1st, kudos to Viet Nguyen (this is way overdue) & to everyone who has been organizing for years against imperialist/racist/sexist representation. Since we're rarely ever able to represent ourselves, how the rest of the world sees us affects our lives -- each and everyday.
Including mine.
Because we Asian Amer women are rendered "small, weak & effeminate" and exotic, hyper-sexual & animalistic, I have been sexually assaulted multiple times & fondled (all by non-Asian men), at times by academics (my profession) -- not to mention, yelled at to "go back" to my country whenever I would care enough about the US to fight for the people it oppressed.
Why? Because they don't see me as human or as scholar or as patriot, but as a 1D "Miss Saigon" -- or some approximation thereof.
2nd, Nguyen is not saying that the effeminacy of Asian ethnics is the problem, the problem is that that's often *the only way* we're depicted -- and worse, bc it serves the masculine desires of White Western racism & imperialism. He invokes my favorite author, Achebe, to prove the point.
Anyone who knows Nguyen's corpus knows he does not see hyper-masculinity as the answer!
3rd, he does not support any kind of censorship; read the article, not merely the title; he's saying, Let Asian America have more room & resources to represent itself -- a bottom-up project that would mostly contest racism, not expand it.
It is only then that our lives - & those of my Asian daughters - will be better.
47
Yes, excellent. Frankly, I could never understand why the show was so popular in the first place. At least with Madama Butterfly, Pinkerton is explicitly a callous abuser and a coward, so there's some depth to the story.
BTW, I really, really liked "The Sympathizer."
10
"The enjoyment of this show is based on the privilege that the audience feels, the privilege of not being that Asian woman who kills herself, the privilege of seeing the world from the viewpoint of the powerful white male savior who can both be so attractive that a woman would kill herself over him and be so paternal that he can adopt the mixed-race child who will stand in for childlike Asia, in need of Western benevolent guidance."
No, the enjoyment of this show is based on the wonderful music written for it and the skills of the various actors who bring the show to life.
17
Lets leave aside the issue of who the prostitute in Miss Saigon "represents", other than a woman struggling to survive who falls in love -though admittedly the thought that she's supposed to represent Asians as a whole is startling to say the least.
But I've spent thousands of hours readings about and watching docs on the Vietnam War and almost as much time on the Korean war and I can tell you that nether the generals or the grunts thought their opponents were weak or effeminate (is that word still politically correct?).
As a rule when fighting the Viet Cong, NVA units or the Chinese in Korea, the brass were befuddled and the grunts were terrified. They knew they were fighting a committed and powerful enemy.
As a final point, does any single individual ever self identify as Asian, as opposed to say Chinese, Indian ,Vietnamese etc? Just wondering, because no one I know does.
25
My, how times have changed, and for the better. I saw the original production with Jonathan Pryce as the Engineer, and like other parents at my daughter's Manhattan independent school inclusion committee, was given the libretto to comment on. The question then was whether Jonathan Pryce should be playing an Asian. Fast forward, some of us are now questioning the entire premise of the show. As an American-Chinese woman I have always been cautioned about and still remain very much aware of being the recipient of "yellow fever". That is of white men who stereotype Asian women, no matter their education, place of origin, or occupation, as sickeningly submissive dolls. However, should Broadway entertainment reflect our times? Yes and no. Musicals to a large degree depend on more broadly drawn characters and situations than say dramas. Romantic stories don't always end happily. Yet much beloved shows like Rodgers and Hammerstein's, Oklahoma!, get appropriately updated and lauded. In the end it will be ticket sales that will determine whether or not this Miss Saigon survives as is, will need tweaking, or require something more.
27
My college roommate joined the 101 Airborne in 1966. Coming back wounded from war, he had a profound respect for the VC who were "fighting for their country. We will never win." He also said that our traditional images of manhood (big, tough, John Wayne) were all turned on their head. We were being beaten by 98 lb Asians who wore sandals and carried a sock full of rice as their MRE.
82
Happened to a serviceman I knew in Japan. After he was kicked out of the Navy, his 23-year old ex-wife hung herself and left a note that she wanted him to take the child to USA. He had 2 weeks to get the paperwork and passport together to take the child to USA, but he did. He was a pretty good guy actually, and people must have helped push it through. It was sad, and shocking.
There used to be a lot of abandoned wives over in Japan. A while back the services did not encourage its members to marry abroad and mostly ignored the situation.
I don't know about 'Miss Saigon', I never wanted to see it. My first take wouldn't be about the weakness or inferiority of Asians, but more about the insularity and ignorance of Americans. If it makes someone cry, well, they should.
15
Yes - let’s legislate and censor fiction to the most sensitive single member in society. Let’s make sure every set of eyes and ears has a safe space so as not to be even slightly offended by works of art, literature, theater or music.
If you don’t like it - don’t go. But you don’t need to tear down the theater in the name of victim hood.
29
@Jason I didn't see Nguyen's call for censorship or tearing down the theater. Was that in the Breitbart website? Talk about "victim hood:" you read a lot into a critical analysis of popular culture, just short of "white genocide."
19
I've got an idea for you Sir, Next time read the reviews , and if something has the potential to offend your sensitivities , you can skip it. There seems to be many people who enjoy this particular show . Certainly enough to keep it on stage through these many years . That would place you in a minority . I don't want to live in a country where an amorphous minority can dictate what the majority will experience. Let everyone decide for themselves the worth of a piece of art or literature.
19
The musical is art and not what the far left choses to turn into another example of so called male white privilege. Closing this musical is the equivalent of book burning. The writer of the piece and his fans are so myopic and blinded by their own agenda, they do not see themselves as the very bigots they accuse others of being. Instead, Pinkerton in Butterfly and the lead male in Saigon are simply the cads they are and the two women are the tragic figures they are. Please leave art alone and do not infuse your misguided agenda where it does not belong.
28
You really do have to ask, since when is any ofthis new in musical theater, opera and drama?
Do Japanese boycott Madame Butterly? What about Chinese feelings about Turandot? Or Jews on The Merchant of Venice or Oliver Twist?
The weeping theatergoers do, in the ridiculous way we all enter into drama we know to be preposterous, love this Vietnamese prostitute. Whatever the racist fantasies of the authors, the performance is real while it lasts, as are the sympathies.
What will we have left, after discarding every source of offense? Banish this one, and banish the world....
Meanwhile, what we might do instead is teach Americans about American crimes in Vietnam. That might be enough to dent the box office for Miss Saigon.
8
Will this politically correct insanity never end. Enough already.
23
Taxi dancer Vietnamese Phuong, meaning Phoenix,(the Quiet American) trumping two white Westerners: naive American idealist Pyle; world weary British reporter, Thomas Fowler.
1
Close the curtain on Miss Saigon, Mr. Nguyen?
But if they do, then it is possible to still make it to one of Shakespeare's long-standing antisemitic comedies:
Here are the dates for the showing of the merchant of Venice at the Shakespeare Festival of 2019!!:
http://newswanshakespeare.com/the-merchant-of-venice-2019/
It's just art after all. One can enjoy the play and "ignore" the antisemitism as has been done for centuries.
So you are lucky Mr. Nguyen. I doubt the run of Miss Saigon will be that long.
3
Exactly. It's time for "Miss Saigon" to die. We need to raise the alarm because racism is still the water in the aquarium for us 21st-Century guppies. Likewise, "Les Mis" needs to die the death. It is sickening to see upper-middle-class theatregoers crying over the death of a child of the slums during the failure of a revolution. These tear-jerk reactions change nothing. They do not deserve the excuse of "sentimentality". They are a maudlin and grotesque "tear-service" in the face of human suffering and abuse based on race and class. This is part of a deeply conservative Theatre of Manipulation, squeezing tears and offering phoney absolution to people with a lot of money.
9
The article speaks to the authors deep insecurity. Anyone who has spent time in Asia knows how strong the societies are and that to call them weak is just silly.
8
Die or not, keep in mind this is one person's perspective only.
3
I think Mr. Nguyen's article is actually two things, a review of the revival of 'Miss Saigon' and commentary on Western attitudes toward Asians.
As I am sure someone must have already pointed out, for me 'Miss Saigon' is nothing more than a trite updated knock-off of other war-based tragic love affair musicals. The show, even the original, is somewhat entertaining, but nothing to stand in line and pay Broadway prices to see.
Mr. Nguyen's commentary regarding how Westerners, particularly Americans, view Asians is far more interesting to me particularly considering our history in Asia over the past 50-years. I agree with Mr. Nguyen that although most Americans would not admit doing so and do not do so consciously, almost all think of Asians as being, as Nguyen says, inferior, feminized, weak. Which is funny since viewed objectively over the past 50 years given what they had to start with they have consistently kicked our butts. They certainly were not very inferior, feminized, or weak and taught us how not to fight a war in Vietnam.
