Images Of Chinese In American Comics Master Of Kung Fu

The cultural study of image of Chinese people in Western media is an issue of concern in academia.Generally,the western portrayal of Chinese people changed from praise to censure.However,things start to improve since 1970s.This text will try to analyze the development of Chinese image of 1970s,taking Fu Manchu Family in comic books as an example,basing on imagology,psychology and politics.Fu Manchu and his daughter Fah Lo Suee were created by Sax Rohmer in his mystery novels in early 1900s.They are personifications of Yellow Peril,representing western terror to eastern world.The name "Fu Manchu" is a synonym for "yellow peril",while Fah Lo Suee,as Western men’s imagination of Chinese women,being a charming and dangerous dragon lady,is another manifestation.Shang Chi,on the contrary,represents American’s new view on Chinese as a model minority.Through these three characters we can conclude the evolvement and development of Chinese Image in comic books.Fu Manchu in comics remains major part of evil and ambition from his original material,but no longer that threatening.In those novels,he is more a symbolic character,who is horrible like the devil,and haunting like a ghost,just like the East as whole.But writers of comics make him more human,especially his weakness and his death,also Shang Chi’s attitude after his death,which all means western opinion on Chinese has changed.Fah Lo Suee’s transformation in comic books,along with Leiko Wu the character,means that western male’s view on Chinese women has advanced a lot.There is nearly no intentional exotic features on their dressing and outlook,so there is no distinctive difference between western and eastern female on outward appearance.Besides,they have deeper and more complicated temperament,as opposed to Fah Lo Suee’s original figure in novels.The earliest figures of Fu Manchu and Fah Lo Suee portrays western yellow peril to the East in different ways(male to male,and male to female).Through Fu Manchu’s weakening and death,and Fah Lo Suee’s transformation,we can see Americans are no longer antagonistic to yellow people blindly,but extend different treatments selectively.This kind of selectivity has a centralized display on Shang Chi.as an Asian,Shang Chi gains universal admit and acceptance in western society,for the reason of his hard work for western government and anti-communism,which are only conditions to be accepted by the West as a model Asian.Even though Shang Chi keeps evolve all the time,the exoticism of him never truly faded.From all portrayals of these three characters,we can have a conclusion.In 1970s,the opinion to China of western people has changed greatly.With anti-communism became mainstream,they began to treat Chinese communistic government and traditional China differently.They took Ideological position as the new standard of right,ignoring "white people are superior to yellow people" thing.In the meantime,though exoticism can never disappear hundred-percent,the western portrayal of Chinese is becoming more and more reasonable.