Romance and the "Yellow Peril": Race, Sex, and Discursive Strategies in Hollywood Fiction

Rating:
Summary: Interesting title, tedious book
Review: This is a pompous, tiresome piece of work, which is unfortunate, given the gold-mine of material on the subject. I'm a bit skeptical when an author overuses the term "bourgeois" when discussing anything other than the French Revolution. This sends a red (!) flag that the author is of the humorless Marxist sort.

The author sees phallic images everywhere (hint-stay out of the South of France-those tall cedar trees can be quite menacing!) Also, I was disappointed to see only 3 entries for the fabulous Anna May Wong. Even the Yellow Peril spoof "Thoroughly Modern Millie" was ignored. True, Hollywood has been shameful in the depiction of Asians in films (and everyone else , for that matter), but with Dr. Gina, you just can't win. Unfortunately, happy proletarians in Maoist garb singing jolly tunes in a tractor factory just doesn't sell tickets, so Hollywood had to try something a bit more lurid. At least the the films were often engrossing, which is more than I can say about this book!