1
If we start closing every play which offends professional sorehead's sensibilities we'll be lucky if we end up with Annie.
15
@James R. Filyaw —enough over-optimistic redheads on Broadway! Close them all down!
10
If you want to see more Broadway shows about Asians, what is stopping you? Encourage your friends or people in the industry to write them. It takes hard work and commitment. As you have demonstrated criticism is cheap and easy.
18
“small, weak and effeminate people”
“feminized, weak, in need of a strong hand”
While we're on the subject of implicit sexist bias, referring to human behavior we historically associated with females as a negative descriptor implying weakness ("effeminate" "feminized") is also sexist. Femaleness is not synonymous with weakness. The author could have said "small and weak" and left it at that.
24
"Should “Miss Saigon” therefore be censored or canceled?"
Why, because it offends your politically correct sensibilities? As you can see from this quote, the left can be just as oppressive as the right.
8
You know what..... welcome to Broadway. Try being a female looking for a high school musical..... cynicism aside, you are so so so right!
But back to me, for a moment....
Look at any of the greats and all you will see is misogyny. It’s very hard to find any kind of musical vehicle that tells the story of someone not white or male.
..... though things are changing. We just saw the spectacular “Everyone’s Talking About Jamie” in London. I think it represented the experiences of trans and Muslims but since I’m neither, you’ll have to ask someone in the know. Still it was refreshing.
I think in general we need newer voices telling our stories..... Some good stuff coming from streamers.... but the movies and certainly Broadway need an update.
.....and for Pete’s sake, make some non-stereotype musical licenses available for rental! So sick of How To Succeed, Legally Blonde, Chicago, Little Shop of Horrors, Guys & Dills etc
3
The family of opener and commenters make a funny comedy.
The opiner gives a fair reading of the party line.
The commenters who follow that party line as part of their identity have also as part of that identity let Miss Saigon into their hearts and are biased and reject the opiner’s fair read.
The opiner is heartbroken but defiant because he nurses a different wound.
People are people.
2
Interesting what white people see as art and me as a Viet woman see this drama in a similar fashion to the writer, recycled tropes and the view of Asian women through Western eyes. How many Viet people do you see running to watch this? Viet women laugh it off to hide our own offense. And yet comments here remark on the sanctity of art beyond political correctness, fetishizing on the self sacrifice of such a woman. Stick to your high brow defense of your art, like the statues of Confederate leaders in black communities, displayed prominently and lauded with a blind eye to the disgust of others.
13
Mr. Nguyen is either ignorant of or oblivious to the fact that the original genesis of Puccini's opera was a semi-autobiographical story published 1887 - and no - not the short story.
4
The author can’t make up his mind. He claims he doesn’t believe in censorship but concludes his piece that it’s Miss Siagon’s turn to die. So which is it? Not to mention in the playbill of this production there is the photograph of the Vietnamese woman crying when her child is leaving for the United States accompanied by a quote from the musical’s authors which says that the photo inspired this musical. So there is a bit of historical truth at the base this work. Is artistic license taken? Of course. Are you entitled to not like it? Of course. Does that mean it should be canceled? Absolutely not.
9
Mr Nguyen, Write a play.
6
the 20th century passed a considerable portion of its span in the thrall of completely bogus freudian concepts of oedipus complex, penis envy, latency, neurosis, fixation, death wish and all the rest.
it appears the 21st century is primed to embrace similarly bogus concepts of "wish fulfillment fantasy", privilege, gender, patriarchy and all the rest.
unless we have a burdensome and mordant chronic illness of some kind, we all suffer most often and most severely in life from the existence of other people -- heartbreak, indignation, humiliation, frustration, exasperation, day in and day out.
eventually we learn that we are not victims just because other people are idiots. it's a vitalizing point of view; i highly recommend it.
3
Right on, Viet Thanh Nguyen. I feel your pain. I’m Jewish, and I find Shakespeare’s portrayal of Shylock, the Jewish moneylender in The Merchant of Venice, as avaricious and vengeful to be offensive and anti-sematic. I say let’s ban all productions of the play, round up all printed copies and burn them and destroy all film and videos of past productions. And while we’re at it, Fagin in Oliver Twist is also offensive and anti-sematic, so let’s get rid of that work as well. (That goes for the musical version too.) And we all know T. S. Eliot is considered in some quarters as anti-sematic, so he has to go also.
By the way, my Italian friends are offended by The Godfather, my Irish friends by the portrayal of the Irish in many of the films of John Ford; heck, my atheist friends are offended by much of the religious oriented Renaissance art. In fact, I think it might be fair to say that all art offends someone. That’s the nature of the beast. And don’t say the work of one artist is representative of the views of a whole society. Miss Saigon represents the views of those who created it. No one else. Not the society, not the industry, not even necessarily those who patronage it.
By the way, you were introduced here as a novelist. Who and how many has your work offended?
13
As a white male I guess I now need to go make a detailed list of every piece of FICTION in which Caucasian makes are maligned, abused or mistreated and call for their censuring. Are we now legislating fiction to the most sensitive person out there?
4
I have to agree with the author of this article. I saw this musical this year for the first time and it made me cringe. This show is racist and sexist. I felt bad for the talented actors who tried their best to put a positive spin on a stinking pile of a show. It was not the cast's fault. This show has not aged well and should be retired. I do think a show that portrays the Vietnam war more thoughtfully and respectfully could be a hit but this show is not it.
7
“Miss Saigon” is about a Vietnamese prostitute in Saigon during the war years who falls in love with a white male American G.I. He leaves for America without knowing that she is pregnant. She bears his son and when he returns, gives up the child to him so that he can save the boy and take him to the United States, far from Vietnam. Left behind, our prostitute kills herself."
I have never seen Miss Saigon, but this description doesn't sound racist (though perhaps there are other problematic parts). Imagine that instead "Miss Saigon" was set during WWII and the title character was a French prostitute. Do we think that that play depicts French people in a bigoted way? It seems like the answer is no, which suggests to me that Miss Saigon (or at least the overall plot) isn't racist either.
6
Calm down people, you can still go and see this play if you want, I doubt Mr. Nguyen would have chosen that headline himself, I’m sure the NYT did that. The defensiveness in these comments is all out of proportion to the article. For me this play, Madame Butterfly, and yes South Pacific all represent a POV about women, men, and minorities that is a romantic view of suffering. I don’t feel the same way about Anna Karenina or Tess of the d’Ubervilles or many other novels that portray female victimization without romanticism.
2
"The unsettling paradox here is that we can indeed love and desire people whom we see in completely racist and sexist ways." Trumpworld explained (as well as Miss Saigon). Thank you for nailing it.
I have never encountered a white Millennial who liked Miss Saigon, and I have never encountered a white Baby Boomer who did not effusively praise the show.
This isn't surprising since Miss Saigon distinctly resides within the hegemonic generational space known as "Boomer culture" that dominates America today and which is the de facto culture embraced by The New York Times.
If Viet Thanh Nguyen's op-ed on Miss Saigon had pointed out how Boomer culture is the foremost generational space for white privilege in America today and how Miss Saigon is an intrinsic part of that generational space, his op-ed would not have been published in The New York Times.
8
I don't like Musicals so I have never seen it. But I was a soldier in Saigon back in 60s. 21 years old, cab drivers offering me prostitutes. There were massage parlors all over the place and they weren't for massages. There was a brothel accross the street from where I was billeted in an alley where you paid with a roast chicken with french fries from the NCO club for a girl. War. I was drafted, didn't wany to go, but there I was.
If people like the Musical, so be it.
2
There is entirely too much focus on racism here, which seems to be rather prevalent in the times in which we now live.
Nothing about the simple fact that one party was Vietnamese and the other a white American is racist.
When I was stationed in Okinawa I had a relationship with an Okinawan prostitute. I came to think at the time that I was in love with her and promised to write her when I returned to the US. She laughed at me and said I would never write.
She was right. But our relationship had nothing to do with the fact that she was Okinawan and I was American, or that one race was somehow superior to the other. It was just simply a relationship between a man and a woman.
It may be that Mr. Nguyen has experienced racism by Americans during his lifetime and as a result looks for it in every relationship he encounters between Vietnamese and Americans and tends therefore to "find" it, even when it actuality it does not exist.
11
Here's a radical thought - if you don't like it, don't go see it. Demanding the halt of something many people enjoy, because you felt offended by it, is really the height of arrogance.
6
We should not forget that these "feminine, weak" Vietnamese people defeated the mighty United States. My sister adopted six Vietnamese orphans. I can tell you that watching them grow up, I am not surprised that we lost.
