https://wonder-rooms.org Wonder Rooms Thu, 17 Jun 2021 04:31:13 +0000 https://wonder-rooms.org en https://wonder-rooms.org/Sessue Fri, 14 May 2021 19:29:59 +0000 Wonder Rooms https://wonder-rooms.org/Sessue Sessue Hayakawa, c. 1930 <img width="1147" height="1419" width_o="1147" height_o="1419" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ea790236942d591287c73c6e5e55ce19b7372cdfbcc499c9b3d264ec1a15c5ea/SessueHayakawa.png" data-mid="112099620" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/ea790236942d591287c73c6e5e55ce19b7372cdfbcc499c9b3d264ec1a15c5ea/SessueHayakawa.png" /> About As you walk around the Portrait Gallery, you may notice a portrait of an elegant Japanese man with a smoldering gaze sitatued towards the top of the exhibit. This is Sessue Hayakawa, the only Asian actor to play the heartthrob in American silent pictures—although anti-miscegenation laws of the era meant that he never ended up with the girl in the end.Tags:&nbsp;Film, Actor, Exclusion Act, Orientalism Further readingKing, Rachel. "One of the First Hollywood Heartthrobs Was a Smoldering Japanese Actor. What Happened?“ Atlas Obscura.&nbsp;December 5, 2016. https://wonder-rooms.org/Anna-May-Wong Fri, 14 May 2021 19:29:59 +0000 Wonder Rooms https://wonder-rooms.org/Anna-May-Wong Anna May Wong, c. 1938 <img width="1532" height="1855" width_o="1532" height_o="1855" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/6e5c5fbbc59c3e32388ecac558d74402888739111632ec2418703ac488a2e8f5/Anna-May-Wong.png" data-mid="112099837" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/6e5c5fbbc59c3e32388ecac558d74402888739111632ec2418703ac488a2e8f5/Anna-May-Wong.png" /> AboutNear the Hayakawa photograh, you will see a portrait of Anna May Wong, a pioneering Chinese-American actress whose career was marked by her struggle against getting typecast in her career, orbiting between stereotypical “Dragon Lady” and demure “Butterfly” roles, going so far as to be deemed "too Chinese to play a Chinese.” The opportunity for more positive and nuanced roles for Asian-Americans came in the 1930s following a growing American sympathy for China in its struggles with Japanese imperialism. Wong fought to land the role of O-lan, the lead female character in MGM's film adaptation of Pearl S. Buck’s novel The Good Earth. The role instead went to German actress Luise Rainer, who went on to win the Best Actress Oscar for her performance. As Margaret Cho writes, “Imagine. Knowing that you were unable to play the part because you were the right race at the wrong time. When Paul Muni was cast as the male lead [in The Good Earth] – that is when the hope died. She knew that since the male and female leads were to be lovers, in fact, married, that there wasn’t a chance in Hollywood hell that she would win the role. Miscegenation was a misdemeanor, even perhaps a felony, punished to the full extent of the law. Yellowface was not. Yellowface was the safe route. Yellowface was the politically correct answer. Imagine.”Tags: Film, Actor, Exclusion Act, Orientalism Additional Notes "Why is it that the screen Chinese is always the villain? And so crude a villain—murderous, treacherous, a snake in the grass! We are not like that. How could we be, with a civilization that is so many times older than the West?" - Anna May Wong, quote from 1933 interview for Film Weekly entitled "I Protest" Further readingCho, Margaret. “Imagine.” Margaret Cho’s website.&nbsp;December 14, 2004. https://wonder-rooms.org/Robeson Fri, 14 May 2021 19:30:00 +0000 Wonder Rooms https://wonder-rooms.org/Robeson Paul Robeson, c. 1933 <img width="1274" height="1564" width_o="1274" height_o="1564" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/76f830b9d91b39b058ab22f8ad1ecf9543493abac1cf5679d12a60e82019ae81/Paul-Robeson.png" data-mid="112099959" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/76f830b9d91b39b058ab22f8ad1ecf9543493abac1cf5679d12a60e82019ae81/Paul-Robeson.png" /> AboutPaul Robeson was a singer and actor who was known for both his cultural accomplishments and his political activism. Robeson broke multiple barriers and overcame insurmountable hurdles in his career, and his refusal to compromise on his political values and bend to the will of others made him both a revered figure and a feared and ostracized one. Among