And speaking of the Father, and to white racial signification, his whiteness, whether racially signified or otherwise, is obvious. He dresses in flowing white gowns and paints his face with white make-up (medicine, he says, to protect him from the sun), which accentuates his already white skin. Ideologically, he fuels whiteness with signification for normality, human-ness, civilization, intelligence and power. Following suit, the other two white humans, Edward and Montgomery, also represent normality and human-ness ("five-finger men"), intelligence, civilization (Edward's U.N. ambassadorship), and power (Montgomery is the "jailer" for the animal-beings, and both acquire guns—"the fire that kills"). All other characters aspire to be like them. Clearly, they are at the top of the racial hierarchy.
Positioned between the "whites" and "blacks," however, are the Asians; or rather, those characters whose racial signifiers appear Asian. These characters, with one exception (Dogman), are the animal-beings who live in the "big house" with the Father: Aissa, M'Ling, a diminutive one whom I'll call "Thai," and a nondescript one whom I'll call "Han." These four characters may be read as Asian solely because of stereotypical qualities. Aissa, although her appearance is European, bears the mark of several Asian stereotypes often attributed to geisha girls. She is petite, has long hair down her back, and she wears a seductive sari—an article of clothing that many women throughout Asia wear. More importantly, when we first "meet" Aissa, she is dancing seductively to Tibetan music, and the camera caresses her movements as if she were an exotic flower swaying in a breezy garden. Incidentally, her name spelled backwards is "Assia," which is so close to the word "Asia" that the fact of its Asian signification also becomes quite clear and meaningful.
M'Ling, who has an Asian name as well (Ling being a common Chinese surname), has a tanned complexion, straight hair, and is the studious one who is always reading books and gathering information from them. His stereotypical Asian-ness is also clear: he represents the "nerdy" Asian male. Likewise Han, whose facial features are Asian (narrow almond-shaped eyes and a wide, yet flat nose bridge) is the quiet "house boy" lurking in the background but who is always ready to provide assistance. And Thai, simply, is the diminutive one who also plays the piano, thus embodying yet two more Asian stereotypes.
When comparing these characters to the other animal-beings, i.e., the black-coded characters, these four are the ones who appear most human, i.e., like the Father, i.e., white. They live with the Father—not out "in the wild" with the others at the campground—having clearly mastered the law judging from their "civilized" behavior. In addition, they apparently do not need to be "zapped" into submission due to their lack of internal probes. Indeed, they do appear to be a step up from the other animal-beings, and perhaps serve as models for how they should live.
Furthermore, they wish to be just like the Father, inasmuch as they have assimilated into his world in the "big house," and aspire to possess his cultural knowledge. Thai, for example, spends most of the film looking like a miniature version of the Father—dressed the same way, and even playing a scaled down piano that is similar to his. And Aissa at one point laments to the Father, "I want to be like you! Will I never be like you?" For these characters, the measure of their success lies in how well they approximate the human/white standards of the Father. Because they obviously measure up quite well, they continue to gain similar freedoms and benefits such as living in the "big house" apart from the "wild others," and receiving a "civilized" education.
In his article "America's Greatest Success Story: The Triumph of Asian-Americans," David A. Bell makes similar assertions about Asian-Americans as the ones I note above about the Asian-coded characters in Moreau. Like these "Asian" characters, Bell believes that Asian-Americans have also measured up to, and in some cases surpassed, the standards of dominant white America. To help make his claim he even quotes the titles of articles about Asian-Americans, which were printed in mainstream newspapers and magazines like Parade, Time and Newsweek: "'The Promise of America,'" "'A Formula for Success,'" "'The Drive to Excel,' and 'A 'Model Minority"" (46). Listing numerous "outstanding" achievements of Asian-Americans, such as higher median income and higher SAT scores in math, Bell contends that
Asian-Americans improve every field they enter, for the simple reason that in a free society, a group succeeds by doing something better than it had been done before: Korean grocery stores provide fresher vegetables; Filipino doctors provide better rural health care; Asian science students raise the quality of science in the universities, and go on to provide better medicine, engineering, computer technology, and so on. (54)
As Bell implies above, success in American universities comes almost second-nature to Asian-Americans, thereby being a prominent reason for their success in society overall. For Bell, "[t]he universities, after all, represent their route to complete integration in American society" (50). Regarding integration, and by implication assimilation, Bell's essay also cites Japanese-Americans as being the most successful assimilators. Clearly, the extent to which Bell links Asian-American success to their ability to assimilate dovetails quite neatly with the success of the assimilated "Asian" characters in Moreau.
