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The Joy Luck Club

posted 10 years ago by Pancakeshouse85
3 replies | jump to latest

I'm sure this has been mentioned on here before but in The Joy Luck Club, the Rose character cites this movie specifically. It's in the scene where the Andrew McCarthy's character's mother confronts her about the reality of their relationship.

"I couldn't believe what I was hearing. It was like something out of that awful, racist movie, "The World of Suzie Wong."

I was just curious because I've never seen this movie. Is it really bad? Or do people overlook it because of the time it came out?

[–] bcamphome 10 years ago

Well, it wouldn't hurt to read the comments for this film as well as the posts on this message board to provide some answers to your question. If you do a Google search for this film title + critique or Asian feminists, you'll find a number of scholarly papers that dissect the film. Peter Feng, author of "Screening Asian Americans" and the co-host of TCM's series on Asians in Hollywood some years ago, which included this film, calls SUZIE WONG "the film Asians love to hate" and "the film Asians love to love," suggesting Asians' conflicted responses to the film. He wrote about the film in an essay called “Recuperating Suzie Wong: A Fan’s Nancy Kwan-dary.” Look it up.

I watched the film last night for the first time and I found it a compelling but problematic film. Yes, Suzie Wong is a stereotype and I can see why Asian feminists are infuriated by her. She’s a white male fantasy of the submissive, compliant, sexually voracious “China Doll.” However, the stereotype is significantly humanized by Nancy Kwan’s performance. We really feel for her and she comes off as someone with conflicted goals. She wants a better lot in life for herself and her child, but she has a skewed sense of how to get there. William Holden’s character takes a lot for granted and only gradually comes to truly empathize with and love Suzie. The changes his character undergoes are quite significant for a white male character in a Hollywood interracial romance. The fact that the romance doesn’t end tragically was quite a bold step for Hollywood as well.

I think the movie should be seen. But it also deserves criticism—and praise.

[–] Kompressor_Fan 8 years ago

You hit the nail on the head. It's an absolute classic....but one needs to keep in time that it was made in 1960 when watching it.

[–] Otter (24464) a year ago

This! Bingo!

I've never loved this film, and this is why. Suzie is what the white man who wrote the book wished that Chinese women were like: Suzie Wong is beautiful, sexually available yet innocent, just maternal enough, naive and submissive, grateful for a white man's attention, and not the least bit angry or traumatized by the horrors in her backstory. So I hate the script, and IMHO the only reason to see the movie today is to see Nancy Kwan glowing with star quality, and making the script seem better than it is.

It really is a shame that Hollywood didn't have material worthy of her talents, the woman was beautiful, charismatic, and a genuine triple threat. If she'd lived in a time when there were fantastic roles for an Asian-American female movie star, she would have been one of the Screen Immortals... but even now we still aren't there.