Anna May Wong was tired of the limited and stereotypical roles Hollywood offered her in the 1920s and 30s. Though considered the first Asian American movie star, she was often forced to play the villainous ‘Dragon Lady’ or subservient ‘Lotus Flower’. In a 1933 interview, Wong questioned why “the screen Chinese is always a villain… murderous, treacherous, a snake in the grass!” It was partly due to the anti-Chinese sentiment fuelled by the Chinese Exclusion Act, which prohibited Chinese migration.
Though born in Los Angeles in 1905, Wong stared down discrimination on and off screen. As this magazine points out, she walked “the imaginary line that divides the races” – she was a movie star and fashion icon who still lost the few nuanced Chinese roles to White actors. Despite lobbying to play the lead character in The Good Earth (1937), Wong was passed over for German actor Luise Rainer, who won an Oscar for her ‘yellowface’ performance.
Wong never gave up though. She starred in over 50 films and became the first Asian American star of a TV show. Her contribution to early cinema has recently been recognised, with characters inspired by her appearing in the TV series Hollywood (2020) and Damien Chazelle’s film Babylon (2022).
Daughter of the dragon
Anna May Wong’s hypnotic eyes stare menacingly from the poster for Daughter of the Dragon (1931) in Goddess. She’s painted a sickly green and her unforgiving fringe and razor-thin brows harden her face. Despite Wong’s beauty, the film further aligns her with the monstrous, framing her against a dragon tapestry to reinforce her connection to the deceitful, exoticised and hypersexualised ‘Dragon Lady’, a trope the film popularised.
In Limehouse Blues (1934), Wong plays Tu Tuan. Costume designer Travis Banton signified Tuan’s villainous nature by snaking a dragon motif down her body, which you can see in the black-and-white image in the display in Goddess. On the lounge suit featured in the video below, he beaded another Chinese emblem into the silk to underline the link between Asian characters and villains.
Since then, the dragon motif has evolved into a visual shorthand for cinema’s anti-heroes. You can see its symbolic use in this elaborate costume worn by Glenn Close as the puppy-hunting Cruella de Vil in 102 Dalmatians (2000).
The ‘Dragon Lady’ stereotype is still associated with actors of Asian heritage, like Lucy Liu in Kill Bill (2003) and Charlie’s Angels (2000) and the related ‘Tiger Mother’ role Michelle Yeoh plays in Crazy Rich Asians (2018).
The poster displayed in Goddess for Shanghai Express (1932) reads: “Mysterious, seductive, tantalizing!” It is referencing Marlene Dietrich’s character Shanghai Lily, but it could easily be applied to her co-star Anna May Wong’s Hui Fei. Both film stars were at the height of their fame when they played these scandalous courtesans. Though the film debuted almost a decade before the archetype became popular, they are framed as femme fatales. Their eyes are captured in smouldering close-ups and they are both bathed in shadow. But the film is also feminist: the two women save the day.
Anna May Wong: The first Asian American Movie Star via American Masters PBS' YouTube channel
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Collection
Not in ACMI's collection
Previously on display
1 October 2023
Australian Centre for the Moving Image
Collection metadata
ACMI Identifier
193589
Curatorial section
Goddess → Dangerous Women → Anna May Wong