Picadilly really intrigued me. Partially because it cleverly portrayed London from the dirty underbelly looking up. A little because it was the fictional tale of an entertainer that resonated so closely with the true story of the actress playing the role (Anna May Wong, daughter of a laundry man, like Sho Sho rose against the odds to become ‘the star of the show). Somewhat because the performances were so fantastic – melodramatic to the extreme and just wonderfully expressive (it’s all in the eyes…). But most of all, I was amazed that an Asian woman in the 1920s was given – essentially – the lead role, and a romantic role! I started to think… maybe we underestimate our society’s past. Maybe Anna May wasn’t forced into stereotypical Asian roles (for a contemporary example look at the cook in King Kong – “me want leave this place, me no like”, for a 21st century example: every Jackie Chan movie ever made) but had the freedom to play more exciting, individualised roles.
Anna May Wong has been quoted as saying:"I think I left Hollywood because I died so often." As an Asian actor in the ‘20s, I can’t imagine there were starring role offers rolling in. In Picadilly, though she may not have the big draw card name – that’s the queen of the shimmy Gilda Gray – she absolutely steals the show. At first I found it amazing that an Asian woman could be represented in such a powerful role. However, watching the film, and thinking about the moral message hanging around Sho Sho’s fate, I wasn’t so amazed.
When we first come across Sho Sho, the camera’s slow upward pan caresses her body in an overtly sexual way. Her dancing is natural, raw, nonchalant, but she holds the attention of the camera, her fellow dish-washers and soon Valentine Wilmott as well. Sho Sho is instantly introduced as an object of desire. ‘Object’ here is the operative word – Valentine feels her so sexually appealing he feels the need to instantly buy her, own her.
But Sho Sho is not simply seen as desirable: she constantly acts out her desirability. Her coy description to Valentine of the last time she danced – “there was trouble, men, knives” – emphasizes Sho Sho’s dangerous allure. Sho Sho emasculates men around her – notably dressing up Valentine in her stage costume. She smiles softly to herself as the various men in the piece succumb to the erotic fantasy she embodies.
The racial filmic conventions of the day are very much upheld in the film and particularly in the characterization of Sho Sho. Sho Sho was not the first Asian woman to be portrayed as a hussy in a film. The Hegelian idea of ‘otherness’ when attached to the non-white man is one thing. The ‘double otherness’ of the non-white woman in a industry where the dominant discourse is overwhelmingly phallocentric has always been a potently powerful meaning to attach to the Asian woman in film. If woman has a dangerous sexual power over men – the femme fatale factor – and the Asian other threatens white purity, then the Asian woman is seen as a suspiciously sexual and predatory figure. There is a tension here between Sho Sho’s sexual power over white men and the way this sexuality is represented as illicit and dangerous.
The transgressive nature of Sho Sho’s relationship with Valentine is echoed in another scene, where a white woman is thrown out of a club for dancing with a black man. The film allows Sho Sho to rise to dizzying heights of stardom, but her transgression of racial codes in her implied sexual relationship with the nightclub manager is solved with her death. She is re-instated to the ‘victim’ position which is aligned with the female Asian identity.
Sadly, although Anna May Wong is indeed the star of Picadilly, the nature of filmic and racial convention means that her character Sho-Sho never really stands a chance of getting her Hollywood fairy-tale ending.
No comments:
Post a Comment