Miss Saigon and racism- Page 2

[South Florida]

Posted: 7/17/14 at 4:13pm

Wow, Chris could so be black, it wouldn't bother this part of white America.

[haterobics]

Posted: 7/17/14 at 4:13pm

"Interesting that the people who do not think that there's anything racist about the show are not racial minorities."

A very astute point in a discussion about how it is wrong to depict all members of a race in one particular way.

[South Florida]

Posted: 7/17/14 at 4:14pm

But then wouldn't that be racist if the bigamist was black.

[lambchop2]

Posted: 7/17/14 at 4:22pm

"Interesting that the people who do not think that there's anything racist about the show are not racial minorities."

What about the multiple non-white actors involved with the show (including those, like Lea Salonga, who are popular enough in their own right not to worry about potential backlash) who have spoken out against the 'racist' labeling and protests?

Here's an interesting piece by Orville Mendoza, who has performed as the Engineer. He was in the recent Midwest tour, which faced protests in at least one city: http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/arts/2013/09/09/community-voices-ordways-miss-saigon-shows-dignity-and-respect-asians-cast-members-p

[PapaGe]

Posted: 7/17/14 at 4:26pm

As an Asian-American female, I have never found this show offensive. Yes, one of the central themes it deals with is white-people-as-saviors (a theme you can't avoid when doing a story about the Vietnam War), but the show itself turns that theme on its head. "Bui-Doi" is an entire song about how the Americans have failed to save the people of Vietnam ("They are the living reminder of all the good we failed to do"). Chris is never a hero (something he admits in "Why, God, Why"); he is as helpless as, if not more helpless than, Kim in many ways.

I agree with what someone said earlier, which is that Kim is absolutely the hero of the story. In many ways she is a victim of both the Vietnamese and the Americans, but ultimately she sacrifices everything for her son in what is perhaps the only element of the story that is not presented as preordained. (Yes, it is foreshadowed heavily, but it's one of the few moments in the story where any of the leads has any real autonomy--Chris, for example, is a slave of circumstance throughout.) And it isn't racist that Kim and the Engineer both think life will be much better in America--even if the American dream wasn't quite what the Engineer imagined it to be, for an impoverished Vietnamese person (or Chinese, like my grandparents) the stories of America would indeed make it sound like paradise.

I've always respected Miss Saigon's treatment of some pretty gritty material. I can't wait to see the new production!

[Sutton Ross]

Posted: 7/17/14 at 4:37pm

Of course it is. The hero is a white man. This subservient woman needs a man to rescue her from her life. The fact that this can only happen with a white American man makes it sexist and racist.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 7/17/14 at 4:38pm

"Bui-Doi" is an entire song about how the Americans have failed to save the people of Vietnam ("They are the living reminder of all the good we failed to do").

Yeah, but then you just say the Americans are making a play for sympathy and you can make it racist again!

In many ways she is a victim of both the Vietnamese and the Americans, but ultimately she sacrifices everything for her son in what is perhaps the only element of the story that is not presented as preordained.

Yeah, but then you just say that being a victim and sacrificing everything for a child is an Asian stereotype and you can make it racist again!

And it isn't racist that Kim and the Engineer both think life will be much better in America--even if the American dream wasn't quite what the Engineer imagined it to be, for an impoverished Vietnamese person (or Chinese, like my grandparents) the stories of America would indeed make it sound like paradise.

Yeah, but then you just say that their naive optimistic view of America is a result of American perception of Asians and you can make it racist again! OR...Americans are responsible for giving them false hope! That could make it racist, too!

You sound just like a typical white American middle-aged man!

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 7/17/14 at 4:43pm

Of course it is. The hero is a white man. This subservient woman needs a man to rescue her from her life. The fact that this can only happen with a white American man makes it sexist and racist.

Except that isn't how the story plays out.

[KathyNYC2]

Posted: 7/17/14 at 4:48pm

I don't think it's racist either - as a piece of theater. However, the times themselves were racist (yay Americans, boo Vietnamese) but Ms. Saigon is anti that times... it is dispelling "truths" that were not really true. The Americans are the good guys? - in this show, clearly not. The American soldiers are nothing to feel proud of....all unfeeling pigs who use the Asian girls for pleasure - not thinking about the girls at all. Chris has good intentions and can be considered a hero... but he doesn't get to save anyone, including himself. The Asians here were trying to survive and did what they could. Kim is brave to the extreme. Is it untrue that people who are starving and homeless turn to sex for money - especially during war time? It happens all over..this is a piece that takes place in Viet Nam but could be anywhere.

Ms Saigon is based on a truth...Vietnam women WERE handing their babies over to American fathers hoping to get them a better life....that's how this show was conceived to begin with. Was that a basically racist idea? Doesn't matter. The point is it happened and this musical dramatizes it.