20 years ago I was in NYC on a business trip, and wanted to catch a Broadway show. Many were sold out, but I was able to get a ticket to Miss Saigon. As an Asian-American woman, I couldn't stomach watching more than 15 minutes, and walked out. The portrayal of the Asian woman was humiliating and made me feel ill. I was shocked and disappointed that this show was so popular.
Alas, 20 years later, it seems that America was never the enlightened shining city on the hill it purported to be. The racist (and misogynistic) underbelly that lay dormant has now been thoroughly free to expose itself.
6
@SYJ — maybe the misguided people who liked it stayed more than 15 minutes? You’re an awfully quick judge of dormant underbellies!
1
Mr. Nguyen, as a woman, I found it painful to read your book "The Sympathizer" because of how thoroughly permeated it is with the chauvinism and misogyny of its male characters, Asian and American, with no character or authorial voice showing any hint of irony or consciousness or pushback. Your comments show that you are acutely sensitive to the Western misperception of Asian men as somehow effeminate or weak. Was it by design that your book shows Asian men as just as "masculine" and misogynist as their American counterparts? I saw both Kim (Miss Saigon) and her ex-lover's American wife as courageous and committed to providing a better life for the child born to this tragedy given the failure of their male partners [the GI, the Engineer (Kim's pimp), and Kim's former bethrothed] to do anything but look out for their own prerogatives.
8
Because the author is of Vietnamese origin and the show takes place in Vietnam, far be it from me to vigorously debate his position with him.
However, I saw the show and found it compelling because of the subplot -- the dystopian plight of children of American soldiers born to Vietnamese women coerced into the sex trade. Outcasts in their own country. I thought the show dealt with this subject thoughtfully and provocatively.
p.s. - at least in the Dallas production, that helicopter scene alone was worth the price of a ticket. Brought back chilling memories of news coverage of the evacuation of the US embassy in 1975.
And while you're at it, paint over the Washington murals in the San Francisco school. It's better to just obliterate and ignore history if anyone or any group feels offended.
6
It is damaging to always view art and literature through a political lens. Wagner's Ring and Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice were arguably antisemitic. But does that mean that they do not have great artistic value? Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water.
4
Racism seems to come naturally to human beings. Race is a human invention. The most ‘advanced’ civilizations have institutionalized and normalized racism. The awareness given here of how pervasive, pernicious, and widely accepted racism can be in supposedly civilized people represents real progress. Thanks to artists like Viet Trang Nguyen and Chinua Achebe.
What to do about art works like Miss Saigon or Huckleberry Finn or Heart of Darkness that exhibit racism even as they challenge it? Is it possible to recognize what’s positive without endorsing what’s wrong? Answers may vary for different readers and for different works. I don’t want to promote or perpetuate racism. Maybe we can learn from the problems in problematic works.
2
Professor Nguyen apparently has never seen a good production of Madama Butterfly. In the opera, she is the trusting, honest, maternal heroine, who is tragically crushed by the grasping, egocentric, dishonorable Lt. Pinkerton. He betrays her trust and rips their son away from her, possessing him much more than adopting him. Her suicide at the end is an act of despair, having lost everything, her religion, her family, her culture, and her son to the feckless Pinkerton, who is decidedly the villain of the piece. If properly acted, we see Butterfly as the beautiful, honest, trusting woman she is and Pinkerton as the brutal cad he is. But, also if properly acted, we see that Pinkerton, when he realizes Butterfly’s sacrifice, also realizes that he will bear a lifetime of guilt for taking advantage of the love he disdained. Madama Butterfly is a musical and dramatic masterpiece that places the blame and the virtue in precisely the opposite positions to those Nguyen sees them. I hope some day he sees a truly fine production of this enduring work of art (such as the recent production by the San Francisco Opera).
3
As astute and erudite an observation of demeaning Asian cultures ever, we might say what took so long? Add a dose of Puccini's treatment of the Western eye on Japan and a pinch of Rudy Kip and it's the boor's night out trifecta!
Mr. Nguyen is rightfully aggrieved, particularly about the bigger picture of the need for the West to manage Asia through matters of the heart.
In the end, the market speaks especially loudly on Planet Entertain Us and empty theater seats at showtime are as welcome as 2-day sushi, I mean yesterday's pho and banh mi.
1
When my art class closed in the 7th grade (early 90s), all of its students got shuffled into the chorus class, which took us on a trip to see Miss Saigon, as we were performing a song from it. The most memorable thing about it is how utterly forgettable it ended up being. By the time I was in high school, all I could tell you was that there was a love story and a large prop helicopter. I couldn't understand why it was so popular. I certainly don't get why it was revived.
Forgettable as the show was, I do still remember some of those song lyrics from repeated exposure at school...
2
Cultural sensitivity is one thing and reality is another: we can sift through previous NYT articles which describe the reality of discrimination - better to say, strong cultural and social prejudices, not legal discrimination - suffered by mixed raced people in Vietnam and other Asian countries. Based on this reality, many parents believe their children are indeed better off in the West, which is of course not free of prejudices but it gives more space to mixed race people. Poor parents especially will make sacrifices to have their children live in the West rather than face the plight of being both poor and discriminated against in Vietnam. Maybe the author could include this fact as well, to enrich and add depth to the analysis.
5
I don't know "Miss Saigon" very well, but "Madama Butterfly" by Puccini I do know well, having sung in several productions of it.
To me, "Madama Butterfly" is about honor and dignity -- not weakness. The title character would rather die honorably rather than live a life of shame. So she takes her own life. Further, Pinkerton and Madama Butterfly are married, not star-crossed lovers. She is abandoned by him, but nevertheless bears him a child within the confines of that marriage. When her child is about to be taken away from her, she kills herself. She does not do this because Pinkerton has remarried, but because her child is being taken away from her (my opinion). Regardless of the exact reasons for her suicide, she does this out of a sense of honor just as her father took his own life many years before - also out of a sense of honor. Honor - not weakness - is her primary motive. In fact, prior to the marriage Sharpless, the American ambassador, warns Pinkerton about her deep sense of honor and seriousness of purpose.
5
Having seen Miss Saigon three times, twice in London (1989, 1990) and once in the States, I must admit that I was oblivious to the author’s concerns.
The strongest cultural concern expressed at the time was the casting of Jonathan Pryce as the Engineer.
I regarded the show as portraying a very dark view of American involvement in Vietnam, taken down to the personal level of two lovers separated by the same dark politics that caused the war. The large hovering helicopter wasn’t just a grand stage effect; it dramatized the American abandonment of Vietnamese citizens on the roof and grounds of the US embassy.
If the show offers a patriarchal, Western-centric view of the lovers’ romance, it also offers a scathing critique of American corruption. “The American Dream” is as biting a satire of American culture as has been written.
The author’s article affords—to me at least—a new lens for regarding a troubling and endlessly provocative show.
5
This op-Ed by Mr. Nguyen is well written and thought provoking as is his novel “The Sympathizer.” But what really rang false for me was his casual dismissal of “oppressive Asian patriarchy” as if it were a phenomenon not worth mentioning. As a biracial Asian/Latina woman I have first hand experience of being treated as less than by male family members. They were mainly, but not all, born in the US, second and third generation. Mr. Nguyen was born in Vietnam. Experiencing misogyny from Chinese relatives had a different flavor to it that I couldn’t quite figure out for a long time. Then ahaaa, in most Asian cultures everybody wants a boy! So the flavor is that of course females are less than, it’s a social given and value from the get go, an assumption. I’m third and fourth generation American so I didn’t grow up in that societal stew and didn’t see much of my Chinese relatives while growing up. There is a lot of insight in this op-Ed but I can’t help but wonder about some of Mr. Nguyen’s own blind spots vis-a-vis the status and treatment of all women regardless of skin color.
12
We do seem to live in an era where the need to interrogate past cultural productions for the biases they incorporate is front and center--rightly. As I have never seen Miss Saigon, my comment is addressed to Viet Thanh Nguyen's excessively reductive analysis of "Madama Butterfly."
Puccini and his librettist, working from the melodrama by David Belasco, did indeed create a fantasy image of Japan that bears almost no resemblance to the actual reality of Meiji Japan. It's not the only example of Western projection of a fantasy of 'submissive' Asian women, but there's no question it played a role in the spread of these stereotypes.
However, contemporary productions emphasize the ample content in the libretto that makes the shallow, callous pleasure-seeking Pinkerton an embodiment of Western imperialism -- and male privilege -- on stage.
