• Elwynn
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    8 months ago

    It’s both quite interesting and horrible how he essentially became typecast negatively due to racism.

    (Source Wikipedia) Throughout Hayakawa’s career, many segments of American society were filled with feelings of anti-Japanese sentiment, partly from nationalism rising from World War I and World War II.[51] Hayakawa was constantly typecast as a villain or forbidden lover and was unable to play parts that would be given to white actors such as Douglas Fairbanks. Hayakawa stated, “Such roles [in The Wrath of the Gods, The Typhoon, and The Cheat] are not true to our Japanese nature… They are false and give people a wrong idea of us. I wish to make a characterization which shall reveal us as we really are.”[52] In 1949, he lamented, “My one ambition is to play a hero”.