Representations of Chinese People in Hollywood Martial Arts films

Abstract: This thesis aims to analyze the stereotypical images of Chinese people and how these have changed between the late 1960s and late 1990s in Hollywood martial arts films. There is much literature about the stereotypical images of Chinese people in certain time periods, however, among the existing scholarship so far few have investigated changes in the time period we analyze. This thesis uses social constructivism and representation as main theories and combines these with the central concept of racialization and stereotypes. Moreover, this thesis is constructed as comparative design tha applies qualitative discourse analysis in order to analyze the stereotypical images of Chinese people. We analyze the characteristics of Chinese characters and relationships between Chinese and American characters in three Hollywood martial arts films. The findings show that the images of Chinese people change over time, from an earlier negative image to a subequent positive image. The Chinese characters also gradully become leading parts and take more and more place in Hollywood martial arts films. Our thesis contributes to the existing literature on stereotypes and films research.