# Other Cringeworthy Blackface/Yellowface/Etc. movies **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [June 23, 2026, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-cringeworthy-blackface-yellowface-etc-movies/1031135 "2026-06-23T15:04:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2026, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-cringeworthy-blackface-yellowface-etc-movies/1031135/61 "2026-06-23T21:03:55Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > I haven’t seen the movie, but does it say she’s Korean in it? No, they never mention what supposed ethnicity the character is in the movie. ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2026, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-cringeworthy-blackface-yellowface-etc-movies/1031135/62 "2026-06-23T21:06:53Z")
What about Eddie Murphy in the “White Like Me” short film on SNL? Or the Wayans brothers in “White Chicks”? ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2026, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-cringeworthy-blackface-yellowface-etc-movies/1031135/63 "2026-06-23T21:09:56Z")
> [@Shoeless](#): > > What about Eddie Murphy in the “White Like Me” short film on SNL? I still enjoy his performance as the old Jewish guy in _Coming to America_. (Dan Aykroyd in disguise as a Rasta in _Trading Places_, though…) ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2026, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-cringeworthy-blackface-yellowface-etc-movies/1031135/64 "2026-06-23T21:10:17Z")
> [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](#): > > > [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > > > All played various Asian roles, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Korean and Hawaiian, at least, interchangeably. Somehow, it seems more insulting, from this old white guy’s perspective, to cast them as the wrong ethnicity than say, the same of Michael Ansara. It smacks of “all Asians look alike.” > > The Netflix animated film _Over the Moon_ was criticized for casting mostly Korean voice actors as Chinese characters (in a story that takes place in China, based on a Chinese folktale). I recall similar criticism in 2005 when three Chinese actresses were cast in the lead roles in _Memoirs of a Geisha_. ---
**Author:** ![Dropo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ce7236/32.png) [@Dropo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dropo)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2026, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-cringeworthy-blackface-yellowface-etc-movies/1031135/65 "2026-06-23T21:11:59Z")
Interesting performances were given by Toshiro Mifune as a Mexican in _The Important Man_ (1961) and Tatsuya Nakadai as a Mexican-Indian bandit in the Spaghetti Western _Today We Kill…Tomorrow We Die_ (1968). Japanese or Mexican audiences might be more sensitive to any cringe-worthy aspects of the castings than I am. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2026, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-cringeworthy-blackface-yellowface-etc-movies/1031135/66 "2026-06-23T21:39:18Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > So is that the problem with \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_-face actors, that they are doing it to make fun of people of that ethnicity? Used to be, but also mostly because many actors were on contract, and it was cheaper to cast a white actor you had on contract, then to cast an unknown Native American or Asian. > [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > If we assume that denigration is not intended, then, because that would always be wrong, how close does the actor have to be to the role in order to avoid offense? Yeah, and that gets a little crazy- I mean Charlize Theron- very beautiful- was cast as Aileen Wuornos in _Monster._ Should we require showrunners to cast plain actors in not so good looking parts? Or if the biographical part calls for a brunette, is it okay to cast a blonde who dies their hair? Yes, blackface/etc for the point of bigotry is wrong. But if it is satire?? I mean they cast Jewish (and Italian) actors as the “Hekawi” as a joke or satire (altho I think “One of the lost Tribes” was mentioned once in F troop). ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2026, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-cringeworthy-blackface-yellowface-etc-movies/1031135/67 "2026-06-23T21:42:50Z")
One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing (1975) > **[One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing (1975)](https://thegreatdisneymovieride.home.blog/2022/07/22/one-of-our-dinosaurs-is-missing-1975/)** > > I’ve heard horror stories about this one. Tales of the worst, most overt racism to hit the big screen since the infamous Song of the South. I really, really can’t, you guys. Disclaimer:… > After a nice stretch of movies that were readily available on Disney+ and often pre-screencapped, we’re back into the land of the obscure. And hoo boy, if you’re one of the people who keeps commenting demanding that I stop pointing out old fashioned Disney racism…. might wanna skip this review because there will be a lot of that here. Also no I will not stop. There’s a reason you probably haven’t heard about this movie. The original novel, The Great Dinosaur Robbery by David Forrest, tells the story of a group of wacky nannies battling Chinese Communists in Cold War Era New York. It’s so astoundingly racist that I am ashamed of having borrowed it from the library, packed full of painful Engrish dialects and references to “Dear Leader” that made me cringe every other page. The authors of the book (actually two men named Robert Forrest Webb and David Eliades) were very disappointed with Disney’s decision to move the setting to post World War I London to avoid having to tackle politics. But they weren’t so afraid of politics that they didn’t cast white men in every Chinese role, plastering them in appalling makeup and making the accents even more incomprehensible. Even from the stills I’m seeing during the research phase, it’s appalling. Like, it makes Song of the South look like a sensitive portrayal of other races, that’s how bad it is. Yes, it was true, as a kid I remember that I laughed a lot because of the funny action secuences, but nowadays it is appalling that it featured no Asian actors. Instead, the studio opted to use white European actors in yellowface to play all the Chinese characters. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2026, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-cringeworthy-blackface-yellowface-etc-movies/1031135/68 "2026-06-23T21:45:03Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Yeah, I was in a Play of Cleopatra once (bit part) and Cleopatra was played by a black haired Columbian beauty, and she looked the part. I think stage productions get a lot more leeway than movies. If I went to see King Lear as played by a Scotsman and his three daughters were played by an Argentinian, a Chinese woman, and a Texan, each one of them with thick accents from their native lands, it wouldn’t bother me a bit. ---
**Author:** ![We\_re\_wolves\_not\_werewolves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@We\_re\_wolves\_not\_werewolves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/We_re_wolves_not_werewolves)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2026, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-cringeworthy-blackface-yellowface-etc-movies/1031135/69 "2026-06-23T22:50:23Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > I think stage productions get a lot more leeway than movies. agreed. No one made a big deal about Leslie Odom Jr. as Aaron Burr in the Broadway edition of _Hamilton_ ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2026, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-cringeworthy-blackface-yellowface-etc-movies/1031135/70 "2026-06-23T22:56:22Z")
Al Jolson made a career in Blackface, but his most cringeworthy role was in _Wonder Bar",_ with the showstopping number “Going to Heaven on a Mule,” which managed to include every possible racist cliche known to the Klan. Plus, as a bonus, an antisemitic one. Marlon Brando, of all people, played a Japanese houseboy in _Teahouse of the August Moon._ In _The Bitter Tea of General Yan,_ the General and most of the Chinese characters were played by white actors. One role, Mah-li was played by Toshia Mori, who was Japanese. To Hollywood, all East Asians were interchangeable. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2026, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-cringeworthy-blackface-yellowface-etc-movies/1031135/71 "2026-06-24T00:22:02Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Yes, it was true, as a kid I remember that I laughed a lot because of the funny action secuences, but nowadays it is appalling that it featured no Asian actors. Instead, the studio opted to use white European actors in yellowface to play all the Chinese characters. It was a 1975 film and not very popular or often watched- the Wiki article on it is sparse. Not much of a target, that guy seems to hate Disney, especially as he leads with > Tales of the worst, most overt racism to hit the big screen since the infamous Song of the South. So, Song of the South is not racist. Nor is that obscure film he spends WAY too much time retelling. Yes, it uses "Yellowface’ which was pretty much standard in 1975. Not that this makes it good, mind you, but it doesnt make it racist either. > [@We\_re\_wolves\_not\_werewolves](#): > > No one made a big deal about Leslie Odom Jr. as Aaron Burr in the Broadway edition of _Hamilton_ Hmm, does having black actors play white historical characters make it “whiteface”, “racist” or social commentary? I guess social commentary. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2026, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-cringeworthy-blackface-yellowface-etc-movies/1031135/72 "2026-06-24T00:53:45Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > So is that the problem with \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_-face actors, that they are doing it to make fun of people of that ethnicity? As I’m sure you’ve gathered, it’s a far more complex issue than a single issue or standard. There’s a huge amount of history behind such casting, and about the decisions about who to cast and why. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2026, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-cringeworthy-blackface-yellowface-etc-movies/1031135/73 "2026-06-24T01:01:46Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > As I’m sure you’ve gathered, it’s a far more complex issue than a single issue or standard. There’s a huge amount of history behind such casting, and about the decisions about who to cast and why. Yeah. I mean, Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffanies has always been a prime example, but he was a known actor, put in for broad slapstick comedy. If they had put a Asian actor there, it might even have been worse- would an Asian actor want to do that role- it was pretty offensive. Better yet would have not made it such a offensive caricature. So, the real issue is not poor Rooney, but making the role such a offensive caricature. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2026, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-cringeworthy-blackface-yellowface-etc-movies/1031135/74 "2026-06-24T01:33:24Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > In _The Bitter Tea of General Yan,_ the General and most of the Chinese characters were played by white actors. One role, Mah-li was played by Toshia Mori, who was Japanese. To Hollywood, all East Asians were interchangeable. We wouldn’t think twice of having an Englishman play a Frenchman, would we? Or an American playing a German? I don’t think Chinese actors playing Japanese geishas is quite the same problem as Warner Oland playing Charlie Chan. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Q](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/898d66/32.png) [@Johnny\_Q](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Q)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2026, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-cringeworthy-blackface-yellowface-etc-movies/1031135/75 "2026-06-24T01:41:49Z")