There is no doubt that Cio-Cio San is implausibly naive and passive. Still, I find Mr. Nguyen's assertion that today's audiences think her child is "better off" with her father is wildly off-base. The reason "Madama Butterfly" still reaches audiences is that the taking of Cio-Cio San's son by the more powerful Western man (and his clueless wife) is seen as monstrous & racist; in the era of #metoo, a powerful message.
3
Mr. Viet Nguyen's article shows his lack of appreciation of art. Literature, drama, opera is to be enjoyed for its art, powerful art that touches our hearts by exposing the very negative aspects of our society. Sadly, Mr. Nguyen chose to dwell only on the negative, and he fails to see the art - it is his choice.
6
This article is an excellent example of why I love reading the New York Times. He’s given me the gift of a new perspective and fresh insight that has never crossed my mind. I’m grateful for his journalistic skills.
4
My take on Ms. Saigon was that war depends upon and enhances stereotypes. Sadly, that remains relevant.
I completely agree!! Saw the production about a weekend ago or two, and the only thing I didn’t like about it was the main feature: the plot. It was infantilizing, condescending, and fetishizing towards Asians, especially Asian women. It made me wonder why producers spend so much on amazing production value for this kind of story when there are so many great stories waiting to be told that deserve that kind of funding and attention much more. I guess it really goes to show the kinds of audiences the theatre world is still pandering to...
8
Thanks for this article; know I understand more deeply why I've always hated both Madame Butterfly and Miss Saigon (even though I enjoy both operas and musicals in general).
It never made sense that these women would a) give up their children and/or b) kill themselves. Not for any man.
8
@Mary K At least Madam Butterfly is redeemed by magnificent music. Miss Saigon? Hardly in the same league.
8
I'm a middle aged Asian American male and, particularly as a child and young person, have had experience with the racial stereotypes of Asians that Miss Saigon reinforces. Now, things are generally changing as our country becomes more racially diverse. But I think it still true that some Americans, even (as some comments here show) readers of the NYT in the time of Trump - don't have the same sensitivity and degree of criticism toward demeaning anti-Asian tropes, as they do for, say, anti-Semitism or racist stereotypes of Blacks.
7
When watching these shows/movies, I never thought of the Asians as weak. I always thought of a broader theme...how women are portrayed as weak, naive and dependent of the approval or protection of men.
4
Way back in the day as a history major at a major US university a common thread was the question, "Do the times make the person, or does the person make the times?"
Twenty-twenty hindsight makes many events clear that were, at best, opaque at the time of their occurrence. Some, slavery comes to mind along with colonial exploitation, were culture and religion based and tend to linger the longest.
Saw this in DC.
Awful
It does depict a stereotype popular in the "West" about Asian women.
Agree in that I don't understand how is persists as a fairly popular musical.
4
As an East Asian American woman, I can tell you personally the effect that "Miss Saigon" had in England at a time when the British were considering the fate of the Hong Kong Chinese before the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to the Communist government of Mainland China.
"Miss Saigon" was playing on the West End. Remember Maggie Thatcher had said "people are really rather afraid that this country might be rather swamped by people of a different culture" in 1978. She was more in favor of immigration of white Rhodesians, the Polish and Hungarians "since they could more easily be assimilated into British society." People I would stand next to on the buses would talk about feeling "swamped" because the "Chinese" were everywhere, even in South Yorkshire.
I am not Chinese nor Vietnamese by ancestry.
I was followed by young English men, and called "Miss Saigon" at train and subway stations. I did not take it as a compliment. When I would say I was not Vietnamese, and men switched to "Miss Hong Kong" I did not take it as a compliment.
In the US, even in my home state where I am second-generation US-born, I have been confronted by racism in the men who see Asian and ethnic Asian women as prostitutes as Madame Butterflies, Suzie Wongs or Miss Saigons.
"Miss Saigon" is an updated version of "Madame Butterfly" which is a version of Pierre Loti's 1887 novel "Madame Chrysanthème." In 2019, isn't it time to retired Victorian notions of Orientalism?
17
An excellent and thoughtful essay. I saw "Miss Saigon" almost 20 years ago where it played in Washington, DC and I had the same thoughts that Mr. Nguyen wrote so thoughtfully in this excellent essay. Mr. Nguyen touched on it gingerly, but both "M Butterfly" and "Miss Saigon" can be seen as masterful works of propaganda to subtly justify for Western power and dominance over Asian and the nonwhite world. It was the West, despite its colonialism and the best organized violence at killing people and winning wars, that would save the world and be the beacon for the rest of the world to aspire.
On a personal level, the depiction of the female leads in "M Butterfly" and "Miss Saigon" perpetuates the white males' fetishist fantasy of Asian women. It's nauseating.
I hope "Miss Saigon" would be banned in Vietnam as "The king and I" has been banned in Thailand.
6
Seriously. I mean, I'm not going to protest its opening, people can make their own decisions, but it portray Asian men exclusively as sneaky, weak, and abusive is eyebrow raising today, and I'd bring it up to anyone who says that they're considering financially supporting the show by going to see it.
46
@Diana — I can’t wait for your personal lecture! Nor can I wait for YOUR Broadway hit serving as a corrective!
2
On rereading, there's a contradiction in this article. The author argues that "Racism and sexism are not incompatible with art". And goes on to say "Should “Miss Saigon” therefore be censored or canceled? The question is a distraction from the real answer, which is that censorship or cancellation does little to address the inequities of Broadway and Hollywood."
So I thought Mr. Nguyen was arguing that problematic art should be allowed to exist as long as the 'problems' are appreciated. But then, the last line of the article contradicts this: "Now it’s “Miss Saigon’s” turn to die." So which is it, do we appreciate the problems in problematic art, or do we wish for its death? I vote for the former.
2
Broadway shows have a single purpose. To make money. They are multimillion dollar investments that live and die on audiences, most of whom are tourists, that are willing to shell out big bucks to be able to go back to wherever they came from and brag about having seen a Broadway show. If a musical or film could be written that addresses the issues brought up in this article and which could also attract an audience large enough to make a healthy profit for investors, there would be a rush to produce it. Broadway and Hollywood are not monolithic institutions, that have shared interests in social issues. It’s all about the Benjamins, baby. Don’t take it personal, it’s just business.
3
Loved this piece. Especially the end. If there were many Asian -focused works of art, then Miss Saigon could slip by. But when it is the prime example depicting Asians on Broadway, perhaps more works should be created.
8
I agree with the Nguyen's point, representation of a culture does matter. The problem with Miss Saigon (we well as Porgy and Bess for that matter) is that these shows do not have a counterpart/counterweight that provides the other voices that has been minimized. Without that counter part/counter weight, the other (people of color, different gender, sexual orientation, or class) are destined for marginalization and - wait for it - white people save the day.
11
Thank you, and I'm glad that your OpEd was accepted/printed here.
It is indeed perplexing, the myriad ways all these stereotypes continue to flourish. Many asian women (both in the US, and abroad, and when there is opportunity) will prefer a non-asian mate, and then provide a litany of explanations as to how they came to be with these particular men. These same women will then also often 'complain' about yellow fever, this as a clever way to deflect attention from themselves and their own internalized hatred of themselves and their own race.
Sure, some men have may yellow fever, while other men simply understood that the asian women had a thing for them, and so responded in kind.
Hollywood and the advertising industries sure don't help the matter and may in fact have created/perpetuated it. 9 times out of 10, in film and TV/print ads, asian women are shown paired up with a non-asian male. And while I understand that asian actresses also need to work, maybe it would be nice if more of them stood up for their own race and refused to be a party to this, insisting that they be paired with an asian male.
3
With all due respect, I don’t think that mixed race relationships (whether on-screen or in real life) are what the author is discussing here. The issue with M. Butterfly and Miss Saigon is not that the Asian female lead falls in love with a white male, it is HOW she is portrayed in the relationship. Asian women are constantly portrayed as weak and in need of saving, often by a white man. These productions only enhance the stereotype. I think all the author is saying is that it is time for new stories, with characters who are complex and are not simply reduced to their gender or race.
12
I agree with Mr. Nguyen.
Another story about a woman who thinks she/her life, is worthless.
9
Seems to me this writers mind was made upon long before he saw the show.
8
The myth of the transient Western ascendancy being based in some cultural superiority was debunked with Jared Diamond’s scholarly work “ Guns, Germs and Steel”. It was based on access to the materials needed for the industrial revolution. Principally, coal and metallic ores. Not some wonderful western cultural or genetic superiority. Today, with global access to raw materials and knowledge the world is flat and the Western ascendancy is gone. Unfortunately the racist superiority still persists exemplified by Trump’s recent tweet that N. Korea can only fulfill it’s dreams for a better future by his largesse. Amazing the profundity of the words “All men are created equal”.
1
I saw the revival (first time for the play) in Philadelphia a few months ago. I was appalled! So racist, sexist and misanthropic.
