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  • Oh my god!

  • Oh, he looks like an alien.

  • East asians react to yellowface.

  • In early hollywood, white actors were often made up to portray characters of other races.

  • Yellowface is using makeup to make someone look east Asian.

  • Marlon Brando, "Teahouse of the August Moon" [1996]

  • Brando's character is a Japanese interpreter for the American army.

  • Rest of world, not like Okinawa.

  • [Voiceover] Wait, is that him?

  • World filled with delightful variation.

  • Example...

  • f*ck

  • (laughter)

  • My stomach is turning, watching this.

  • Oh my god.

  • "My name is Marlon Brando."

  • Actors, themselves, aren't funny things

  • like somebody trying to learn a new language.

  • [Voiceover] Is that all it takes

  • to make yourself look Asian?

  • Just looks like a white dude doing a shitty accent.

  • Marlon Brando is also one of the greatest

  • American actors and seeing this,

  • you're like "No, you're not."

  • Watching this feels really dehumanizing.

  • Mickey Rooney, "Breakfast at Tiffany's" [1961]

  • Rooney plays a cranky Japanese landlord.

  • [Voiceover] Oh, that's painful.

  • (angry yelling)

  • Now, this is really racist.

  • This guy could have been an Orge in Lord of the Rings.

  • That's how much makeup he has on right now.

  • Literally, a political cartoon.

  • The Asian guy is not human.

  • He's clearly not supposed to be human.

  • An early example of the way Asian men

  • are portrayed as gross.

  • Oh, Audrey Hepburn, she's so gorgeous and graceful

  • and then all of a sudden you get Mickey Rooney.

  • But is yellowface gone now?

  • James D' Arcy, "Cloud Atlas" 2012

  • "Cloud Atlas" Involves characters being reborn in different eras, sometimes as different races.

  • Like rawwwr, rawwwr, rawwwr.

  • It's like a kick in the nuts.

  • (movie dialogue) - [Voiceover] Whoa!

  • Oh my god!

  • He looks like a f*ck alien.

  • Just because they break all the rules

  • and have everybody race-bend doesn't

  • mean that it's still okay to do yellowface.

  • With this kind of makeup you don't transcend time,

  • you just look really bad.

  • The actors did a great job,

  • but you just cannot make a white man look Asian.

  • Level of discomfort is not like diarrhea discomfort,

  • like before, but more like mild indigestion.

  • Asian men are either portrayed as dweeby children

  • or like a scary, alien, cold monk.

  • Alyson Hannigan, "How I Met Your Mother" [2014]

  • This episode was explained to be a tribute to old kung fu movies.

  • Can you teach me how to do that?

  • No, I retired from teaching long ago.

  • I am Alyson Hannigan.

  • The problem with this is the term "Orientalism".

  • Yep.

  • [Voiceover] It's not homage anymore when

  • you start playing someone else's race.

  • It just makes me feel so exoticized.

  • It kind of just reads, "We're gonna take a

  • hodgepodge of Asian influences."

  • You could have easily done an homage,

  • where you exist in that universe of the "Far East"

  • but you're still a white character.

  • Could you have imagined if How I Met Your Mother

  • decided to do a whole episode where they did

  • the same thing, but it was blackness?

  • We would not have accepted that.

  • [Voiceover] It's so tough because I love the show,

  • I'd like to watch it every day.

  • For them to do this, like really breaks my heart.

  • I think that people confuse interest in another

  • culture with understanding for that culture.

  • Final thoughts

  • You get to a point where you're just like "I don't expect

  • "anything better from my media, than what I've been given."

  • Yellowface, you can't get past the damn makeup!

  • I think it's sort of like "Oh, well the Asians

  • "are louder now and they'll get mad at us if

  • "we do straight up yellowface."

  • There are no Asian, bankable stars

  • because no Asian has been cast in a role where

  • they've been allowed to become a bankable star.

  • The blame should not be on the actors

  • it should be on the directors and the casting.

  • Hollywood doesn't have as much of an excuse

  • to say "I can't cast an Asian actor."

  • because there are Asian actors.

  • [Voiceover] I'm sure the people making these

  • decisions think the media has gotten better.

  • If you ask an Asian person,

  • I feel like they would tell you a very different...

  • Hey, do you think the media has gotten better?

  • But better doesn't mean good enough.

  • To be honest, yes.

Oh my god!

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