The tension and strife between the "Asian" characters and the "black" characters in Moreau are also framed in such a way that resonates with the representation of Asian-Americans as the "model minority." Implicit in such a "commendation" is the idea that the "Asian" characters are somehow better than the "black" characters, in the same way as Asian-Americans in contemporary U.S. society may be perceived as being "better" than other "minorities," specifically blacks and Hispanics, or "sell-outs" to dominant white America. As a result, Asian-Americans may somehow be perceived as being favored by dominant white society because of such factors as educational and economic success, or that Asian-Americans are somehow better suited for, and thus have better access to, the American marketplace. Curiously, something akin to the latter scenario occurs in Moreau.
The tension between the "Asian" and "black" characters in the film are best represented in the conflicts that both Thai and Aissa have with the other animal-beings, of which the latter encounter is the most explosive. In Thai's encounter, he is conspicuously called upon to "take sides" in the scene where Hyena-man and his cohorts break into the big house and threaten the Father. From the moment Thai senses that the Father is in danger, he immediately goes to fetch the medallion "zapper" so that the Father may "discipline" them with pain. Perhaps coming as no surprise given his previous mimicry, Thai's allegiance in this scene clearly remains with the Father, even to the point of potentially inflicting pain upon another animal-beast "brother." Clearly, Thai may be read as "selling out." Presumably he pays the price for such allegiance to the white Father. Given that he conspicuously disappears from the story line after Hyena-man and his "black" buddies murder the Father, I suspect Thai shares his same fate.
Aissa's conflict erupts most notably near the end of the film in her dramatic fight with Dogman and his cohorts. Dogman, although he lived in the "big house" with the "civilized Asian" animal-beings, is not "Asian." He is "black." His long matted dreadlocks and dark brown complexion easily reveal his racial affiliation. When Dogman realizes that the tide has turned when Hyena-man amasses a significant following of animal-beings, all of whom can no longer be controlled by the "zapper," Dogman decides to join forces with Hyena-man. Doing so is symbolic, as the union may be interpreted as "officially" confirming his blackness. It is in The Sayer of the Law's lair where Aissa and Dogman have it out—Dogman revealing his jealousy of Aissa in a moment of rage: "Remember how the master whipped me, but he never touched your soft skin!" And with that, he wraps a noose around her neck and hangs her.
The jealousy Dogman admits most clearly reflects the racial tension arising when one group is favored and praised over another in a racial hierarchy, or in this case an "Asian" character is favored over a "black" one. Dogman resents Aissa; perhaps not so much for her "Asian-ness" as for what she has access to: near-normality and freedom, both of which have been coded white, a symbol for humanity, which Aissa is simply closer to because of origins. By origins I do not mean geographical origins—another stand in for race—but rather her biological origins: she was Dr. Moreau's latest "creation;" and as they say, "practice makes perfect." Dogman, however, was created earlier than Aissa, and as such is a more imperfect being. Dogman, whose more animalistic nature presumably makes him more suitable to interact more intimately—and ultimately join forces—with the lot of animal-beings planning insurrection, is thereby forced to confront his imperfection more consistently. In such a situation, what can Dogman do other than covet another's perceived perfection, and harbor internalized hatred at his own perceived shortcomings? Aissa is everything Dogman cannot possibly attain for any more reason than that of circumstance. So if he cannot attain what she has, he therefore snuffs her out. Dogman's resentment of Aissa erupts into mortal combat, in which he ruthlessly eliminates the standard by which he had been judged for so long.