A family, I believe, Vietnamese or Vietnamese=descent, were in the box in front of us and were absolutely stony faced for the whole performance. I waned to ask their opinion.
5
I've always loathed that show. At the very least in MADAMA BUTTERFLY, which template this trash inhabits, you get the magnificent music of Puccini, the understandable excuse that it was created in 1904. This was the era that things needed to crash from the ceiling for entertainment. I often listen to the Broadway channel on my car's SIRIUS radio, but when those awful "tunes" from this show come on... most especially that guy screaming "Why God...." so out of tune, I just have to switch to another channel.
9
Mr. Nguyen's completely ignores that both M. Butterly and Miss Saigon are based on historical facts and displays a shocking level of misogyny in his analysis. First, Mr Nguyen considers the story line to be racist because "Asian women stand in for Asia as a whole — feminized, weak." He later decries that the US thought "Asians were small, weak, effeminate people." Mr Nguyen equates femininity with weakness, in the actual stories the women are strong moral characters, hence the tragedy of their deaths.
Second, Mr Nguyen finds the story line racist because the heroine is "Happy to see that her child will live a better life in the West." Miss Saigon was inspired by the horrific treatment of mixed race children and their mothers in Vietnam. By conveniently ignoring this fact Mr. Nguyen turns the story on its head. The choice to let go ones only child is not one of weakness, but of strength. If there is racism here, it is in focusing on the horrors of life in Vietnam and not on the role the west had in creating that horror.
My Mother in Law fled Vietnam to marry an American serviceman. The tragedy of the choice she faced was not an indictment of Asia but rather an indictment of war, communism and racism on both continents. It is an ugly story, but one worth telling.
229
@ML
You see the trees and Mr. Nguyen sees the forest.
32
@ML Agree
3
@ML How did communism get onto the list of culprits?
Puccini based Madame Butterfly's female lead character, Cio-Cio-San, on a real Asian woman, the world famous Japanese actress Sadayakko, who was the first Japanese woman to perform publicly and toured the world, even performing for heads of state. Reportedly, Puccini saw every performance of Sadayakko and modeled his heroine after Sadayakko's own characterization of Japanese womanhood. Before her acting career, Sadayakko was a famed geisha (her story was also the inspiration for Memoirs of a Geisha). If Cio-Cio-San's character appears submissive and sacrificing, it is perhaps Japanese men's idea of the "ideal woman" that was to blame in the first place.
13
Being part Asian-American I was thrilled when Miss Saigon came out because it gave me the chance to audition on broadway. Before Lea Salonga came along - no one was reviving Flower Drum Song and The King & I was on a break after the death of Yul Brynner. No one was casting asian men or women in roles unless deliberately written. To date, Allegiance is the only new musical written about the Asian American experience. I'm glossing over the Jonathan Pryce "scandal" (I was for him in the role). But you glossed over the premise of Miss Saigon. Kim was being forced into prostitution when they first met - an exception to the rule - a virginal prostitute who falls in love as does he after their night together. She shuns the man her family promised her to and "marries"the soldier. They are tragically separated during the Fall of Saigon or they had planned to return to the US together. She continues with her life of prostitution to get to the US. It examines the women who were cast aside- prostitutes or not -from their own society and their children - many of whom were able to come to the US through President Carter's work. It's a love story but also the story of the casualties of war. There were plenty of prostitutes in Les Miz as well but shall we close the curtain on that as well. I hope people really listened to the words of Bui Doi - and learned something.
8
Mr Nguyen is correct is assessing "Miss Saigon" as a paltry work that steals from Puccini, denigrates Asians in general and Vietnamese in particular, though not mentioned is that the play uses mere spectacle as a "deus ex machina" at story's end. I share Nguyen's estrangement from helicopters, but I think he should be aware of and credit the difficult work that actors, directors and playwrights put into creating a musical, no matter how mediocre the script. He may not like the genre, an∂d this play I agree is not a worthy example of musical theatre; but the arduous task of staging musical theatre deserves recognition here.
2
Artists create their work on the basis of their own culture and their own education. This is universally true, because this is what they know. Now, thank goodness, people do learn and grow and realize overtime about truths they were unaware of in other cultures, genders, etc. The author said “Perhaps those of us who detest the musical would not be so upset if there were other stories about Asians or Vietnamese people that showed their diversity.” Well then write these stories yourself. Encourage those in your community to create works of art for the stage and screen, then your cultural truth will be there. Stop expecting others to do your work for you. It is far easier to get offended and criticize than to create your own art. It’s difficult. But I know you can do it.
8
He is an excellent author, look him up, read his books. He has a right to write criticism just as many people without his insight or experience do in this paper on a daily basis. Challenge some of your own biases.
10
@Theresa . Just think about what I said. It makes complete sense. If we want to see change, we quite often have to make it happen ourselves. That's all I am saying.
1
I have become convinced that the most debilitating affliction a person can acquire is that of taking offense. Part of becoming a functional adult is swatting away the non-material slings and arrows that life is going to continually throw at you. And laughing them off. And whatever the non-sexist term is for it these days, man up, Mr. Nguyen. Go forth into the world and live your life. There are much more important things afoot that you can allow to ruin your day over.
11
@j-No
What you suggest that Mr. Nguyen should do is to ignore and accept injustices and prejudices in this world. You tell him to man up and turn the other cheek. If Rosa Parks manned up and just give up her seat, she would not have ruined her day. If the people of color manned up and accept the humiliation of segregation, this country would have been spared the convulsion of the civil rights movement. No, Mr. Nguyen should man up and say what he thinks is wrong. And I applaud him.
4
A friend and I decided to see it at the Pantages in Los Angeles a couple of weeks ago. We didn’t know much about it other than that it had a long initial run on Broadway and won some Tonys. It was bad enough that the production was melodramatic and over-the-top. But we found it so racist that we left at intermission. I was perplexed that about a quarter of the audience was Asian and seemed to be enjoying it. As we were on the subway home, I thought “Why would anyone think it was a good idea to revive this play? This is LA. Viet Thanh Nguyen teaches at USC. I hope he writes about this.” Thank you.
9
@Scott Williams
I attended the show in NY. I walked out in the initial scene when Vietnamese prostitutes were cavorting with GIs. You had more patience than I did.
3
I was actually IN the original Broadway production of Saigon, and performed with the company for the next six years as a musician in the pit (yes, there are live musicians in musicals). For some reason, the work was always a political lightning rod. At its opening, there was much kerfuffle about Jonathan Pryce playing a Eurasian character. A character who was half Caucasian, half Asian. Apparently only Asians should play a Eurasian? Mysterious. Miss Saigon is set decades ago. This was reality, and an unfortunate one. Get over it. It's an important and uncomfortable work, and one that gave hundreds of Asian actors work over the years to boot.
17
It was Vietnam. It was the sixties. It was the way things were.
If you want something more modern then write it, produce it, give it good acting, good writing, and good music. Then you will start seeing something of today and less reprisals of MIss Saigon which I love for a variety reasons. But mostly I love the music.
I think Miss Saigon makes white Americans look awful and I don't think it makes the Asians look bad. Only victims of a war and there's a lot of that in the world today especially in the Middle East.
I liked "Crazy Rich Asians" but it was a comedy. It is time for Asians to produce some serious drama and musicals for Broadway. I have a hunch if they are good they will bejust as big a success as Miss Saigon has been.
10
My husband left part of his leg and all of his youth in Vietnam. I never heard him describe any Asian as "small, weak, or effeminate"---far from it. He knew they would never allow their country to be taken, knew they were ferocious defenders. He never asked to go there. Believe me, veterans have paid a price few people ever see, unless their own attempts at suicide are successful. Then there's the usual wringing of hands and hearts going out. The truth is, war is personal for anyone in it. And the experience of actual war should not be juxtaposed onto the entertainment value of a Broadway play. It's inappropriate at best. The quietest losses are equally destructive on both sides.
8
We see what we choose to see, each through our own lens. I could just as easily bemoan the perpetuation of the trope of the "ugly American man", who blows through the world, ignorant of other cultures, taking what he wants without regard to the consequences. Of course, reality is more complex than this artistic caricature, just as it is for the Asian people who are also part of this story. The fact that this powerful tale has been told so many times, to such artistic effect, should give us pause to reflect. Isn't that what we ask of the arts?
4
I've never liked Miss Saigon. When it debuted, it disturbed me for all the reasons that Mr. Nguyen addresses. (And frankly, as a fan of many musicals, I've always found Miss Saigon to be poorly written and musically uninspired.)
Thai people consider "The King and I," another fatuous, irritating "classic," so disrespectful that its been banned in Thailand for decades.