his many activist efforts, Robeson founded the American Crusade Against Lynching organization in 1946 following a failed meeting with President Truman to convince him to enact anti-lynching legislation, campaigned to end Apartheid in South Africa, and fought for Aboriginal rights in Australia. Robeson's tireless activism, along with increased surveillance and suppression by American and British intelligence services, took an enormous toll on his physical and mental health, and Robeson spent his last years in seclusion, emerging only occasionally to lend his support for the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. Tags: Film, Music, Television, Activism https://wonder-rooms.org/Hattie-Mae Thu, 17 Jun 2021 03:12:25 +0000 Wonder Rooms https://wonder-rooms.org/Hattie-Mae Hattie McDaniel, c. 1940 <img width="1224" height="1520" width_o="1224" height_o="1520" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/7983ab1076d154d18072b67af16855fb71347bff490ab6052edb5c3a878536ec/Hattie-McDaniel.png" data-mid="112100067" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/7983ab1076d154d18072b67af16855fb71347bff490ab6052edb5c3a878536ec/Hattie-McDaniel.png" /> AboutHattie McDaniel is the first Black actor to receive an Academy award for her portrayal of Mammy in the 1939 film Gone with the Wind. Her long and illustrious career was marked by racism, typecasting, and criticism from both white and Black people, all the way up to her death in 1952, when she was unable to be laid to rest at the Hollywood Cemetery, who practiced racial segregation at the time. In Cheryl Dunye’s 1996 film The Watermelon Woman, the main character, a young filmmaker working as a video store clerk, becomes fascinated with a Black actress playing a mammy character in a 1930s film called Plantation Memories, and decides to make a documentary on her search for the woman’s identity.Tags: Film, Activism Additional Notes “The problem is I don't know what I want to make a film on. I know it has to be about black women; because, our stories have never been told. So, I've been renting movies for - no, I haven't been "renting" movies - but, I get movies from the video store that I work at. And I've taken all these films out from the 30s and 40s with black actresses in them. Like, Hattie McDaniel and Louise Beavers. And in these films, in some of the films, the black actresses aren't even listed in the credits. I know, I was just totally shocked by that.” - Cheryl Dunye, The Watermelon Woman (1996) Further watchingWatermelon Woman (1996), dir. Cheryl Dunye https://wonder-rooms.org/Bert-Williams Thu, 17 Jun 2021 03:12:29 +0000 Wonder Rooms https://wonder-rooms.org/Bert-Williams Bert Williams, c. 1925 <img width="1712" height="2171" width_o="1712" height_o="2171" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/89d703e3718a4652b0fef743b18c4bbc6c1a31880d36353b95393d000e86339d/Bert-Williams.png" data-mid="112100077" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/89d703e3718a4652b0fef743b18c4bbc6c1a31880d36353b95393d000e86339d/Bert-Williams.png" /> AboutBert Williams was an enormously popular Bahamanian-American entertainer and comedian of the Vaudeville era. He is the first Black man to have a leading role in a film and on the Broadway stage, and played an important role in pushing back against the immense racial barriers of turn-of-the-century America. Williams and his performing partner, George Walker, began their careers playing off stereotypical vaudevillian racial roles, performing in blackface makeup like their white counterparts. Blackface worked like a double mask for Williams, emphasizing the difference between Williams, his fellow performers, and his white audiences. Rather than validating the practice of blackface, their use of the burnt cork makeup was a subtle indictment of its artifice. As Williams remarked in an interview, "A black face, run-down shoes and elbow-out make-up give me a place to hide. The real Bert Williams is crouched deep down inside the coon who sings the songs and tells the stories."Tags: Vaudeville, blackface Further readinghttps://black-face.com/Bert-Williams.htm https://wonder-rooms.org/Darby-Jones Thu, 17 Jun 2021 03:51:58 +0000 Wonder Rooms https://wonder-rooms.org/Darby-Jones Life Mask of Darby Jones, Zombies on Broadway (1945) <img width="1315" height="1199" width_o="1315" height_o="1199" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/191752a3e65e1d1d2dacff45883cb696438db94a13fc0b330a22d369d39f074c/Darby.png" data-mid="112183212" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/191752a3e65e1d1d2dacff45883cb696438db94a13fc0b330a22d369d39f074c/Darby.png" /> AboutNot much is known about Darby Jones. He is best remembered for his roles in the films "I Walked With A Zombie" (1943) and "Zombies on Broadway" (1945). Though Jones could be considered a pioneering Black actor in Hollywood, like many other Black actors of the time, he was mostly relegated to playing servants and "jungle savage"-type roles. An old blog post written by Bill Cappello in 2008 details the author's recent meeting with Jones (although IMDb says he passed on 1986) where they discussed Jones's time in Hollywood, including a humorous encounter involving Carole Lombard. Do you know anything about Darby Jones? Tags: Film Further reading“Darby Jones”. Bill’s Blog. February 16, 2008. http://billcappello.blogspot.com/2008/02/darby-jones.html https://wonder-rooms.org/Nanook Thu, 17 Jun 2021 04:01:02 +0000 Wonder Rooms https://wonder-rooms.org/Nanook Preview Slide for Nanook of the North, 1922 <img width="1178" height="942" width_o="1178" height_o="942" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/842e2fb9d77064d53f9423f565bfced1ed6d5fd43b17cb1e04ca9829678d5b75/Nanook-of-the-North.png" data-mid="112100359" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/842e2fb9d77064d53f9423f565bfced1ed6d5fd43b17cb1e04ca9829678d5b75/Nanook-of-the-North.png" /> About“A couple guests of the museum have mentioned how this film was created by a white male filmmaker and how this also relates to the film being staged. I'm intrigued and also disturbed how this type of documentary filmmaking others the subjects and creates a bizarre archeological point of view of a living community. Many documentary filmmakers now are contemplating what it means to document groups outside of one's communities and how important it is to make sure the community has a voice, be a part of the filmmaking process or be the director.” – Tiffany Joy Butler, Curatorial Assistant at Museum of the Moving ImageTags: Film, Anthropology Description The slide depicts a woman resting against a seated man. Both are dressed in fur. To the right of the image, the text reads, "Revillon Freres / Present / Nanook / of the / North / A story of life / and love in the / actual arctic. / Produced by / Robert J. Flaherty, / F.R.G.S." https://wonder-rooms.org/King-and-I Thu, 17 Jun 2021 04:29:41 +0000 Wonder Rooms https://wonder-rooms.org/King-and-I Souvenir Book for The King and I, 1956 <img width="2410" height="2440" width_o="2410" height_o="2440" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/97731b986dd29e67ddd2927340cfae123ed3ba65b8e6f0f9206b4c5f05143d44/kingandi.png" data-mid="112100367" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/97731b986dd29e67ddd2927340cfae123ed3ba65b8e6f0f9206b4c5f05143d44/kingandi.png" /> <img width="827" height="1209" width_o="827" height_o="1209" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/0595b246353232fbc968d5c9620a339f4b291903380e2636e58d536aea12491b/kingandi.jpg" data-mid="119042464" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/827/i/0595b246353232fbc968d5c9620a339f4b291903380e2636e58d536aea12491b/kingandi.jpg" /> AboutA soundtrack album for The King and I depicts a man with East Asian-features gazing at a white woman wearing a fine ballgown. The titular King in the 1956 musical film adaptation of the 1951 stage musical was played by Yul Brynner, a white actor of Russian descent, who wore dark makeup and eye tape to approximate East Asian features.Yellowface has been an acceptable practice in Hollywood, all the way up to the present day, where it’s still not uncommon to see white actors portraying Asian characters, with a recent example in Scarlett Johansson as Motoko Kusanagi in the 2017 live action adaptation of Ghost in the Shell. Its status as a standard and largely unquestioned practice was solidified through a combination of the difficulty faced by Asian-American actors to find footing in the entertainment industry (especially during and post-WWII) and anti-miscegenation laws