This Wednesday at the Eskenazi Museum of Art, Lisa Kwong, adjunct lecturer in English and Asian American Studies, delivered a talk titled “Anna May Wong: She, Too, Was Hollywood.” She discussed the actress Wong and her relevance in the lives of Asian Americans during her career as well as in the present.
One of the Eskenazi museum’s installations this semester, “Old Hollywood Glam,” contains the headshots of starlets, including Wong, during the Golden Age of the 1920s to 1940s. The display of classic photographs correlates with Themester’s beauty initative.
Kwong began by listing the names of contemporary actors Aziz Ansari, Lucy Liu, Mindy Kahling, George Takei and others, after asking the group of about 25 students and community members if they knew of Wong.
“Anna May Wong, as the first Chinese-American actor to gain international fame, paved the way for all the Asian American actors I just listed,” Kwong said. “She was glamorous, talented, expressive and also deeply misunderstood by her own family, the public, Hollywood and China.”
Kwong spoke in front of the grouping of black-and-white photos, including the one of Wong, cloaked in shadow with her garment sliding down her body.
The talk was divided into two parts — the first being a summary of Wong’s life, starting with her childhood and continuing through her short but full career that resulted in more than 50 films.
Kwong said Wong became interested in acting as a child, sneaking out to movie sets to watch the performers, then coming home to practice their scenes herself in the mirror.
“Her parents caught her, and her father made clear his disapproval by saying, ‘A good girl will not be an actress,’” Kwong said. “Wong rebelled and secretly went to movie sets anyway. Wong was a girl with a dream, yes, but she also wanted to support her family so they wouldn’t have to work so hard.”
Wong’s career in Hollywood film was filled with struggles, as she faced the issues of both being typecast as the “oriental” prostitute and other stereotypical roles, or losing such roles to white actors in yellow face, Kwong said.
Kwong said after a trip to China in Wong’s adulthood, she made the decision to no longer accept these stereotypical roles and only take on those that would depict the Chinese in a positive light.
“Ironically, Anna May Wong died in 1961, right before she would have portrayed Madam Liang in the Rogers & Hammerstein musical ‘Flower Drum Song,’ which was one of the first films to feature an almost all Asian-American cast,” Kwong said. “As a fan of Wong and ‘Flower Drum Song,’ I was definitely disappointed she didn’t get that experience.”
The second part of the talk revolved around a careful analysis of the portrait itself, one of a few limited edition prints of the actress by George Hurell in 1938.
Nan Brewer, curator of works on paper at the museum, said the Themester’s beauty idea was what inspired the display of photographs, including Wong’s.
“I was interested in investigating the concept of how Hollywood determined certain standards of beauty in the presentation, particularly of women, of actresses,” Brewer said. “My main interest was this image by George Hurell of Anna May Wong.”
Kwong said the image perpetuates a lot of the stereotypes about Asian women at the time with both the positioning and later the descriptions of that particular headshot, taken at a time when the Chinese Exclusion Act was still in effect.
“We can interpret this image in a few ways given how Asian Americans were perceived in the U.S.,” Kwong said. “First of all, let’s address — half her face is more in the dark. As she is not directly looking at the camera, Wong is being offered up for a gaze.”
Wong is also seen with her dress slipping from her body in a heavily sexualized style, which Kwong said plays into the sort of roles she was mostly offered at the time.
Kwong said that Wong took the negatives for this particular image and only a few copies of the print exist in modern times, which is what makes them so valuable.
For her part, Kwong said Anna May Wong is a symbol of how far Asian American actors have come and will continue to progress in Hollywood.
“Her longevity has been unrivaled thus far,” Kwong said.