Two thumbs up for Thailand!
79
@Chris — yes, three thumbs up for government censorship!
9
I’m surprised that Miss Saigon is seen as painting Asians as weak. That wasn’t how I saw it. It was a story of the exploitation of vulnerable women by men, Asian and American.
5
Give it another 20 years, Mr. Nguyen, for the last of the "Miss Saigon" viewers to enter nursing homes. I can't see how any millennial or later generation can support the "kill the female and save the male" conclusion. Totally senseless and clueless.
The recent NYT article, "Craving Freedom, Japan’s Women Opt Out of Marriage" implies similar thoughts about how plays like "Madama Butterfly" and "Miss Saigon" have lost their audiences.
6
Yes, I agree that it traffics in ugly stereotypes of Asia. But not one word about how it degrades women? But then, Asian culture don’t hold women in much respect either.
5
The play is a snapshot of what may have been at one time. Look up the word perspective please.
2
It's sort of true that one bad musical is no big deal. If there were lots of representations of Asian people in Broadway musicals then Miss Saigon would not be worth the writing of an NY Times article. The problem, however, is that there isn't enough representation of Asian people, particularly Vietnamese people, in American theater and on Broadway. The same couple of stories showing the same tired tropes are being trotted out all the time. What we need are fresh takes on old classics or fresh writing with new takes and new perspectives.
Maybe we need a Broadway musical production of 'The Sympathizer', Mr Nguyen's Pulitzer Prize winning novel?
5
a touch. that's all.
a smile. just that.
anything else and everything else is so much driftwood; cast up on the shore after drowning. when I drowned I floated and sank, sank and floated, until the shore smiled at me. touched my arm. then I shook myself like a wet dog, and began acting like a wet dog. faithful. trusting. a bit of slobber on her cheek. I was the submissive one. so pliable I was turned inside out, with my sleeve on my heart. from driftwood to dog. from dog to demi-bank. so I rented a bungalow with a fishpond and papaya trees. the sun came up on tilapia jumping over snails and little boys weeding orchids. when the smoke of burning rice fields finally cleared she was gone. and my visa expired. I went back to drowning, being pale and waterlogged.
a touch, just that.
a smile, that's all.
I saw this revival last year and absolutely hated it. In addition to the racism and treatment of women, the songs are terrible. The cast was amazing and tried their best to sell it though.
7
It sounds like the author is saying yes to censorship. If so, he should man up and say so. Then we can have an honest discussion of his programme.
@James Ribe. No, he is saying that this show should die not by censorship but by losing modern viewers who hopefully have more balanced perspectives than their predecessors.
2
Interesting how many commenters have difficulty comprehending this piece. It's almost as if they're reading a different article entirely. They even take umbrage at a non-existent call to censor the show.
Ain't privilege grand?
4
To me, both Madama Butterfly and Miss Saigon are more about the abuses of colonialism, than about white superiority. In both, the white man enters the life of a vulnerable woman, and destroys it. What better metaphor for colonial exploitation could there be?
7
I think the author's outrage at the inherently orientalist i.e. racist view of the play is entirely correct. However, Americans do perceive Southeast Asians in general as small and in some ways passive. The average Viet Cong soldier, who was a ferocious fighter, was only five feet tall and weighed 95 pounds. The GIs who were fighting them were almost twice their size. Vietnamese women in the countryside significantly smaller than that. The Viet Cong were lightly armed and spoke an incomprehensible language to the GIs. In contrast, the U.S. fought the Vietnam War with the most lethal weapon systems of their time.
So, American soldiers and Americans in general saw the Vietnamese as tiny warriors who seemed passive since many were, given the fact that if you spoke up like an American or Westerner, you could end up disemboweled by Vietnamese unsympathetic to your point of view during the conflict. Either that, or crushed or bombed into oblivion by the U.S. military forces and the ARVN.
2
@Yankelnevich. Yes, and yet the Viet Cong won the war against the Americans and all their lethal technology. Would anyone dare compare it to a story like David against Goliath? It depends on who is writing the story of history.
If Kim, the female lead of "Miss Saigon", is truly a stand-in for all of Asia, then she represents a quite different personification than the one described here. Instead of weakness, her Asia is the victim of Western arrogance, mistakes and ignorance ... but despite those wounds, reacts with strength and determination.
Also, when you give away an entire plot, it's polite to precede it with a spoiler warning.
3
Dated, or completely relevant? I saw Miss Saigon about 3 weeks ago, and also splurged for a 4th row ticket. What struck me is that America is once again in the midst of messing up another country, and creating who knows how many fatherless children. Watch Miss Saigon with consciousness and concern for those whose lives are devastated. I’m ashamed of the US leaders who invade with no thought for how their actions affect the people in those invaded countries.
3
@Shulaka. You overlook the fact that Vietnam was already at war, and America became involved because the South Vietnamese asked for help defending their freedom, fearing being conquered by the communist North as much as America feared that takeover as being a prelude to Chinese backed aggression throughout Southeast Asia.
That effort was a failure, but it was not undertaken “with no thought for how their actions affect the people in those invaded countries.” With hindsight we can see how that war, and others, have been mismanaged, but the effort was honorable.
Is it possible the Mr. Nguyen is not aware that the play on which Miss Saigon and Madama Butterfly are based was written by the American impresario, David Belasco? Furthermore, books have been written indicating the story is based on true happenings.
Also, I, and I expect many other readers of this piece, resent the arrogance of Nguyen in telling us how we feel. Alain Boublil, Claude-Michel Schönberg and Giacomo Puccini portray a naive teenager swept off her feet by an American not so different from our man in the White House. The empathy of Boubil, Schönberg and Puccini are clearly with Cio-Cio San, not with Pinkerton.
3
@voyageurx. Not arrogant of him to voice the disgust that many Vietnamese women feel about this musical.
Don’t forget Jonathan Pryce playing the half-Vietnamese ‘Engineer’ fixer in the original production. Actors Equity condemned the casting but the producer threatened to shut down the show, claiming that no Asian actor had the ‘starpower’ of Pryce, who ended up with a Tony. He may have been a great actor but his casting was still an abomination and the show made me squirm for all the wrong reasons. It should not be banned but deserves to be ignored.
3
I am offended by christians being fed to lions by the Romans (not really, but for the sake of argument...) therefore I advocate the burning of all books referring to such a thing. I want to live in a world where no one is ever offended by anything. What a fun and exciting place that would be.
Alternatively, a world void of insomniac people on an insatiable hunt for things to be offended by.
2
No one who fought the North Vietnamese or Viet Cong imagined that they were weak or effeminate. Short, yes, but ruthless and skilled warriors, unfortunately in a wrong cause.
1
Madama Butterfly has always had a weak, unbelievable plot (well, it's opera, after all) and the principal American character, Pinkerton, has always been a careless, exploitative, jerk. But it's redeemed by Puccini's music. No such luck for Miss Saigon, where the mostly mediocre music cannot save the plot and characters. If the show has a virtue, it is -- through the character of the Engineer -- its critique of American materialism's effect on Vietnamese culture. What resonance the show may have had when the American collapse in the Vietnam War was fresh in an audience's mind has long since eroded.
I note that some of the comments below reference South Pacific in context of the discussion of Miss Saigon. Ironically, in that 1949 show a Vietnamese character -- Bloody Mary (and she is clearly Vietnamese, even though many directors and perhaps even the authors seemed not quite sure what "Tonkinese" means) -- is the most intelligent, and indeed ruthless, character in the play, a sort of Asian Mother Courage. In the romance between her daughter, Liat, and the affluent American innocent abroad, Lt. Cable, it is the American who, following his rejection of his lover, goes off to be killed. A very different ring from the Miss Saigon/Madame Butterfly trope of the Asian woman.
4
I don't think your summary of Madame Butterfly is correct. The story is not about the supposed incompatibility of "East and West". Pinkerton is a thorough egotist who exploits a situation for his own lust. He is contrasted with Sharpless, another Westerner who tries to help Butterfly but has some (non-racial) inhibitions that keep him from being effective.
2
I saw “Miss Saigon” right after it first came out. I felt exactly the same way then as Mr Nguyen. I hated it. The oh so noble white savior visits Vietnam and finds out about the child. His doting wife agrees to adopt the child. Who’s in the way? The child’s mother. So she conveniently kills herself. Ugh. Everyone else I know loves it.
I knew I didn’t like the show, but I couldn’t have enunciated the reasons why as clearly as Mr. Nguyen. Thank you for putting into words the reasons this show made me so uncomfortable. FWIW, I am not of Asian descent, so it’s not just Asian folks who hated this show!
