensitivities.

but note that the vast majority of gay characters are (still) of the flaming variety; the vast majority of smart people wear glasses and are socially inept; big-time american drug dealers are still black; etc.

[Tom Ripley]

32. There's always Olivier corking up in "Othello"

I keep waiting for him to break into "De Blue Tail Fly"

[intaglio]

59. Or Olivier and Heston in "Khartoum"

Olivier browned up, yellow dye in his eyes and a stupid accent,

Heston as a gay, English general (with a US accent)

[Tom Ripley]

65. That's right! And you have also reminded me of Heston wearing a heavy coat of Man Tan as

a Mexican-American in "Touch of Evil"

[sarge43]

71. Alec Guinness and Anthony Quinn, Lawrence of Arabia

Sometimes it works. Both were mistaken for the real deal.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

34. That's the era when the following Jello commercial aired:

"Great Western invention--spoon"???

We have come a long way.

[RockaFowler]

60. The 70's had a few bad ones too

I always found this offensive. Look at the wife doing the laundry

[Egalitarian Thug]

35. We progressed, but that progress stopped in 1981 and we've been backsliding ever since. n/t

[randome]

37. I have a lot of old time radio shows on my iPod.

'The Adventures of Superman', during WWII, routinely asked listeners to buy war savings bonds so we could 'blast those Japs out of the sky' or something like that.

On the other hand, after the war, they did a lot of overblown bits about inclusiveness and how the color of one's skin or religion should not be the basis for discrimination.

'Overblown' but, I think, pretty impressive for a 1940's radio show.

Then there was the Jack Benny Show in the 1930s, which routinely exaggerated black characters' voices and mannerisms. I'm not excusing it but it was a different time then.

[Cleita]

38. I remember those Jack Benny ones.

Actually, Rochester, his butler, was a pretty sympathetic character and often smarter than Jack. Also Rochester was played by a real African American.

[mainer]

44. Those were the days when the only TV Asians were houseboys or Fu Manchu types

Mr. Sulu changed everything.

[applegrove]

46. I'm not good at calling people out on soft racism. Then I feel like a heel. We are all a product of

our times but thankfully time changes eh?

[SomethingFishy]

48. This was pointed out in Dragon: The Bruce Lee story

In the film, Bruce Lee and his wife went to the movies to see Breakfast At Tiffany's and when the Mickey Rooney character showed up they walked out of the theater. It was a powerful scene. I never forgot it or what it meant.

[XemaSab]

55. Racism against Asians is a time-honored tradition

[vaberella]

64. And this film is post WWII and right before Vietnam War. n/t

[Snake Alchemist]

67. That Dr. Seuss? nt

[XemaSab]

70. It sure is

n/t

[vaberella]

61. I can tell you as a child I saw it as racist. Watch any western for crazy racism.

That is the America minorities have had to live with and continue to live with.

[Tom Ripley]

68. Chuck Connors as "Geronimo!"

[sarge43]

69. Donna Reed as Sacajawea, The Far Horizons (1955) n/t

[ananda]

73. Do ya'll remember Lee in East of Eden?

That is one of the most brilliant portrayals of an Asian and what they have
had to face here in America. His character and his story were the most
moving I had ever come across (until Nepomuck Schneidewein's in Doktor
Faustus, though little Nepomuck was German, not Asian). Another great
portrayal of the Asian experience (in nonfiction) is that of the girl in Farewell
to Manzanar, about life in the Japanese internment camps set up by Roosevelt
in WWII.

[Go Vols]

75. .