Great movie, but be forewarned:

Well, the Venus de Milo was created in Ancient Greece, and Greece is a first-world country.



"May the Force be with you."
"I can do anything. Is America."

mariafan

"Racism used to be almost completely pervasive, unlike our more enlightened times when it is socially shunned"

"If you really think that's true, I have a bridge to sell you. If anything, modern racism is as prevalent, just less conspicuous."


He's right. Racism in the U.S. will never end as long men like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Barack Obama can profit from it.

Here in the 21st Century, Americans are every bit as racist as they were in 1932, but their desire to conceal that racism led to their overturning Jim Crow and to turning a blind eye to interracial marriage and to electing more black politicians than ever before, including the first black President.

This pathetic desire to conceal their racism even led to their reelecting him four years later.

What a sick, vile, racist country.

I like how when the black woman talks about killing white women, it is "racial tension," but if a white woman would talk about killing black women it is "racISM." One brush; broad strokes people. Don't save the harsher words just for whitey, please.

How about this one most serial killers are white?

http://www.moola.com:80/moopubs/b2b/exc/join.jsp?sid=4d6a55744d7a45794e544d3d-2

"I still can`t figure out why the fact that depicting the bad guy in this film as wanting to destroy the white race that this automatically means that it`s racist towards all Asian".

Every single Asian character in this film was depicted as either a conniving evil bastard or a total moron (see the chef in the end).



"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan

The reason why this film is seen as racist towards Asians is not only because Fu Manchu is depicted as a fanatic who wants to destroy the white race. There are many elements in this film that suggest such racist and xenophobic sentiments. For instance, have you noticed that throughout the film Fu Manchu was never characterized as anything but an individual "from the East"? The costume and set design revolving around him also reveal a mixture of Asian elements - Chinese dragons, statues of Indian deities, the ninja-style fighting of Fu Manchu's assassins - that are not true to any particular Asian culture but to many. The gathering of different Asians at Fu Manchu's lair also shows that all Asians are typecast as one singular category instead of as peoples with unique cultures and beliefs. There is a lack of individuality that comes with the depiction of any Asian in this film and thus, it is obvious that Fu Manchu is portrayed as the leader of all Asians and not just some psycho who is acting on his own behalf.

I think whether a movie is racist comes down to not only the race of the antagonist, but many other elements. In Schindler's List, Hitler is depicted as the ultimate bad guy, but this movie is definitely not racist and does not stereotype all Germans. The protagonist Schindler is also a German and so are many other characters that are conflicted by Hitler's rules and show sympathy towards the Jewish. Unlike the Asians portrayed in the Mask of Fu Manchu, these German characters are treated as individuals with individualistic reactions towards the malignant doings of their leader.

It's not the idea of an Asian villain that's problematic. What becomes dicey is the way they depict Fu Manchu. He is a complete distortion of countless eastern stereotypes mashed into one, and presented to the viewer practically painted on the face of an English actor. The problem comes not from the idea that there is an Asian character in a movie who does bad things, but that many of the things he does that are bad somehow relate to the fact that he's Asian.

I had a history professor in college who, in each of his history classes that I took, made sure to devote time to making the point that it was specifically NOT a part of the class, and was completely unprofessional as a historian, to drag people from the past out of their dusty graves, stand them before us, and judge them and their actions by our modern values.

This movie impressed me as an attack on Hitler.The scenes where Fu Manchu harranges his followers, the implied "master race" argument he uses,seemed to be reminescent of Adolf,even though he was not yet in power.

"But, if you can get past all that" is probably one of the best things I've read on here. It's great that you acknowledge the extent to which racist Orientalist imagery permeated the film industry (something that has hardly ceased to occur in today's world), but the number of stereotypes portrayed in "The Mask of Fu Manchu" hardly dilutes the negativity of each individual case. Sure, it's laughable to view the absurdity in a 21st century lens, but you have to realize that films like this set a precedent for Hollywood that has continued to operate well past the 1930s. From the coolie hat-adorned laborers who worship the tomb of Genghis Khan to the "frightening" visual of a Buddha statue outside Fu Manchu's lair (take a moment to let that representation sink in), this film is a handbook on how to Other the Asian. You don't have to be Asian to realize that you can't get past all that.

What we presently lack is COMMUNITY. A place to call our own. If we had that, we would have standards that members would be expected to observe. We also would soon find that our levels of tolerance for our own folk are greater than we expected. If there were certain groups we didn't care to associate with, we wouldn't have to, nor them with us. In time we'd realize that everyone has something to contribute.

Now we are isolated targets scattered about the landscape, easy pickings for our enemies. In a real community, no group would stand out apart from the rest, and we all would have each others backs against outsiders. Teachers, doctors, engineers, businessmen, tradesmen, white collar, blue collar, all pulling together for the benefit of all.

Pie-in-the-sky idealism? No, there was a society working on achieving exactly that when certain people decided they couldn't EVER be allowed to succeed. Class must be pitted against class and a man must be defined by money alone. That is the law of our present masters.

Let's not play into their hands by pointing fingers at our racially aware fellow Whites who may not conform to our preferred style. If they want to label that as bigoted and racist then so be it. The lion cares not what the sheep think of him.