In Moreau, such is the racial tension between "Asians" and "blacks" stemming in part from the "model minority" stereotype. The representation of such conflict in the film reflects its existence in past and contemporary U.S. society. Ronald Takaki, for example, states that during the period of Reconstruction, southern white planters were so disgusted with what they termed the "spoiled Negro" after Emancipation, that they looked to a growing population of Chinese-Americans to take over the cultivation of southern soil. In the process, the white planters also hoped that Chinese-Americans would serve as role models for black workers deemed "lazy":
Planters quickly saw that the Chinese could be employed as models for black workers: hardworking and economical, the Chinese could be the "educators" of the former slaves. Louisiana and Mississippi planters imported Chinese laborers and pitted them against black workers during the 1870s. They praised the workers from Asia for outproducing [sic] blacks in per-worker competition, and used the Chinese to "regulate" the detestable system of black labor." A southern governor frankly explained: "Undoubtedly the underlying motive for this effort to bring in Chinese laborers was to punish the negro [sic] for having abandoned the control of his old master, and to regulate the conditions of his employment and the scale of wages to be paid him." (94)
Likewise, the model minority myth of Asian-Americans was also believed to be a factor influencing the uprisings following the verdict in the 1992 Rodney King police brutality trial in Los Angeles. In reference to the destruction of Korean-American owned businesses due to black protestors in the L.A. Riots, Sumi K. Cho states that
[t]he portrayal of Asian Americans as the paragons of socioeconomic success contributed to the targeting of Korean Americans as a scapegoat by those above and below Koreans on the socioeconomic ladder during the L.A. riots.… Manipulation of Korean Americans into a "model minority" contributed to their "triple scapegoating" following the King verdict. (197)
In addition, Bell, too, has something to say about this phenomenon of conflict between Asian and blacks. He states, "[s]ocial scientists wonder just how [Asian-American] success was possible, and how Asian-Americans have managed to avoid the 'second-class citizenship' that has trapped so many blacks and Hispanics" (51). Bell speculates that the answer to this disparity in "citizenship status" lies in the so-called "self-sufficiency" of Asian-Americans, in contrast to the dependency of blacks and Hispanics on government and political action (54). According to Bell, "[r]ather than searching for a solution to their problems through the political process [i.e., like blacks], Jewish, Chinese and Japanese immigrants developed self-sufficiency by relying on community organizations" (48) as well as "clan organizations, mutual aid societies, and rotating credit associations…" (52).
There are two important things to note in Bell's statement. The first is his comparison of Chinese and Japanese immigrants to Jewish immigrants. In another part of his essay Bell admits that "comparing the social success of Asian-Americans with that of the Jews is irresistible. Jews and Asians rank number one and number two, respectively, in median family income" (47, my emphasis). Such a comparison, once again, repeats the pattern of measuring Asian-American success with that of a white group—in this case the Jews. For although Jews may be considered "ethnic minorities," because of their whiteness they were still able to join with other "ethnic" whites (e.g., Russians, Germans, Italians, Irish, British, etc.) to form the dominant white power structure in the U.S.
The second, and perhaps more important thing to note in Bell's statement is the way the misperception of Asian-American "self-sufficiency," in contrast to its implied lack in blacks and Hispanics, can clearly fuel interracial conflict between blacks/Hispanics and Asians. In making this comparison Bell overlooks important historical conditions that differed between, for example, blacks and Asians throughout the course of their presence in the U.S., which may account for blacks' decisions to rely more heavily on political activism than Asians. Referencing my observation about the originary differences between Aissa and Dogman in Moreau, there is a parallel difference in origins between Asians and blacks in this country—this time being of a geographical nature. Moreover, the conditions of life existence that define one's origins also have an impact on differences perceived between the two groups. For one, the vast majority of blacks who came to the U.S. were forcibly brought here as slaves, a condition that surely impacts one's ability to be "self-sufficient" in a foreign land. In contrast, many Asian-Americans chose to immigrate to "The New World" in search of better economic opportunities and even political asylum. Sure, everything may not have been, in the colloquial tongue, "peaches and cream," once Asian-Americans arrived: very low pay, squalid housing conditions, and racial discrimination were among the many obstacles to overcome. Nevertheless, the crucial difference in Asian-American corporeal freedom and ownership, versus that of blacks (which incidentally did not legally change until 1865 with the Emancipation Proclamation), in addition to the historical ramifications arising from these differences, must surely account greatly for the difference in self-sufficiency that Bell claims to perceive.