How about Billy Crystal as Sammy Davis Jr.? ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2026, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-cringeworthy-blackface-yellowface-etc-movies/1031135/76 "2026-06-24T01:42:24Z")
In a sort of boomerang brownface, take a close look at the actor in the purple dress in this scene from 1961’s West Side Story. That’s Nobuko Miyamoto, aka Joanne Maya, a Japanese-American, interned during World War 2, as the Puerto Rican Francesca. [![](https://i0.wp.com/rafu.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/i-feel-pretty.png) ](https://i0.wp.com/rafu.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/i-feel-pretty.png) Not a movie, but cringeworthy enough to note, Dawn Wells playing a Native American in an episode of Bonanza. [![](https://www.tvgems.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/bonanza708.jpg) ](https://www.tvgems.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/bonanza708.jpg) And this pic won’t link, but check out Marlo Thomas as a Chinese woman, also from Bonanza. [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0529478/mediaviewer/rm2661324289/?ref\_=tt\_ph\_1\_1](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0529478/mediaviewer/rm2661324289/?ref_=tt_ph_1_1) ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2026, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-cringeworthy-blackface-yellowface-etc-movies/1031135/77 "2026-06-24T03:24:09Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > So, Song of the South is not racist. 🤦‍♂️ Elizabeth Keohane-Burbridge, history teacher at Woodward Academy in Georgia explains. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/u4uKSBfrJWU/maxresdefault.jpg "Ep 251 Uncle Remus, Joel Chandler Harris, and the South, Part II") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4uKSBfrJWU) > We know that Harris based these stories on folktales he learned in the quarters of enslaved peoples on the Turnwold Plantation. What is possible that Harris didn’t realize, and almost certain that Disney didn’t, is that these folktales were created and shared by enslaved people as a way to help provide solace and advice to each other. Br’er Rabbit survives on his wits. He can’t take on Br’er Bear or Br’er Fox, nor could an enslaved person take on their master or an overseer - but he could try to outsmart them. We know that many enslaved people, for example, pretended to be unintelligent or slow workers to trick their masters - it was a form of resistance that fed into the white supremacist stereotypes that slaveowners had but that also turned the tables on them. And, so, by carrying on these stories, Harris was - knowingly or not - preserving these tales of resistance. > > But, that isn’t what Disney’s movie did. Uncle Remus’s tales ended up not being of resistance, but, rather, a promotion of the Lost Cause Narrative as it’s difficult to tell from the movie whether slavery is still legal and all of the Black people are very happy to work on plantations. According to Daniel Stein, “the film neglects many of the cultural specificities of the animal tales, including the lessons that self-interest overrides neighborliness, that the amorality of the animals trumps the false morality of the slaveholder, and that life on the plantation is one of terror rather than inter racial harmony. > Now, as a child of the 1980s, I’m familiar with the way that this movie was critiqued in the latter half of the twentieth-century, but, what I didn’t know was it actually received criticism on its racial depictions right from the moment it was released. For example, as soon as the movie was released in New York, Walter White, president of the NAACP, put out the following announcement that was picked up and carried in many newspapers, “The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People recognizes in Song of the South remarkable artistic merit in the music and in the combination of live actors and the cartoon technique. It regrets, however, that in an effort to neither offend audiences in the north or south, the production helps to perpetuate a dangerously glorified picture of slavery. Making use of the beautiful Uncle Remus folklore, Song of the South unfortunately gives the impression of an idyllic master-slave relationship which is a distortion of the facts.” ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2026, 8:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-cringeworthy-blackface-yellowface-etc-movies/1031135/78 "2026-06-24T08:19:12Z")
Enid Blyton wrote several volumes of Br’er Rabbit stories, in which the American-ness of them is pretty much erased. ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2026, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-cringeworthy-blackface-yellowface-etc-movies/1031135/79 "2026-06-24T08:23:11Z")
Burt Kwouk pretty much cornered the market in Asiatic characters in British TV and films. He took the view that somebody was going make money playing these roles, and it might as well be him. Chinese, Japanese, he took it all. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2026, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-cringeworthy-blackface-yellowface-etc-movies/1031135/80 "2026-06-24T11:33:38Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > What is possible that Harris didn’t realize, and almost certain that Disney didn’t, is that these folktales were created and shared by enslaved people as a way to help provide solace and advice to each other. Actually, the tales of Br’er Rabbit and others are recognizable African folktales. You can find them in books on African mythology. The people who told them weren’t creating the stories – they were preserving their cultural heritage in a way that was particularly appropriate. Joel Chandler Harris was a white guy who retold these stories, often in excruciatingly rendered dialect. He didn’t make them up, either. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-cringeworthy-blackface-yellowface-etc-movies/1031135.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/other-cringeworthy-blackface-yellowface-etc-movies/1031135.md?page=5)