Martial Arts

While going through some of my old files I uncovered an essay I wrote while in art school about similarities between the genres of kung fu films and pornographic films, and I thought it would be relevant to include here.

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For the purposes of my own interests and entertainment, I would like to make an extreme association between the genres of kung fu films and pornographic films.  In doing this I will do an analysis of kung fu films and its influences in the US to address certain images & representations and the prevailing ideologies that exists.  It is especially important in relation to kung fu films to realize that while the individual characters of these films may not outwardly project sexuality, it is the modality of these films, as a vehicle of sexual interaction to a voyeuristic audience.  What I am alluding to is the gaze of the ‘other’, and to look at something taboo, the scopophilic perversion of consuming images of something unlike your self.

“I shall be calling Orientalism, a way of coming to terms with the Orient that is based on the Orient’s special place in European Western experience…one of its most recurring images of the Other.”

E. Said, Orientalism, p. 1

It is the objectification of these carnal acts, through this seemingly harmless medium, that we a get a sense ‘otherness’.  When watching pornography, you generally have two types of devoted audiences, one who is viewing for the pleasure of carnal acts (sexual action), and the lesser who watches for the absurd dialog and the expected kind of kitsch that they provide, i.e. porno-tongue.  Kung fu audiences generally function in the same sort of manner.  An individual may sit in front of the screen with their kung fu grip mimicry, for masturbatory purposes, does not watch kung fu films for good plots, but for the pleasure of carnal acts (kung fu action).  In the same turn, one might be inclined to watch kung fu flicks for its’ bad plots, absurd dialog through bad subtitled translation or poor English dub-ins, i.e. porno-tongue.  Porno-tongue is a disconnection of translation and not a reference to the physical tongue-action itself, nor the scripted “talk-dirty” during carnal actions.  Porno-tongue happens in the badly scripted dialogs of pornography, because while the actors may appear to be serious, to the viewer it is still just a pretense to the carnal acts to come (pun not intended, but enjoyed).  In kung fu films, porno-tongue also happens in English dub-ins, where the disconnection of belief is lost in the faith of translation.  Porno-tongue is especially prevalent in Eastern movies reformatted for Western audiences.  It is not common to poke fun at the mismatched lips to audio speak to a Western to Western reformat.  Porno-tongue is essentially a kung fu and pornographic film phenomenon.  Porno-tongue is a disconnection, thus enforcing and alluding to the fantasy, which is explored and fetishized.  Bad plots are disposable, because their function is for one purpose; they lead to the carnal acts.  The genres both have climaxes (the money shot); one is more figurative and one is much more literal.  Both can be reduced to a similar vehicle that drives certain fetishized fantasies, because both illustrate the dominance of race/gender of the consumed for the consumer.  Kung fu in this context, is both amusing and a shameful reminder of ethnicity. Fantastic twists of the body and flashy gestures of swords & spears, kung fu still embodies a primitive form of weaponry to an industrial nation. Both are generally rehearsed and/or choreographed for entertainment.

Kung fu flicks got its’ first big kick in the US with Bruce Lee, so much so, that when you think of him you think of his action—his kung fu action, which is interesting, because when ever you think of any popularized porno-star, you think of their action as well.  Bruce Lee began his career in the US as Kato in the Green Hornet (1966 – 1967), as a masked ass-kicking chauffeur/sidekick for the protagonist, the Green Hornet (Played by Van Williams).  Kato, a name most likely to be recognized as Japanese, is an interesting character role considering the Japanese invasion in 1941.  In The Green Hornet, we have a faceless oriental that is subservient to a white-male who also dawns a mask, but has a double-identity as an unmasked newspaperman (Britt Reid).  Van Williams was fortunate to have character development in not one, but two roles, while Bruce Lee was simply a vehicle to project a post-Pearl Harbor houseboy.  Bruce Lee’s lines consisted of one-line, pidgin-speaking Tonto-like utterances, thus following the trend of a faceless and mono-toned immigrant.  Kato’s subservience only mirrors “Little boy’s” impact on Hiroshima as a celebratory victory over another race that was considered a threat; i.e. in reference to the economic climate of the automobile industry, and of course the Pearl Harbor tragedy.

“Anyone resident in the West since the 1950s, particularly in the United States, will have lived through an era of extraordinary turbulence in the relations of East and West.  No one will have failed to note how the “East” has always signified danger and threat during this period…If the world has become immediately accessible to a Western citizen living in the electronic age, the Orient too has drawn nearer to him, and is now less a myth perhaps than a place crisscrossed by Western, especially American interests.”

E. Said, Orientalism, p. 26

When The Green Hornet was canceled in 1967, Bruce Lee had high hopes in starring in Kung Fu, a television series that he originally conceived, but the leading role of a Shaolin monk roaming the old-West in search of his father went to David Carradine.  Carradine as Shaolin monk, who is by no means a man to be mistaken as an oriental man, only helps to drive the mythology that the white-man can do anything, and not just anything, but better.  This 70’s television series shown on ABC and produced by Warner Brothers is essentially a vehicle of Orientalist ideology marketed towards a white-male audience for an Oriental-fetish gaze.

“Orientalism…is not an airy European fantasy about the Orient, but a created body of theory and practice in which, for many generations, there has been a considerable material investment.  Continued investment made Orientalism, as a system of knowledge about the Orient…”

E. Said, Orientalism, p. 6

After Bruce Lee’s disappointment in Kung Fu, he went back to Hong Kong and had an amazing career in Hong Kong action films that led to international recognition.  Soon after, Hollywood approached him and produced Enter the Dragon, which became a hallmark of kung fu cinema.  Bruce had a mysterious death before the release of the soon to become mega-blockbuster.  During the hiatus of Bruce’s absence from the martial art world since 1973, a myriad of American martial art films cropped up and flooded the scene, and as well as the popularizing of Hong Kong film imports that were either subtitled or English dubbed.  Such movies and stars that arose and became popular are:  The Karate Kid trilogy, Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee clones; and the white muscles of Steven Seagal, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and Chuck Norris.

