The Dragon Lady
Daughter of the Dragon (1931)
Out of three misperception about Asian women, the manipulative and vixen stereotype only became popular after Anna May Wong’s role in Daughter of the Dragon (Wang 2012). The film was produced early 20th century in the US, when the co-existence of Chinese immigrants in American society was perceived as promiscuous and dangerous to the national economic and moral standards (Chung & Kim 2005). Despite social prejudices, the film still received certain popularity, addressing gender cross-cultural relationships (Wang 2012). Daughter of the Dragon starring Anna May Wong as a stage performer called princess Ling Moy, seduced all the “white men” in her “goddess dress” . A gorgeous woman as she was, Ling Moy took after her father, Fu Manchu, an evil Chinese character in Western old cinema, to become a vixen woman who plotted murders of her lover and his fiance becauses of jealousy towards her (Chung & Kim 2005).
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