Jackie Chan, cultural warrior (updated)
by James Na ~ November 30th, 2005. Filed under: Uncategorized.Isn’t naming oneself “Jackie” for the Western audience merely succumbing to American/Anglophone cultural imperialism one is railing against?
Barf on Jackie Chan. He is a hypocrite. I didn’t see him rail against American cultural imperialism when Hollywood paid him millions to put him in films or when he appeared in the Oscars ceremony.
Or perhaps he’s merely sucking up to his CCP overlords now that Hong Kong is a part of the PRC. Either way, it’s repugnant.
It’s really very simple. It’s called buyer’s choice. Don’t like American cultural imports? Don’t buy them, period. And, please, please, don’t steal our intellectual property by illegally copying and selling it on the streets. It’s an insult for a Chinese film star to blather about American cultural imperialism while millions are stolen from the creativity of American artists and companies by Chinese intellectual property pirates.
[Update] Check out these little factoids about Jackie Chan, the recently stout defender of Chinese culture:
In 1989, he was made a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British
Empire by the British Government for Hong Kong/ Commonwealth…In 1990, he was made a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres (Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters) by the French Minister of Culture and
Communication…Underwent plastic surgery in 1976 to re-shape his eyelids, giving him a more “Western” appearance [boldface mine]. The final film with the old-look Chan is Shao Lin mu ren xiang (1976)…
His role models are Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Harold Lloyd, all of which were more important to him as a child than any martial arts star, the latter label he was basically forced into at a very young age…
Salary
Rush Hour 2 (2001) $15,000,000+ gross points
Shanghai Noon (2000) $5,000,000
I guess American culture wasn’t so imperialistic when its film industry was giving Chan $15 million plus gross points! (”You culturally imperalist Americans! Oh, $15 million plus gross points? I guess I can lower myself to work with you then.”).
The sad thing about it is that Asian cinema is beginning to have a lot of impact on the West, particularly Hollywood. Culture is a fluid, dynamic thing. It travels, influences each other and hybridizes (in fact, that’s kinda what America is all about).
November 30th, 2005 at 2:53 am
As I recal, Jackie Chan didn’t name himself Jackie Chan. The name was’given’ to him because foreigners couldn’t get a handle on his Chinese name.
November 30th, 2005 at 3:31 am
Yeah right.
If Mr. Chan were insistent on his “culturally proper” Chinese name being used in films, I doubt the studios would insist on using “Jackie.”
Chow Yun-Fat seems to be doing just fine without an Anglophone name with the “foreigners [who] couldn’t get a handle on his Chinese name.”
But then again, that might be because Chow is a real actor who spent 2 years learning English so he can star in real American films (he takes his craft of acting seriously, perhaps), rather than someone who just cashes on his daredevil antics on the cheap, broken English and all.
November 30th, 2005 at 12:59 pm
Jackie Chan is a lot older than chow. Things were different in those days. It was a lot harder for a foeigner to get work in the US film industry, they had to make Chan seem more like a Chinese-American.
November 30th, 2005 at 6:50 pm
Huh?
Fat Tsai was born in 1955, “Jackie” in 1954. They’re less than 1 year apart.
Anway, this isn’t Chow vs. Chan thing. Chan’s hypocrisy is plain — again, I don’t recall him talking about American cultural imperialism when he was taking big bucks from American film companies.
Another thought: maybe he learned a thing or two in Hollywood — always knock America first when in doubt.
November 30th, 2005 at 10:20 pm
Jackie Chan is Chinese, fergodsake, he’s a southerner, AND he’s an actor. He knows from 3 directions who butters his bread, so he can be pro-American one day and anti-American the next. I’m not sure why you expect him to have a consistent viewpoint, or why you take his statements with as much seriousness as you seem to.
December 2nd, 2005 at 1:59 am
Nah, he’s just a hypocrite like a lot of others who blather anti-Americanism.
I take him as seriously as need to be. He IS a big star in Asia and I have to do what I can to expose his hyprocrisy in crying “American cultural imperliasm.”
What else is a blog for?
December 11th, 2005 at 1:46 pm
I stand corrected, I should have said that Chan’s career is older than fat’s career.
Chan acted under the name Jackie in a period when it was easier for him to gt a role in the Us if he integrated.
It’s only recently that foreign names have become anything but a liability in the US.
December 11th, 2005 at 1:52 pm
“Don’t like American cultural imports? Don’t buy them, period”
It can be little hard, especially when US studios and distributors have so much influence.
A US distributor can go along to a theatre overseas and tell them “If you want our number one blockbuster on your screens, then you also have to take X of our other films as well”. This can effectively lock a foreign theatre into a distribution deal that muscles out local films, or at least reduces their screen time.
This is all well and good if you’re a mega-theatre with 50 screens and you can sign deals with many different distributors, but if you’re a two screen family cinema in Brouge and you want to show Harry potter because you’re the only theatre in town, and you have to take 10 lame duck hollywood teen comedies with it, then you have a problem.
ACB (above was ACB too)
December 13th, 2005 at 8:30 am
Chan acted under the name Jackie in a period when it was easier for him to gt a role in the Us if he integrated.
Well, if “Jackie” is so against Western/American cultural “imperialism,” why doesn’t he change his billing now? He is a big enough star that he could do it without the fear of not being recognized anymore.
Oh, wait. He still wants to sell tickets in the U.S. and make millions. He’s still a hypocrite.
A US distributor can go along to a theatre overseas and tell them “If you want our number one blockbuster on your screens, then you also have to take X of our other films as well”.
So? If you don’t want American films in the first place, then this wouldn’t be a problem, would it?
Chinese or French film companies are welcome to try the same business tactic.
In any case, I really doubt that U.S. distributors have to use such tactics as American films seem to command robust consumer demand in the first place (as exemplified by dominant video rental numbers posted by U.S. films — what are you going to argue now that U.S. distributors are forcing mom-and-pop video stores in Asia to carry their films?).