American drama "Kung Fu": cultural appropriation and symbol platter

Author: Lin Meng, Associate Professor of the School of Literature of Henan University

Produced and distributed by the American CW Television Network, the American drama "Kung Fu" tells the story of Nicky Chen, a Chinese girl who came to the Shaolin Temple to escape blind dates, followed her master Pei Ling to learn martial arts and started a new life. Unexpectedly, one day the Shaolin Temple was attacked, and Pei Ling died at the hands of Zhilan, who had a grudge with the Shaolin Temple. After returning to the United States, Nikki spent her time in San Francisco punishing evil and promoting good, while looking for opportunities to avenge her master.

Poster of the American drama "Kung Fu"

The past and present lives of Kung Fu

The American drama "Kung Fu" is based on the 1972 TV series of the same name. In 1971, Warner Bros. originally rejected Bruce Lee's story called "The Warrior", believing that the Asian-starred TV series had no market in the United States, but the following year it aired "Kung Fu" similar to "Warrior". "Kung Fu" was quite influential in the 70s, winning several Emmy Awards, shooting a total of 63 episodes in three seasons. It is worth mentioning that the protagonist of "Kung Fu" is white actor David Carradin, who plays a Mixed-Race Chinese-American orphan, Kwai Chang Caine. It can be seen that Bruce Lee's inspiration and the script itself have no problems, the problem is that Hollywood in the 70s did not accept Chinese faces or Chinese actors as leading actors. On the one hand, this stems from Hollywood's inherent arrogance, and on the other hand, Hollywood positions television distribution in the domestic market, so there is no need to find Chinese actors to please the audience on the other side of the ocean.

So in fact, "Kung Fu" in the 1970s was just a localized story for American audiences, as an American netizen commented on IMDb: "It can take us back to the 'Old West' era of the United States." It's just that this is a cowboy without a gun, and through his beautiful martial arts moves, he strings together the racial situation after the civil rights movement, including the struggle of native Indians, the plight of black people on the border, etc., and the "Wild West" spectacle that was highly sought after in the golden age of television in the 1970s and 80s. In this regard, David Karding's demonstration of kung fu is also intriguing, in that era when the Chinese martial arts instructor has not yet fully landed in Hollywood, Karding only relies on a certain dance foundation, and can only play the imaginary "kung fu" - not to be accurate but to be beautiful.

"Cultural appropriation" with Hollywood

"Not seeking accuracy but seeking beauty" forms the core of a certain inherent logic of "cultural appropriation": "beautiful" is a formal construction based on subjective imagination, which strips the signifier from the meaning of the signifier and abstracts things into symbols that can be displayed, communicated, appreciated and evaluated; "Accuracy" is a certain essential appeal established by the source culture in order to maintain the stability of signifiers.

The so-called "cultural appropriation" refers to the borrowing of cultural resources that do not belong to the local and ethnic groups to create new cultural products, thereby influencing the local culture. In recent years, this concept has become an important concept in the study of cross-cultural and artistic creation. In the postcolonial sense, "cultural appropriation" is generally considered to be "cultural plunder" or "cultural appropriation", which leads to accusations that the dominant cultural group adopts the things and elements of the weak culture without the permission of the weak party, resulting in distortion, distortion and even destruction of the source culture. The 1972 version of the American drama "Kung Fu" is undoubtedly a typical case of "cultural appropriation", and its use of martial arts narratives and revenge stories in traditional Chinese culture is one-sided.

In fact, Hollywood has always had a tradition of cultural appropriation, and almost all of Disney's cartoon stories come from the United Kingdom, Central and Northern Europe, and the Arab countries, such as "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" from the Grimm fairy tales in Germany. In early 20th-century American theater and film, there was also a specific type of performance: white actors wore black or Chinese costumes—even blackened their faces or painted with yellow makeup—on stage or in front of cameras to interpret black and Chinese stories. They call it a "blackface play" or "yellow-faced play." The problem, however, is that these figures are often distinctly characterized and lack personality, either heinous villains (such as Fu Manchu) or stupid and humble slaves. In short, they are the antithesis of righteous, brave white men, who can only be destroyed or saved. These images deepen the "stereotypical model" of black and yellow people by Western audiences, and the harm is endless.

Strictly speaking, of course, the 1972 edition of Kung Fu does not belong to the genre of stigmatizing or dwarfing the Orient; in fact, on the contrary, it shows a spectacle of China: a lonely hero without a gun, a fascinating Shaolin resort, and a master of profound Taoism—together they form a fascinating oriental philosophy and values (such as Zen, Taoism, Righteousness, And Chi). But we also know that this display of the Orient still cannot escape the category of Said's so-called Orientalism, that is, "the East is not the East", but only away from the real imaginative East, in order to incorporate an exotic story into Hollywood's cultural empire in addition to the difference in expression.

Cross-cultural debugging of Kung Fu

In contrast, it cannot be said that the 2021 version of "Kung Fu" has no breakthrough, in fact, it intended to make a substantial adaptation of the 1972 version from the beginning. With the improvement of China's comprehensive national strength and the formation of the global film and television market, the huge Chinese market has become a factor that must be considered when Hollywood business operations. As a result, Hollywood is constantly reflecting on its Orientalist biases and adjusting its expressions. The 2021 version of "Kung Fu" uses a large number of Chinese or Asian actors, including many familiar faces of Chinese audiences, such as Ma Tai, who played Nickey's father, who also played Mulan's father in the 2019 version of "Mulan", at least in terms of perception to achieve a certain kind of reality; In the kung fu scene, "Kung Fu" strengthens the visual effects and does not make it satisfactory; The presentation of Chinese-American family relationships is also relatively realistic.

However, once it returns to the presentation of local Chinese culture, "Kung Fu" is still caught in the imagination or so-called "re-interpretation". For example, based on the current trend in Hollywood, "Kung Fu" adapts the story of a male hero into the growth history of the female protagonist, and in order to achieve this, it transforms the Shaolin Temple into a place for women to practice and learn martial arts, which completely strips away the religious meaning of the Shaolin Temple and simply becomes a signifier such as a martial arts school. Even more surprising is that the Shaolin Temple was also moved to Yunnan to enhance the visual spectacle, but the protagonist is placed in the landscape of the Li River in Guangxi. Since then, the "Shaolin Temple" has been adapted beyond recognition. All of this suggests that Kung Fu is more of a symbolic platter than a fusion of cultures. In addition, such as crappy Chinese, abrupt totems and crude concepts (such as "change"), all reveal the screenwriter Christina Lee. Although the main creators such as Christina M. Kim are Asian, they still can't understand the truth of Chinese culture.

Even if "Kung Fu" works extremely hard in casting, the story presentation is thin, broken, superficial and routine, and the operation at the level of cultural integration is basically a failure. It is precisely for these reasons that although "Kung Fu" scored fairly on the Us website "Rotten Tomatoes", it only received a rating of 3.6 on Douban. In the end, Hollywood's display of Chinese kung fu still needs to make more "efforts". (Lin Meng)

Source: Guangming Network - Literary And Art Review Channel