I don't personally consider something racist when it's presented as part of history (which it was)... unless it's trying to convince us that it's the right way to go..clearly this is not.

[Sutton Ross]

Posted: 7/17/14 at 4:55pm

"Except that isn't how the story plays out."

Right, she offs herself because she can't be with the white American man.

[Sally Durant Plummer]

Posted: 7/17/14 at 5:15pm

No, she "offs herself" because he refuses to take her child to America and the child would have been prosecuted and likely killed for his ethnicity. Just like in Madame Butterfly, neither of the women kill themselves for the husbands, thh do it for their children.

[Wildcard]

Posted: 7/17/14 at 5:16pm

"Interesting that the people who do not think that there's anything racist about the show are not racial minorities."

I grew up in Asia and I was aware that there were people who had stories like Kim all around me. That was a very small percentage of the population but it occurred nonetheless. Was it demeaning to women? Definitely. But look at any area with a military base now and you're likely to find the sex trade to be very active.

[Sutton Ross]

Posted: 7/17/14 at 5:20pm

Kim and Chris weren't married and she absolutely offs herself for that reason, among others.

Updated On: 7/17/14 at 05:20 PM

[KathyNYC2]

Posted: 7/17/14 at 5:21pm

She offs herself because she has lost hope - because her life in Vietnam since the war ended has been hell, she cannot give her son the life she wants. Her son would never be accepted in Vietnam because of his mixed heritage. That IS a racist tradition but that does not make it less true.

She believes that her son will have a wonderful life in America so she does what she has to to get him there. She is certainly personally devastated that Chris has moved on but her death is because of Tam - Chris won't take him if she is alive. It's a false hope - America is not the be all and end all - but the American Dream is what has sent immigrants (including my grandparents) to America since the beginning of America.

Updated On: 7/17/14 at 05:21 PM

[haterobics]

Posted: 7/17/14 at 5:31pm

Sutton, but if she goes back to America with the white American man, lives an unhappy life, raises a few kids, only to finally be swept off her feet decades later by a photographer from National Geographic, then you're OK with it?

[South Florida]

Posted: 7/17/14 at 5:34pm

What's wrong with a love story in a show definitely designed to make scurrilous the Vietnam war.

[Sutton Ross]

Posted: 7/17/14 at 5:38pm

Hater!! This is why you're my favorite! HaHa. But yes, absolutely!

But, now I'm depressed as sh*t that I can't see that tonight.... BOOOO.

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 7/17/14 at 5:45pm

I promise there's nothing NSFW in here: http://tattooedheroine.com/2014/02/08/fetishization-of-asian-women/

Anyway, I'm probably going to bow out of this, but I appear to be the only one arguing about Miss Saigon being part of a bigger picture (a bigger picture which doesn't really do anyone any favors). Were there and are there sex workers near American military bases, especially ones in Asia? Sure! Do we need to add more images to this media trope or contribute to this stereotype? Nope!

And please. Let's have something else. Something ELSE for Asian American performers to get cast in when people don't feel like colorblind casting. I feel like Ann Harada is the only prominent Asian American theatre actor who doesn't have Flower Drum Song, Miss Saigon or The King and I on her resume. (Unless she does; someone correct me if so.)

[Sutton Ross]

Posted: 7/17/14 at 5:53pm

I have appreciated your contributions and great points in this thread Lizzie, especially your last paragraph!

[perfectlymarvelous]

Posted: 7/17/14 at 6:09pm

For the record, I think LizzieCurry is right on the money. I think something that a lot of people miss (or like to ignore) is that art doesn't exist in a bubble, and the way minorities are portrayed does matter and is often reflective of larger cultural and social issues. It's not "just a play" or "just a TV show" or whatever. Whether you think Miss Saigon is particularly racist or not, it does reinforce some stereotypical portrayals of Asians that have remained prevalent and are often the only roles Asian and Asian-American actors can get. I wouldn't expect Lea Salonga to call the show that gave her a career racist (and this isn't meant to be a knock on her at all).

I would love to see something like Allegiance come to New York and succeed, because there's really a dearth of mainstream material for Asian actors in Hollywood and on Broadway that isn't wildly stereotypical.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 7/17/14 at 6:11pm

I don't know MISS SAIGON and I wouldn't presume to tell Asians and Asian-Americans what should or should not offend them. Nor do I need to as David Henry Hwang has already deconstructed the BUTTERFLY myth brilliantly.

