I recently saw for the umpteenth time “55 Days at Peking” with Charlton Heston and Ava Gardner. The first thing that surprises me is the title because I always thought it was “55 Days in Peking” but that is neither here nor there.
Where was the movie shot? Surely not China (1963).
In the opening scenes Major Heston is rinding into Peking with his troops and he tells them to be respectful of the natives and pay for what they buy and then teaches them a few words of Chinese:
Maybe Charlton Heston’s Chinese was not very good but this web page claims he says “Yes is shit, no is bullshit” (which are sort of close). It seems to me the problem is more with the Chinese ear than with the American mouth. I did not hear those words in the movie and in 1963 they would not be in that movie anyway. The author of that page says the movie portrays westerners in a good light and Chinese in a bad light (fair enough) but it seems to me he went overboard with the bullshit. He seems to be looking for places to be offended by western arrogance. I would like to get the sound-clip of those words if anyone can find it or produce it. The author of that page portrays it as an insult to the Chinese, like mocking their language, while I interpreted the scene que the opposite way: the major telling the troops to be respectful and considerate and try to speak the basic words.
It is true that in 1963 movies were simpler. the good guys were good, the bad guys were bad and there was no mistaking them. In American movies the Americans were intelligent, heroic and good looking while foreigners lacked all that and were either just quaint, dumb or evil, depending on nationality. The French soldiers in the movie are a caricature of the stereotypical French. Of course, I expect the roles would be reversed and in Chinese or Soviet movies the roles would be reversed and the heroic proletarian masses would always conquer the greedy exploitative imperialistic westerners. In a way I kind of liked such simplicity. You knew who to root for. Now you have to scratch your head and wonder who is the good guy. I hate such dilemmas. I prefer it when the good guy is all good and brave and gets to sleep with Ava Gardner after killing some bad guys.
I must admit to not having seen the film, but Heston’s ‘Shi’ and ‘Bu Shi’ is only sort of correct. There is no ‘yes’ and ‘no’ in Mandarin Chinese, only a positive or negative affirmation of a question. When someone asks would you like to drink some water (‘ni you he shue’) to answer yes you would say, ‘want’ (‘you’) not ‘yes’. Or if asked with more emphasis, ‘ni you bu you he shue’ (‘you want, not want, drink water’). I’m sure one of the more fluent Dopers will be along shortly.
But given that I’ve not seen the film, I have no idea how Chalrton Heston pronounces the words, ‘shi’ doesn’t sound even remotely like ‘shit’ if pronounced correctly. I suspect the page seeking offence is stretching a bit.
That said, I’m not overly fond of these older films that partition good and bad along visible cultural lines. Why is ‘good guy’ distinguished by nationality or cultural background? Did Heston have any dealings with Chinese characters who were normal, complex people and not stereotypical parodies? (a question there, not an accusation. Like I say, I’ve not seen the film. Were the Chinese characters acted by Chinese actors, or westerners in asiatic makeup?)
However, you are indeed correct. Movies of that period from other cultures, and even now, do indeed slip into the same use of stereotype (sorry, no cites, just memory, which serves me poorly at best) because it simplifies the need to flesh-out character, because the audience will already ‘know’ the stereotype, so they ‘know’ the character. It seems to me to be lazy writing, which still doesn’t make it right.
Again, I don’t have any cites, but I do recall the occasional Australian film or TV series from my youth that would include the stereotypical ‘Yank’ (apologies) and all the cultural baggage that was supposed to entail. These characters always made my grandfather laugh (he emigrated from Ohio in 1946) because he could see how wrong the stereotypes were. I was always impressed the stereotypes made him laugh, instead of making him angry…