and cultural discomfort around interracial relationships, particularly ones involving white women. This made it difficult for male Asian actors to be cast as love interests for white actresses (see Sessue Hayakawa) – casting white actors like Yul Brynner and Rex Harrison was a common way of sublimating this taboo.Tags: Film, Orientalism, Yellowface Further readingWikipedia for examples of yellowface in media: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Examples_of_yellowface https://wonder-rooms.org/New-Yorker Thu, 17 Jun 2021 04:30:16 +0000 Wonder Rooms https://wonder-rooms.org/New-Yorker Advertisement for the New Yorker Theatre (New York, New York), 1969 <img width="1512" height="1348" width_o="1512" height_o="1348" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/057348389cd8d68666e146765e371a7105639f55ae95b174413aa44a98f7c1b0/NewYorker.png" data-mid="112183219" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/057348389cd8d68666e146765e371a7105639f55ae95b174413aa44a98f7c1b0/NewYorker.png" /> AboutIf you peer closely at this advertisement, you may spot a photograph of Ousmane Sembène amongst the portraits of mostly white male European arthouse film directors. His 1966 film "Black Girl" was the first feature film ever released by a sub-Saharan African director, and his work directly addressed the reverberations of economic and racial oppression wrought by colonialism in Africa and Europe.&nbsp;Tags: Film Additional Notes "Let's be very clear, Europe is not my center. Europe is on the outskirts. Why be a sunflower and turn towards the sun? I myself am the sun!" –Ousmane Sembène, Camera d'Afrique (1983) dir. Ferid Boughedir. Further watchingBlack Girl (1966) dir. Ousmane SembeneCamera d'Afrique (1983) dir. Ferid Boughedir&nbsp; https://wonder-rooms.org/Bronze-Venus Thu, 17 Jun 2021 04:31:13 +0000 Wonder Rooms https://wonder-rooms.org/Bronze-Venus Lobby Card for The Bronze Venus, 1938 <img width="1450" height="1132" width_o="1450" height_o="1132" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8a3f5325ead977ce722a385247e129135895b82a607dc1c6d1b8596d1626b0c9/BronzeVenus.png" data-mid="112100463" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/8a3f5325ead977ce722a385247e129135895b82a607dc1c6d1b8596d1626b0c9/BronzeVenus.png" /> AboutThe Bronze Venus was a 1938 musical “race movie” that is best known as the film debut of Lena Horne, a pioneering Brooklyn-born Black actress, singer, and dancer. The film was originally released as “The Duke is Tops” in 1938 and then re-released as “The Bronze Venus” in 1943 after Horne became a star. Called the “feminine counterpart of Paul Robeson” by Liberty magazine, and much like Robeson, Horne’s career was defined by her civil rights activism and was marked by periods of blacklisting due to her suspected ties to Communist groups. Horne later denounced Communism, restoring her status and allowing her to continue on to a renewed success in Hollywood. Tags: Film, Segregation Additional Notes “American racial segregation, combined with the demeaning stereotypes of African-Americans featured frequently in early movies, prompting the development of an extensive film production and exhibition circuit - the so-called race-film market-that operated independently of Hollwood. Between 1912 and 1948, this market was fed by more than 150 companies, both black-owned and white-owned, which produced more than 350 films. Developers built “colored-only” theaters to serve the segregated cities and towns of the South, as well as neighborhood theaters in African-American communities in the North. in 1921, a survey counted 308 U.S. theaters, both Black-owned and white-owned, that catered primarily to African-American audiences. By the late 1920s, that number had risen to nearly seven hundred. The market for race movies was much greater in the segregated South than in the North. Black patrons were admitted to all theaters in the North, although often in designated seating only. Paradoxically, this sharply limited the number of northern distribution outlets for race movies. By the 1950s, these theaters were all but gone.” (Card description for "Segregated Theaters and the Race Movie" at Museum of Moving Image) Further readingMeroney, John. “The Red-Baiting of Lena Horne.” The Atlantic.&nbsp;August 27, 2015.