But I do want to speak in defense of the libretto to MADAMA BUTTERFLY. Cio-Cio San is hardly "uncivilized". On the contrary she is as much the Western ideal of femininity as she is a stereotype of Asians. She is loyal, trusting and idealistic. And she is strong enough to stand up to a wealthy suitor, her lawyer, and the prefect of her district.

It is Pinkerton who is the villain. He is the proverbial Ugly American, circumscribing the globe with little interest in local peoples and customs and no regard for the havoc he leaves in his wake.

Mrs. Pinkerton is perhaps a bit glib at first toward Cio-Cio San's sacrifice, but the two end as relative equals in discussing what will be best for the child.

Butterfly's suicide is not a moment of weakness, but the ultimate "p*uck you. Do you finally get the point?" She leaves the Pinkertons with an image they will never forget. She also frees her child finally and forever from his Japanese heritage, leaving him to become a "real American" (at least in theory).

I'm not saying this is a documentary on turn of the 20th century Japanese, but neither is it gross exercise in Western condescension.

P.S. I'll grant I have my doubts the child will be better off with his new American family than with his biological mother, but the play doesn't show us the long-term consequences of Butterfly's sacrifice. With millions immigrating to the U.S. in 1900, it isn't surprising that Cio-Cio San might THINK her son will be better off in the New World.

*****

Again, not my call, but I thought it a tad unfortunate that the Eurasian engineer became the focus of protests when MISS SAIGON first opened in NYC. I realize there's a context of "yellow face", but in pure p.r. terms, I think it's hard for the general public to understand why a biracial person shouldn't be played by someone of either race.

Updated On: 7/17/14 at 06:11 PM

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 7/17/14 at 6:13pm

I just want to add to the chorus of people appreciating LIzzieCurry's posts. Lizzie, we know you don't have to speak for billions of Asians. Nonetheless, it's nice for a change to have this conversation with someone who isn't strictly Caucasian.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 7/17/14 at 6:25pm

And please. Let's have something else. Something ELSE for Asian American performers to get cast in when people don't feel like colorblind casting. I feel like Ann Harada is the only prominent Asian American theatre actor who doesn't have Flower Drum Song, Miss Saigon or The King and I on her resume.

Speaking of racist, did you see her character in Avenue Q? LOL I do think that is quite the ironic example in many ways.

Regardless, I did see Miss Saigon a few times and it never led me to believe that all Asian women are subservient, prostitutes, stupid, or obsessed with white male soldiers. I also did not believe all Asian men were evil, Communist, child-sex traffickers or pimps. I also did not believe all white American men are whore-mongerers, pedophiles, bigamists, chronically depressed, apologists or unintentionally abandon their families. I also did not believe that all white women are jealous, passive-aggressive, reluctant adopters of immigrant illegitimate children and have little to do or say. I also don't believe all Asian children are mute.

I do believe people like that have existed. I do believe they are particular elements of this particular story. I do believe those elements may have been truthful to similar situations in that time under those circumstances. And I do believe that writing a story about those types of circumstances does not automatically perpetuate racial stereotypes. Just like prostitution near a military base does not automatically make me think of Asian female prostitutes any more than prostitution in a major metropolitan city in anywhereintheworldplanetearth.

I've always wondered if Amy Tan is racist as well, though.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 7/17/14 at 6:34pm

Mister Matt, if I may switch for a moment to my own minority (not a perfect analogy), I no longer mind seeing gay serial killers and "sissy best friends" now that there are so many representations of gay people.

Without presuming to speak for Asian-Americans, perhaps the problem is the relative paucity of Asian roles other than "prostitute with a heart of gold" and "tech guy" on TV procedurals.

[mikem]

Posted: 7/17/14 at 6:40pm

Whether or not one thinks Miss Saigon actually crosses the line and is racist, I think that one would be hard pressed to say Miss Saigon does not contain racial stereotypes. Whether or not containing characters who fulfill racial stereotypes is problematic is a different question, but racial stereotypes are present in the material. The central premise is based on a racial stereotype.

There is a very funny, but very true, passage in David Henry Hwang's M. Butterfly in which Song Liling, the central Asian character in the play, talks about the central premise of Madam Butterfly and how the romantic/tragic aspect would appear ridiculous if the races were reversed: “Consider it this way: what would you say if a blond homecoming queen fell in love with a short Japanese businessman? He treats her cruelly, then goes home for three years, during which time she prays to his picture and turns down marriage from a young Kennedy. Then, when she learns he has remarried, she kills herself. Now I believe you should consider this girl to be a deranged idiot, correct? But because it's an Oriental who kills herself for a Westerner – ah! – you find it beautiful.”

Obviously, Hwang is being satirical and exaggerating the reversal, and also ignoring the whole I'm-killing-myself-so-my-child-can-lead-a-better-life aspect, but there is truth in what he says.