In Slaying The Dragon the history of Asian American women in American cinema is presented. There are several prominent stereotypes of Asian women: the dragon lady, Suzy Wong, and the “China doll”. For the purposes of this post, I’d like to examine what I’m calling the “China doll” stereotype, which positions Asian women as being exotic, deferential, and submissive. Quiet and subservient, Asian American women are seen as catering to and pampering their husbands.

As a viewer, I enjoyed some elements of Joy Luck Club, I also realized how it was pandering to Western audiences and relying on stereotypes of Asian women. The film centers on mother-daughter relationships, bringing generational trauma to the forefront. Using flashbacks, the film showcases the four mother’s traumatic childhoods in China. At some point in the childhood narrative, each mother is presented as a “China doll”, submissive, and helpless. China is seen through an Orientalist lens, exotic, inscrutable, mists, and mountains. The traumatic experiences that the four mothers face at the hands of Chinese men, and the atrocities they commit for survival are presented through the misty haze of Orientalism. The West and China stand in dire contrast to each other. China is patriarchal, hierarchal, a site of sorrow and loss. The West is the place of new beginnings, of middle class lifestyle, and “hope”.

The mothers themselves are Others, representative of the East. While their daughters represent the West. Each narrative involves a cultural clash between mother and daughter. In Orientals, Lee talks talks at length about the Victorian domestic sphere, a concept that I found to be particularly intriguing. A central theme of Joy Luck Club is divorce, and marriage. All of the women go to great lengths to accommodate their husbands and maintain their domestic households, even to the detriment of their own needs. It’s interesting to note that the film presents the disruptions in the daughter’s domestic lives as being caused by their internalized generational trauma passed down from their mothers, instead of relating it to gender or sexism within marriage as an institution. For example, Rose gives up her chance to study aboard and becomes completely deferential to her husband’s needs. Yet, her submissiveness attributed to her Chinese heritage, rather than the structure of the marriage itself.

Joy Luck Club has interesting things to say about generational trauma, and is one of the only well-known Hollywood movies that centers around Asian American women. I actually did enjoy this film, at the same time, it relies on Orientalism and stereotypes to get across its message.