The Portrayal of Asian Males in D. W. Griffiths Broken Blossoms Movie Review

The Portrayal of Asian Males in D. W. Griffiths Broken Blossoms - Movie Review Example The film Broken Blossoms perpetuates this stereotype by portraying the Asian male as submissive and weak. Broken Blossoms was released in 1919, during the growth of the yellow peril, a social perspective that rose from the influx of Asian immigration into the United States and some European countries. In America, the yellow peril originated during the late 19th century as Asian laborers immigrated in record numbers to San Francisco to work for the railroads and culminated in Japan's bombing of Pearl Harbor which forced America to get involved with World War II. Marchetti writes, Within the context of America's consistently ambivalent attitudes to Native Americans, Hispanics, and African Americans, and other peoples of color, the yellow peril has contributed to the notion that all nonwhite people are by nature physically and mentally inferior, morally suspect, heathen, licentious, disease-ridden, feral, violent, uncivilized, infantile, and in need of guidance of white Anglo-Saxon Protestants. (2-3) America used the stereotype of the yellow peril to at firs... In Broken Blossoms, the Asian male is not only portrayed as being weaker then the Anglo Saxon male, he also must be punished for transgressing cultural boundaries by falling in love with a white woman. In the beginning of the film, the Yellow Man is seen sitting against a wall, depressed, and hugging himself. Already, the film is portraying him as mentally inferior to the white man by having him in a feminized position, since it is culturally understood that the woman becomes sad and depressed, not the male. The Yellow Man is also shown to be an opium smoking drug addicted gambler, again feeding into the Anglo Saxon stereotype of the Asian male as depraved and morally suspect. Then we meet the white male, Battling Burrow, who is a literal symbol of the raw strength of the Anglo Saxon male. The contrast between the two males is startling; the Asian male is morally corrupt and feminized while the Anglo Saxon male is a physical powerhouse of raw brute strength. When the white female, Lucy, goes shopping and stops before the Yellow Man's store, he becomes infatuated with her and begins to follow her around town. This is biggest threat to the white patriarchal society; having an inferior male mating with a white woman. When Lucy comes home, she is beaten by her father for serving his tea late, but the symbolic message is that she must be punished for attracting the attentions of the Yellow Man. The Yellow Man takes Lucy into his apartment to nurse her after her beating. The Yellow Man is further feminized in the eyes of the audience by participating in the female practice of nursing and by showering Lucy with flowers and silk. That he owns such things as silk fabric shows again how the Asian male is not