Taking a different, often antagonistic view of the Asian-American "model minority" myth, Frank Chin contends that, indeed, Asian-Americans are the "model minority," but to him this is a disgrace, particularly when it causes racial strife with blacks. The following passage both illustrates the existence of a three tiered racial hierarchy as well as black-Asian conflict:
The success of the Chinese-American minority is based on their being, mightily, sincerely, definitely not black…. David Hilliard and Richard Wright are correct: coldly and painfully so. We [Asian-Americans, and particularly Chinese-Americans] are the Uncle Toms of the non-white people, the despicable Shorty's, a race of yellow white supremacists, yellow white racists. We're hated by the blacks because the whites love us for being everything the blacks are not. (60, his emphasis)
I suspect the above passage expresses Dogman's sentiments exactly. But beyond this, Chin's words also resonate deeply with a racial schema Lewis Gordon provides in Her Majesty's Other Children. According to Gordon,
Both white and black are extremes that are flexibly occupied by logics of distance and nearness. One is black the extent to which one is most distant from white. And one is white the extent to which one is most distant from black. What this means, then, is that if we take any other "racial formation," we will find that its members' identity is a function of its distance or nearness to the two extremes, which means, in the end, that if the extremes are eliminated, new extremes will emerge. Every "in between" is a whiteness or blackness waiting to emerge. (5, my emphasis)
Applying Gordon's logic to Chin's words one can see how neatly the two ideologies overlap. The fact that Chinese- (and by implication Asian-) Americans have succeeded due to their being "definitely not black" locates them at a point "most distant from black." In relation to blacks, Chinese-Americans collapse into, and become, white; in essence, they become "honorary whites" because, as Chin states, "whites love [the Chinese] for being everything the blacks are not," or in other words, for being white. The implication of this, of course, is that in being considered an "honorary white," Chinese-Americans can therefore participate in the same racist power structure, too, that keeps black oppressed at the bottom: "Yellow white supremacists." "Yellow white racists."
Continuing along the same theme of "Asian whiteness," Gordon's words, too, find relevance to the racial hierarchy in Moreau. Applying the following to Aissa and the other "Asian" characters,
even if their whiteness is toppled from the stage of whiteness, it will stand, nevertheless, on the level of a human existence. But the prevailing ideology offers no hope in the other direction, where blackness is located on a lower point of the evolutionary scale. The conclusion is devastating: One is more of a human being to the extent to which one is less black. (60-1)
Therein lies the difference between the "Asian" characters and the other "black" animal-beings. By aspiring to be like the white Father, Aissa and her "Asian siblings" achieve not just whiteness, but humanity as well. Nowhere is this more evident than in the strikingly human appearance of Aissa in comparison to a character like Dogman or Hyena-man. The latter characters, because they are, in essence, "black," must continue to reside outside the margins of humanity—"at a lower point of the evolutionary scale"—as the animals they are inevitably perceived and constructed to be.
In conclusion, the three tiered racial hierarchy represented in The Island of Dr. Moreau reflects a similar structuring in "real" life; it is a paradigm that actively conducts discrete instances of sociological aspiration and conflict through the manner it represents race and racial identity. As we have seen, while Moreau uses multiple racial signifiers, extracted both from historical and popular myth, to describe whites, Asians, and blacks, it is the representation of Asians—and particularly Asian-Americans—that I find most intriguing and revealing about the film. Reading the film on a metaphorical plane, Moreau skillfully, though not always subtlety, maps out the racial terrain that it obviously believes represents satisfactorily the varied experiences of Asian-Americans. In producing this topography, the film simultaneously unveils the complexities of identity—and its representation—by showing how both emerge from dialectical—and often trialectical—relationships with the self-proclaimed and perceived identities of other groups, their histories, and their myths. An example, clearly, is that of the "model minority" stereotype and its import to Asian-Americans. As I have shown, the terms of its discourse are negotiated at just the right moment when myth meets, and sometimes crashes into, reality, thereby triggering an ideological battle over the definition and explanations of race. Moreau, then, as a conduit of myth, meaning, and reality, contributes to—as well as passes along—its own notions of contemporary Asian-Americans—notions which clearly overlap with and reflect those currently circulating in the American marketplace. In spite (or perhaps because) of such extant notions, Asian-Americans, while not black, and not white, must nevertheless eke out an existence in the middle of a hegemonic racial hierarchy in the U.S.—even if it means finding (mis?)representation as the "model minority."
