American fantasies of China and the Chinese: Constructing China and its people in Hollywood Films to 1949

This thesis analyses the characteristics of and influences upon constructions of China and the people of China in American feature films from c. 1910 until after the end of World War II. Chapter 1 addresses the derogatory representations of China and the Chinese created in American popular culture (especially print media) against a backcloth from the 1870s of increasingly vehement anti-Chinese sentiment. During the late nineteenth century, similar unfavourable images of Chinese people also emerged in theatrical productions. Chapter 2 analyses the filmic representations of China and the Chinese produced in the 1910s and 1920s and their connections with traditional media (both print and theatrical), also exploring the historical context within which these early films were produced. Chapters 3 and 4 investigate Hollywood’s China/Chinese constructions in the 1930s, a period during which the movie industry itself experienced major changes, including the beginning of effective self-regulation and financial difficulties brought by the Great Depression. Chapter 3 analyses the growing 1930s attention to China as a cinematic subject, portraying it as an exciting locale and its people as exotic beings (e.g. Manchurians, warlords). Chapter 4, however, argues that, despite the efforts of the Production Code Administration and the active role played by Chinese diplomats in attempting to influence Hollywood’s representation of their country and people, traditional unfavourable images remained largely constant until World War II. Chapter 5 analyses wartime propaganda films, which changed and subverted these unfavourable constructions of the Chinese. The Federal government began to intervene in the film industry after the creation of the Office of War Information in 1942, and many sympathetic – if unrealistic – portrayals of China on screen become prevalent. This chapter reviews these changing constructions yet concludes that, though seemingly more positive in their representations of China, they were in reality still influenced by earlier prejudices and stereotypes