Chan, Charlie

Redefining Asian Stereotypes

After learning about the accomplishments of Honolulu police officer Chang Apana (1871–1933), Biggers created the fictional character of Charlie Chan to help solve a murder mystery set in Waikiki in his novel The House Without a Key (1925). Biggers was inspired by Apana's heritage and success as a detective to create an amiable Chinese character who would serve as a counterbalance to the predominant stereotype of Chinese people at the time: the sinister Yellow Peril threatening American values. Biggers envisioned Charlie Chan as a plump civil servant who spoke in accented fortune cookie statements and in so doing, recast orientalist fears by portraying a peaceful, asexual, and exotic stereotype of Chinese culture.

Biggers would pen five additional Charlie Chan novels: The Chinese Parrot (1926), Behind That Curtain (1928), The Black Camel (1929), Charlie Chan Carries On (1930), and Keeper of the Keys (1932). The exoticism of Chan and the popularity of detective fiction encouraged the crossover of Biggers's literary work to other entertainment industries, such as comics, radio, and television. The most successful crossover industry was motion pictures, beginning with the film adaptation of The House Without a Key. The novel was released in 1926 as a 10-chapter serial film bearing the same title.

Over 50 Charlie Chan films were made over the course of six decades, including films in languages other than English. Forty-seven of the films were made by Hollywood movie studios and released between 1926 and 1949. During this period, the Charlie Chan character was fleshed out and became a successful franchise and popular culture icon. However, none of the actors playing Charlie Chan were of Chinese descent, and all but three of the films featured non-Asian actors. The first three Chan films—The House Without a Key, The Chinese Parrot (1927), and Behind That Curtain (1929)—featured Japanese actors, George Kuwa and Kamiyama Sojin, and Korean actor E. L. Park. In Charlie Chan Carries On (1931), Swedish actor Warner Oland was cast to play Chan, and, intentional or not, began a practice of yellowface acting that became symbolic of the Chan franchise and continued with the casting of actors Sidney Toler (1938–47) and Roland Winters (1947–49).

Reconstructing a More Complex Experience

Although the notion of an amiable, entertaining, albeit inaccurate imagining of a Chinese American detective was meant to provide a positive representation of Chinese Americans, Charlie Chan nevertheless obscured the Chinese American experience with a prejudicial falseness, presenting Asian Americans as dutiful, foreign, passive, and one-dimensional. Indeed, the yellowface performances were seen by Asian Americans as an Asian version of the blackface minstrels that hid the real racism and violence against African Americans. Asian American artists and activists have since used Charlie Chan as a point of departure for critique and envisioning more complex representations of the Asian American experience. Filmmaker Wayne Wang produced the film Chan Is Missing (1982), which followed two Chinese American amateur sleuths in their search [Page 466]for a missing friend. The film used the genre created by the Charlie Chan franchise as a metaphor for introducing a more complex depiction of the Asian American experience. Similarly, artist and activist Jessica Hagedorn published two anthologies, Charlie Chan Is Dead (1993) and Charlie Chan Is Dead 2: At Home in the World (2004), that used Charlie Chan as the foil for deeper understanding of the Asian American experience.

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