Works Cited
Bell, David A. "America's Greatest Success Story: The Triumph of Asian-Americans." The New Republic 15 and 22 Jul. 1985
Chin, Frank. "Confessions of the Chinatown Cowboy." Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars 4.3 (1972): 58-70.
Cho, Sumi K. "Korean Americans vs. African Americans: Conflict and Construction." Reading Rodney King, Reading Urban Uprising. Ed. Gooding-Williams. New York: Routledge, 1993: 196-211.
Gordon, Lewis. Her Majesty's Other Children: Sketches of Racism from a Neocolonial Age. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 1997.
Island of Dr. Moreau, The. Dir. John Frankenheimer. 1996. Videocassette. New Line Cinema.
Takaki, Ronald. Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans. New York: Penguin, 1989.
Tannenbaum, Frank. Slave and Citizen. (1946) Boston: Beacon Press, 1992.
Zack, Naomi. "The Island of Dr. Moreau: Confused Images of Race and Specie." AA 10 Course Packet, compiled by Lewis Gordon. Providence: Jo-Art Copy Center (in conjunction with Brown University), 1999: 52-56.
See chapter 12 of his book, Strangers from a Different Shore.
For more information about Dutch participation in the slave trade in the Caribbean, see Tannenbaum's Slave and Citizen. Tannenbaum provides a detailed look at the participation of many European countries in the African slave trade, and explains the origins of black slavery in both hemispheres of The New World.
The spelling of this name, though different from the one Zack uses in her essay ("Alisa"), is correct in its current form in this paper. Several Internet websites that either reviewed and/or advertised for Moreau verified this fact as attested to in the cast lists they posted of the major characters in the film.
I make up names for these two characters because of the difficulty I had understanding the pronunciation of their names in the film, which happened only once, and quickly at that. Due to a poor television reception, I was also unable to make out the spelling of their names in the closing credits. Furthermore, I regret that neither character appeared in cast lists posted on Internet websites for Moreau (which is the method I used to verify the spelling of Aissa's name). Those cast lists only listed the names and roles of leading players.
M'Ling is conspicuously standing near the end of the film when the other animal beings are writhing on the ground in pain when Hyena "zaps" them. And neither Thai nor Aissa writhes on the ground when the Father uses the "zapper" in the scene after Edward had been found hiding at the animal-being campground. Regarding Han, although it is not known for sure, one can infer that he, too, lacks an internal probe given his quiet, peaceful, and amicable behavior throughout the film. He appears too calm to ever need to be "zapped."
Admittedly I realize that using the language of choice to describe the experience of a historically oppressed racial group in the U.S. must raise a skeptical eyebrow. White Western colonialism plays a big role in shaping the options available to people of color across the globe, thereby complicating how easily one can easily employ such language of choice to describe personal freedom and self-determination. Poverty caused by European and American colonialism in parts of Asia may certainly be indicted for its role in "pushing" Asians to the U.S. from their homelands. But, as Ronald Takaki states, the same colonialism also impacted the movement of Europeans from their homelands to the U.S. Given this similarity, then, between the experiences of Asian and European immigrants, I must maintain the argument that both had a strikingly different immigration experience than that of black Africans, who came here in bondage. Using the language of choice to describe the differences between black and Asian experiences in the U.S. is therefore appropriate due to the issue of corporeal freedom I relate above. Indeed, Ronald Takaki goes on to describe the impact of Asian-American choice on their immigration to the U.S. Many of them came as laborers and hoped to return home to their native countries in three to five years as rich people. Thus as Takaki states, "[w]hile the Asian immigrants did not choose the material circumstances of their times, most of them still made choices regarding the futures of their lives and therefore made history" (31). In contrast, black Africans did not have much of an opportunity to make any choices regarding the futures of their lives, lest, of course, it involved avoiding the possibility of a violent, premature death.
Chin is referring to former Black Panther David Hilliard's description of Chinese-Americans as "the Uncle Toms of the non-white people in the U.S."; as well as to the portrayal of Shorty, a southern black elevator operator, in Richard Wright's novel Black Boy. Shorty "makes quarters off white men by letting them kick him in the ass" (Chin 60). Having aspirations of traveling to the North, Shorty was asked what he might do "up North." His reply: "I'd pass for Chinese" (qtd. in Chin 60).
