Colgate News: Colgate professor campaigns to rehabilitate actress's image
Bruce Calvert
Friday, January 26, 2007
Contrary to what many believe, the Chinese-American film star Anna May Wong
was a "complex and fascinating person who had to deal with racism and
early-20th-century attitudes toward the Chinese," not a disgrace or a
willing perpetuator of stereotypes.
At least that's what history professor Graham Hodges thinks.
Currently on a Fulbright fellowship at Peking University, Hodges has
launched a campaign to rehabilitate the long-vilified actress's image in
China. His book about Wong, published in 2004, is called Anna May Wong: From
Laundryman's Daughter to Hollywood Legend.
That quest and Hodges's research on Wong were the focus of a lengthy feature
in The Honolulu Star-Bulletin this week. Hodges's wife, Gao Yunxiang, and
her studies of another Chinese actress, Li Lilli, were also discussed in the
article.
In 2005, Hodges published his book about Wong, who was born in 1905 and grew
up in L.A.'s Chinatown. She began appearing in silent films at a very young
age, but quickly graduated to more mature roles.
The parts Wong ended up playing as an adult in the mid-1900s were the
product of ethnic stereotyping: doomed love interest, villain, vamp, or
victim. What's more, strict exclusion laws prevented Wong from kissing or
marrying a Caucasian man in a movie or real life, so she was unable to
accept and any leading-lady roles offered to her.
The only choices she had, said Hodges, were to turn down the demeaning
parts - and end her career - or accept what she could and enact change
within the film industry.
She chose the latter, and was subsequently shunned by the Chinese, even when
she joined the country's war relief effort. She was even barred from
visiting her ancestral homeland later in life.
"Her memory has been washed away," Hodges told the newspaper.
Hodges, though, thinks Wong's image can be redeemed, once people understand
her predicament.
"I speak frequently about Anna May to Chinese audiences, last night for
example, and last month in Guangzhou, Shantou and Nanjing," he said.
"Older Chinese are still suspicious of her, but younger ones, especially
young women about 18 to 22, are very eager to learn about her. Women are
very interested in her ability to brave negative stereotypes to portray her
visions of China."
Conversations with such women are heartening to Hodges, who said he isn't
giving up his mission anytime soon.
"I have [a] new book on New York City cabdrivers coming out in March, plus
another book in the fall, but Anna May is never far from my heart or mind."
Joining Hodges in the media spotlight this week was Colleen Nassimos,
administrative coordinator at Colgate's Center for Outreach, Volunteerism,
and Education.
Nassimos was featured in a Q & A in the Post-Standard (Syracuse).
She primarily discussed her efforts to resurrect the Madison Central School's
Booster Club, but also touched on her work at the university and one thing
she would change about the area.
"I'm involved in the Colgate community here, as well, which affords me some
culture in the way of events that we hold on campus," she said.
"I kind of wish that people would get more involved in the kind of things
that we have to offer at the university, as well, because they do a lot of
really neat things."
Caroline Jenkins
Office of Public Relations and Communications
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Bruce Calvert
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