3
@Mary . You are remembering entirely wrong. Kim's soldier is not noble. He is a milquetoast when he comes back. His wife is selfish, jealous, and scheming and does not want to adopt the child (it wouldn't be an adoption anyway, as the child is already her husband's son). And Kim doesn't "conveniently" kill herself. She kills herself to force the father to take his son.
1
I love Miss Saigon, Aida, Madame Butterfly, South Pacific etc for the very reason that they strip race hatred bare and leave it no excuse for its existence.
3
Bravo. Mr. Nguyen has revealed the emperor's nudity. But his judgement is harsh. People don't know what they don't know about their insular lives. I blame Walt Disney.
The correct solution is not to censor or cancel past stories, but to create new ones. Luckily, this is already happening naturally as Asians get more buying power. For example, Crazy Rich Asians was one of the top 20 grossing films of 2018 in the US and effectively revived the rom-com genre. The 2019 Asian film Wandering Earth made as much money in its opening week as Miss Saigon did in its entire history. The arc of history bends towards justice and does not need to be hammered with censorship.
1
Well, actually, the author needs to see Ms. Saigon again because his memory is a little faulty. He writes "She bears his son and when he returns, gives up the child to him so that he can save the boy and take him to the United States, far from Vietnam. Left behind, our prostitute kills herself."
"Gives up the child" sounds weak. Killing herself because she is "left behind" sounds weak too. But that is not what happens in the musical. In fact, what happens is that Kim kills herself to FORCE the father (and step-mother) to take his son so that the boy will be raised in America.
Kim my be small, but she's never weak. She is always strong and fierce and unbending. I'm not saying I always approve of her life choices but for the author to argue that she is representing a weak Asian female makes it seem like he saw a different play entirely--perhaps he is assuming that Miss Saigon is not just based on Madame Butterfly, but identical to it, which is not the case.
3
I reject the hypothesis of the author's reasoning.
Mr. Nguyen's seems to be using the words "feminized" and "effeminate" as synonymous with "weak." Associating "weakness" with language that refers to "femaleness" is also sexist.
7
@Amy Luna. Juxtapositing words do not mean they are lazily being used as synonyms. He is a well published novelist, and good writers do not string a bunch of synonyms together to present a thought. Each word stands on its own.
I’ve seen the show 5 times and evidently must be living in a bubble. I thought when Kim takes her own life, in the throes of an untenable political, cultural, and economic situation, it is to ensure that her son can have a better life. Thus, it is the ultimate act of sacrifice, love, bravery, and strength. I do not view this as an act of emotional instability coming from a small, weak, and helpless prostitute. She is a hero to me and an Asian one at that.
8
@Heterosexual, Middle-aged, White Guy. Yup, in a bubble because that is exactly how your profile would see it. Grand isn’t it? And yet the author here offers a counterpoint on how many Asians take it, to ponder over a cup of coffee. That she must self sacrifice for her son “to be saved” by a white man and “ better raised in America” shows how tragically helpless she was, abandoned, and hopeless, like American views of country of Vietnam itself that was in need of the West, which had abandoned it but willing to give a band aid. Yet, meet Viet women and see how strong they are, and it was the Viet Cong that beat the Americans, with female fighters and on call. We are not as helpless and self sacrificial as white middle aged white men think ... many times it’s just pretense, like attracting bees to a honey jar.
4
@Rain. But, the reason the child would be “better raised in America” was because of the well-documented mistreatment of mixed race children in Vietnam. It was the Vietnamese who forced her to give up her child, not the evil Americans exercising any superiority fantasy.
1
So much art panders to the racism and ignorance of the public.
That’s how a fast buck is made.
Capitalism often reaches downward to the lowest common denominator.
1
Weak, Small and Effeminant?
Don't buy that this is how most Westerners view Asians.
Do Asians view Westerners as Strong, Big and Masculine?
I don't know.
I do know that as a literature major and a white male aged 57 who is married to a Chinese woman, I view Asians as hard working and intelligent. The men seem quite masculine, especially in their treatment of women.
I have been told that Asians generally refer to Europeans as Ape Men. Care to Comment Mr. Nguyen. Before I develop an inferiority complex.
1
What happens when a group of people are seen as anything other than full human beings? Scroll up to the articles about El Paso.
When I first saw Madam Butterfly, my reaction was sympathy for the Japanese woman and contempt for the American officer. I saw that he was a phony who was using her.
1
In the same vein we should also stop performing all Mozart operas too because it casts women as being weak and ineffectual and they play to enforcing gender stereotypes. Ridiculous. I’m so tired of the left-wing thought police.
1
@N. It is adding a diversity of viewpoints to open minds, with hope that the modern populace can see how the show is an anachronism of its time. By shutting down different views, sounds like you are the thought police.
1
As a veteran of the Vietnam war, I have no problem with Nguyen's pointed critique. Indeed, our Western marginalization of, and racism toward, Asians helped generate our Vietnam debacle in the first place. Recently, in my hometown of Madison, WI, we had similar outcry and pushback regarding performances of "Miss Saigon" that divided our community. A boarder, diverse dialogue needed to accompany those performances, but...one thing I can say is that during the run of "Miss Saigon," our local hosting venue invited me to make a presentation about the popular music of the Vietnam area that's enabled Vietnam vets to deal with their Vietnam, and post-Vietnam, experiences. (I co-authored a book about this, We Gotta Get Out of This Place). There's still so much guilt and pain surrounding Vietnam that maybe the extraordinary, honest, authentic music of that era is one thing we can all agree on. And use to help us heal.
4
While I can understand Professor Nguyen's viewpoint, it is worth pointing out the reactions I used to witness in the front row of the audience (from the orchestra pit) from veterans. Some angry, most torn to shreds. Maybe some of them were those soldiers in that Saigon bar, the memories they thought they could just shove off to the side and forget. Having experienced the show countless nights, I can tell you that the show is about aggression and oppression and the illusive fight for redemption. Racism and gender inequality are by-products of that human drama.
74
I never took the female lead in Miss Saigon as a representative of Asians in general. I took her as one person whose life was torn apart by war and poverty. Women who are driven to prostitution by such circumstances, who cannot support the children they conceive, sometimes resort to suicide. That's a woman thing, not a race thing. But every race is half women.
Also, in the version I saw, the American was black.
105
I saw Miss Saigon and liked it. I agree that there could be more diverse and authentic representations of Asians in theatre but this story, set in the early 1970's during the Vietnam War, depicted a reality for many. The number of US military men who fell in love with Vietnamese women (sometimes prostitutes) was considerable. It really did happen and the results were often complicated and tragic. This is just one of those stories intertwined with the original Madam Butterfly opera narrative structure. Very clever adaptation it is too. There is plenty of room for other stories about the East, but I don't think it is fair to reduce this to just a malignant stereotype promotion. The time and circumstances of the setting are important and tell us something truthful about the world back then.
9
How difficult would it be to truly take a peek at our inmost hearts rather than attempt to obliterate (censor) that which we do not want to acknowledge? Perhaps, we would not be saddled with our current problems (Trump, et al) i.e., enjoying without knowing why, the sadistic cruelty underlining the concept of "The Apprentice", the seeds of which we now sow in our current dilemma, instead of saying, "it's only a show, nothing more".
4
Thank you for this excellent piece that clearly explains why Orientalist representations are so damaging.
13
I'm sorry Mr Nguyen, but I cannot agree with the idea that art should be censored, ever, at any time, for any reason. That is too slippery a slope --- even when it offends someone's sensibilities: there has been too much great art created throughout the centuries that offended someone's, or some institution's, sensibilities, at some period in time. (I'm not claiming Miss Saigon as a great work of art, but that's not for me or you to decide.) I think the best path forward is, as you suggest, creating more work showing different perspectives. Invert existing stereotypes! Or invent new ones! In the long run, great works endure because of their effect on the heart, not their ideology. Former Soviet citizens could tell us a thing or two about that.
9
@Bill Clarke He didn't say the show should be censored. He's advocating that it should be understood in its fullness, not just as a vehicle for romantic notions.
15
@Carol you need to read the article more closely. Or just the conclusion where the author says it is time for Miss Saigon to die. I’d say he is advocating an end to its run because he doesn’t like the tropes it is perpetuating, notwithstanding that there are truths in stereotypes. I would advocate an end to its run simply because, like most things spewed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, it is not very good and, moreover, staggeringly unoriginal, but many seem to like it. Insofar as it is art, and by no means advocating harm to anyone, the only true reason for closing its run is a lack of ticket sales. And yes, in that context, the author is suggesting censorship of “art”.
@Bill Clarke. If you read his a Pulitzer Prize winning book, the Sympathizer, he is adding to modern literature voices that were lost and muted from the Americanized history of the war. Also, he is not wanting censorship but calls on today’s audiences to see this piece as a reflection of American cultural attitudes at the time, calling that the musical’s popularity should die based on a more critical examination of the piece.