Images and representations of Asian-males generally are: mysteriously evil, nerdy, homosexual, homoerotic, sexually inept, and/or asexual.  In the case of kung fu films, the protagonist is almost always asexual, while generally the bad guy is mysteriously evil, homosexual, and/or homoerotic in some manner.

“…Bruce Lee in his mega-hit Enter the Dragon was precluded from having any interest in women, unlike his white (John Saxon) and black (Jim Kelly) co-stars.”

T. Fong, The Contemporary Asian American Experience, p. 176

Even in Bruce’s Hong Kong produced films, he had very little or no interest in women.  It is a striking polarization that the hero/protagonist is depicted as sexless, and yet the mode of presentation resembles the style of pornography.  It is important to recognize Hollywood productions from Hong Kong productions and the time that these films were made, because what is generally accepted as appropriate now was not then.  Hollywood productions may favor the protagonist-hero to have sex-appeal, but as far as a foreign protagonist-hero it was considered greatly taboo for a white-male heterosexual centric audience to be excepting during those times.  Producers thought it was shocking to have an Oriental face for the protagonist, and it was for these reasons that Bruce Lee did not get the lead role in the television series, Kung fu.   To have a libidinal foreign hero was too inappropriate, thus the natural progression for the Oriental protagonist has always been focused in a framework of sexless servitude towards righteousness, justice, and/or the institution of, which the conflict is always resolved through kung fu action.  This is strikingly similar to Hong Kong produced films.  Many of the Hong Kong productions during the Bruce Lee era had the same framework of a sexless hero.  This may be accounted for stereotypical notions of heroism in the East.  I believe religious practices to be a heavy factor in shaping ideologies of what an Eastern hero is supposed to imbue.  After all, kung fu was born from the Shaolin temples, to which these monks were devoted to, but as well as the practice of Taoist, Buddhist, or a sects of Buddhist religion.  Confucianism has long been a substrate for shaping sentiments of morality in the East, in which moral men put the institution/community before personal desires.  Jackie Chan’s movies, whether US or Hong Kong produced, follow the similar vain of a sexless hero except there is a certain level of low-brow humor that is very similar to a lot of other kung fu movies.  Here is a back-cover description of Rush Hour 2:

“Last time they nearly destroyed L.A., now they’re about to break China!  Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker reprise their roles as mismatched detectives in this smash-hit fellow-up that’s even “faster and funnier than the first!”  (Peter Travers, Rolling Stone).  Reunited in Hong Kong, the two cops look forward to a much-needed vacation, but their plans go up in smoke when a bomb explodes in the American Embassy.  Suddenly, they’re tracking a group of slippery suspects, including a beautiful assassin (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’s Zhang Ziyi) and a mysterious mobster (John Lone, The Last Emperor).  With their irresistible mix of head-spinning action and gut-busting comedy, Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan they’re the team to beat in this can’t-miss movie that delivers the entertainment rush of the year!”

B. Ratner, Rush Hour 2, back cover

Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan team together again, to battle what seems to be a never ending orgy of faceless bad guys.  In Rush Hour 1 and 2, there are striking polarities in the protagonists.  Inspector James Carter, played by Chris Tucker, is loud & obnoxious, sings well in English, dances like Michael Jackson, is womanizer, doesn’t respond to authority well, and has a personification of cool as in himself.  Inspector Lee (has no first name), played by Jackie Chan, is none of those things described of James Carter, but in fact quite the opposite.   Inspector Lee isn’t cool in himself, and if he is cool in some manner, it is only because of kung fu.  Both embody a clownish representation of race.  Chris Tucker can’t be taken seriously because his character is full of shit most of the time, and Jackie Chan acts as the serious role, but his awkward representation of Asian ethnicity makes him a center of laughs as well.  Rush Hour and its’ sequel follow the “good cop/bad cop” routine of the likes of the Lethal Weapon trilogy, except both the protagonists scream stereotypes.  Besides the action scenes, the movie is carried by the differences of race and ethnicity through stereotypical jokes.  While it may be all fun and light-hearted there are many faces and voices of African-Americans to give a broader sense of blackness.  One might think about the level of representation for Asians, and more over, the level of representation for Asian-Americans.  Master with Cracked Fingers (1974) is one of Jackie Chan’s earlier works before he became famous in either the US or in Hong Kong.  This Hong Kong production also follows the similar framework of sexless servitude towards righteousness and the low-brow humor.  There are two instances of sexuality in this movie.  In one scene there is a gang-bang of kung fu thugs who attempt to rape a woman, which is actually a trap for Jackie who is of course victorious over their trickery.  Earlier in the movie there is another instant of sexuality where Jackie is a little boy who wants to learn kung fu, and happens to run into a Chinese hobo who would later become his kung fu master.  His master tells little Jackie to take off his cloths and get into a bag full of snakes.  The little boy is reluctant, but eventually submits to his master’s request, which he then cries when he gets in.  One with little imagination might think this is very strange, and by American standards is a suggestion towards pedophilia.  The voices are also dubbed over in English, which gives a certain quality of disconnect and kitsch.

“…must locate himself vis-à-vis the Orient; voice he adopts, the type of structure he builds, the kinds of images, themes, motifs that circulate…all of which add up to deliberate ways of addressing the reader, containing the Orient, and finally, representing it or speaking in its behalf…The things to look at are style, figures of speech, setting, narrative devices, historical and social circumstances, not the correctness of the representation nor its fidelity to some great original.”

E. Said, Orientalism, p. 20 – 21