ASIAN AMERICANS IN MEDIA

Week 6: Notions of Community, II— Chan Is Missing

Key Terms:

• Asian American feature films• Asian American identity

• Hyphenated identity / the interval• Assimilation / hybridity• Asian American subjectivity / Asian

American identity

• Postmodernism and film

Chan Is Missing(1982)

Dir. Wayne Wang

Starring Wood Moy, Marc Hayashi, Laureen Chew, Peter Wang

Wayne Wang王穎

• Born in Hong Kong, 1949, and named after his father’s favorite movie star -guess who?

• Educated in H.K. and the U.S.; studied film and television at California College of Arts and Crafts

• After graduating from CCA, Wang worked in activist and theater groups in San Francisco’s Chinatown.

• Chan Is Missing is Wang’s second film; his first was A Man, a Woman and a Killer (1975), which he made while still in art school.

• He subsequently made Dim Sum: A Little Bit of Heart (1985), Eat A Bowl of Tea (1989), Joy Luck Club (1993).

• Not all of Wang’s films are “Asian American” in theme, e.g. Maid in Manhattan (2002)

• Wang is one of the few Asian American filmmakers from his generation who successfully made a transition from the artist / activist / scholar mode to a more commercial career

• He is still making films in the “indiewood” mode, recent titles include Smoke and Blue in The Face (both 1995), Center of The World (2001), A Thousand Years of Good Prayers and The Princess of Nebraska (both 2007), Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (2011)

• Interviews in Moving The Image and Out of The Shadows

• Chan Is Missing is one of the “first” Asian American independent feature films produced outside the studio system.

• It was shot in B&W 16mm film, produced for less than $25,000.

• The film was shot on location in San Francisco’s Chinatown, featuring its inhabitants, who often play themselves in largely improvised scenes

• Filmed in English, Chinese (Cantonese and Mandarin), Spanish; early version were not subtitled. Also featured a soundtrack with music from different communities.

• Based on a true story: the film was dedicated to Wong Cheen, the husband of one of Wang’s friends from Taiwan who went missing for several weeks.

Discussion Questions:

Discussion Questions:

Which communities are represented in the film? Describe them.

Discussion Questions:

Which communities are represented in the film? Describe them.

Who is the audience for this film?

Discussion Questions:

Which communities are represented in the film? Describe them.

Who is the audience for this film?

Who is Chan?

History of the term “Asian American”

• Problematic label– “America is understood to be the United States and doesn’t incorporate South America and other North American countries)

• Asian typically referred to East Asians, leaving out other asian identities

• More of a political designation than a cultural one • The term came to be in the late 1960’s during the

transformation of racial politics—asians began to recognize and speak to the diversity of their cultural and national traditions

• Replaces “oriental”

Hyphenated Community

• People who identify as Asian American are divided between being Asian and American, furthermore being “Asian” can be broken down (Chinese, Laotian, Vietnamese, etc).

• Chan is Missing seeks to find a voice that is distinctly Asian American and that destabilizes notions of Chinese American Identity.

• The film constructs an Asian American identity

Who is Chan?

• Show end scene (1:10:33)• The film is in opposition to the Charlie Chan

detective movies where the main character, Charlie Chan, exemplified the stereotypical Chinese American identity

• Chan is never seen in the film • Towards the end, it doesn’t matter who Chan is,

his absence allows the audience to see into the lives of many asian american characters in the film

Chan is Missing Vs Flower Drum Song

Flower Drum Song • Over-commercialized community • San Francisco full of wealthy people • Only focuses on Chinese AmericansChan is Missing • Encompasses multiple asian american

communities • True depiction of San Francisco

Discussion Questions

• How is Chan represented or described in the film?

• How does the film construct a positive Asian American identity?

• How does portrayal of Asian Americans in this film compare to other works we have seen in class?

• Who is the film catered to?

Discussion Questions:

Is CIM similar to other feature narratives (BROKEN BLOSSOMS, DAUGHTER OF THE DRAGON, THE GOOD EARTH, FLOWER DRUM SONG) you’ve seen in this class so far?  

Discussion Questions:

Is CIM similar to other feature narratives (BROKEN BLOSSOMS, DAUGHTER OF THE DRAGON, THE GOOD EARTH, FLOWER DRUM SONG) you’ve seen in this class so far? If not, what other narrative films does it remind you of? 

Discussion Questions:

What is the space of the ‘interval’ and the ‘hyphen’ that Feng discusses in his essay, and how do these ideas relate to this film? 

Discussion Questions:

What is the space of the ‘interval’ and the ‘hyphen’ that Feng discusses in his essay, and how do these ideas relate to this film? What do you think the protagonist (and by extension, Wang) meant when he said, “using the negative to emphasize the positive”?