1
Mr. Nguyen, you may be reading your own experiences and prejudices into an innocent story of lovers caught up in the circumstances of the American incursion and defeat in Vietnam.
Miss Saigon appears weak and effeminate because she is destitute and a woman, not because she is Asian. Her lover appears superior because he is a testosterone-innervated young man and a soldier in the occupying army, not because he is a Westerner.
Love is the fantasy portrayed in the musical, and history is the context. The most terrifying scene is the rout of the American invaders, replete with gimmicky helicopter. The grandest choruses celebrate the victory of the Vietnamese over the invaders.
To historians, life is a series of episodes like war, floods, and earthquakes. To most people, life is just day-to-day interactions with people, without awareness of historical context, with love as the only elixir.
"Miss Saigon" is an artistic triumph! The music is superb, the drama is electrifying, and the context, though tragic, needs not to be forgotten. May the musical, like the Madame Butterfly opera, be played and played again on the stages of the world!
18
@AynRant Here's what I love in your post: two people can experience a work of art and take away two completely different meanings. "Miss Saigon" may or may not be an artistic triumph, but surely this is one of the most wonderful facets of any cultural artifact. It'd be a shame to suppress it for one group in order to please another.
3
Mr. Viet Thanh Nguyen provides a valuable service in pointing out to those of us who enjoyed the musical, that its story reflects deep rooted racism and sexism based on Western, imperialistic stereotypes of Asians. It’s a truth that needs revealing, especially since it is probably not obvious enough for everyone to see. That said, I’m heartened to read that he’s not promoting censorship, though I’m not sure what exactly he wants us to do about it such art. Trying to ensure art is politically correct would be the end of art as we think of it. Perhaps Miss Saigon should die, but only of natural causes, (not enough tickets sold), not because Hollywood and Broadway are trying harder to strike a balance of cultural perspectives.
The question we should be most careful with is - was the artist depicting racism and sexism, or was he or she promoting it. Was Archie Bunker revealing bigotry or promoting it? It is not always an easy distinction to make. In fact, I could easily interpret the Miss Saigon story as showing the damage our insidious imperialism has done to a much richer and more authentic culture than any found in the West. So I’d ask that critics like Mr. Nguyen keep revealing what our cultural blinders might prevent us from seeing, but please don’t tell me, or anyone for that matter, what should or shouldn’t be seen or heard or read. It’s a very slippery slope I’d recommend avoiding.
13
Agreed! I don’t know who first said it but “The Representation of an evil is not necessarily an evil”.
The original Puccini opera, like all operas of the era, are dated and essentially offensive in their portrayal of women. Set in Vietnam added dramatic touchpoint. Nice opportunity for special effects on stage so they could charge $100s per ticket. It's now 2019. Operas from the 20th century are now as dated as operas from the 19th, 18th, 17th...
Does one rewrite Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew" or simply not stage it? Does one patronize such a production in order to learn of the time and see how far we've come or boycott? Either works, either makes us richer.
6
At least Madame Butterfly had Puccini's gorgeous music. Miss Saigon has nothing going for it but manipulation of emotions in the basest way. Fodder for the masses who want swelling music and plenty of crescendo with emotions to match and a reinforcement of their, sometimes unspoken, beliefs.
8
@NTL I understand your taste. We all have some version of it, but I'd beware of sweeping pronouncements about art. One woman's "gorgeous music" is precisely another woman's "manipulation of emotions in the basest way". And who can imagine Puccini without "swelling music and plenty of crescendo with emotions to match...."? Doesn't that in fact describe much of opera?
1
I was watching Grace and Frankie recently. Over the course of a few shows Robert's mother was referred to as grim and a battle-axe and that Robert was afraid of her. During all of these descriptions, it was noted that Robert's mother was Irish. As if being Irish made her a grim, fear-inducing battle-axe.
I found this cringe-worthy. I never even knew that was a stereotype of the Irish and all my grandparents were Irish.
I can only imagine what Asians and other people of color have to go through as they are stereotyped far more critically than white people are.
12
I've read The Sympathizer, a book by this essayist and found it to be a breakthrough in helping to make sense of the Vietnam War, showing from another cultural perspective how devastating it was. I've never understood how Vietnam managed to become a such a tragic pawn in a conflict among major powers. The saddest part is that it probably had no choice. I'm well aware of the dark corruption of the soul that always accompanies power and how it leaves nothing but misery behind. The US is still learning, very slowly, the sad lessons of power. But I wonder if Vietnam isn't somehow better off these days because of the war, perhaps beginning to enjoy their fruits of victory. Admittedly, it's a tough way to make progress.
2
Vietnam better off because of the war? So the Vietnamese should be thanking us for making their progress happen? How misguided. Certainly you can say that they are better off since the war ended, which is only to state the obvious, but can’t say they are better off because of it. As one who unfortunately had to be there see first-hand what we did there and how we conducted ourselves, I can tell you that any attempt to find a positive side to such a wasteful and catastrophic enterprise is an insult to those who were directly affected by it. To this day the vietnamese are still living with the irreparable damage from the war, including deforestation and birth defects from Agent orange and other toxic chemicals. There are still unexploded land mines and other ordinance and certain areas are still not safe. Any progress since the war belongs entirely to the Vietnamese, and to say that they owe it in any way to our intrusion there is both condescending and ridiculous.
For many centuries the Vietnamese have shown themselves to be a very independent and resourceful people and they did not need our intrusion to jolt them toward “progress”. Our interference there was only the most recent of many intrusions by foreign powers, all of which failed despite the cruelty and wasteful arrogance of each intruder. The French, the Japanese and the Chinese all tried and failed before we took our turn. But our ill-fated attempt at nation building in Vietnam was clearly the most destructive.
4
I haven't seen any of them so the quick synopsis saved me a lot of wasted effort. These productions were so hyped though. A friend was quite wowed about having a real helicopter on the stage for one of the scenes.
But isn't what you desire already happening? Gradually, these tropes are sinking to the bottom like so much sediment. The growth of streaming has created roles for characters of Asian ancestry that were often passed over. The burgeoning Chinese film industry is gradually making its own impact.
The way to think about this is to make way for more films from Vietnam. This country has a very rich history, and one filled with conflict long before westerners arrived on the scene. There is a _lot_ of fantastic material to work with. Let's see more films about Vietnam that aren't about the war. That would be a welcome change.
3
Perhaps South Pacific should die as well? Using a love story as a vehicle for portraying the horrors of war and colonial oppression does not demean those who are harmed, oppressed, and/or portrayed as "weak" in the face of overarching power & domination. A good writer should be able to move beyond personal sensitivities to be able to appreciate the symbolism in any story.
12
This excellent article brings two concerns to mind.
First, Mr. Nguyen has a respect for our traditional concept of free speech, one which is increasingly abused, to the point where the notion is abroad that speech that makes people feel bad should be suppressed.
Until the last few decades, we embraced Justice Brandeis' dictum that the answer to bad speech isn't outlawing it, but good speech. Lots of it.
The author finds the work racist. Much of our educated public would ban it on that ground. But, he suggests that a dozen or thousand true depictions of Asians might be the answer. Lots of Brandeis' good speech here.
Second, the market for Kiplingesque imperialism runs much deeper than the theatregoers of New York or Boston.
Nostalgia for the British Empire and its remnants reaches down even as far as the tabloid racks at lower class supermarket checkouts.
The fascination with the Royals and the rest of the British upper class (cf. Downton Abbey) is an affirmation of the Good Empire and its legacy, an affirmation which has somehow snuck into our American heritage.
To a great extent, Americans know nothing of the massacres in India, the bloody grip on Kenya and East Africa, and so many shameful deeds in other parts of Britain's one-fourth of the earth. Others, more knowledgeable, prefer not to see the horrors.
In both cases, the sole focus is on the delicacy and manners of the perpetrators.
It would seem that the Redcoats won at Lexington, after all.
6
I'm inclined to re-phase some of this. What the author objects to in Miss Saigon/Madame Butterfly is the depiction of Asians as having lower status than whites. This is the context in which these stories make sense: a low status individual and a high status individual fall in love, and when this relationship falls apart, it has a huge impact on the low status individual and minimal effect on the high status individual.
When the author declares that this depiction of Asians is "effeminate", he (probably unintentionally) acknowledges the fact that our society views women as having lower status than men. (Or I could rephrase that as "perpetuates the male fantasy that women are small and weak.")
Many of the issues in our society revolve around the battle for status, which takes place both between individuals and among groups. Much of this battle is unconscious, and therefore difficult to discuss. In our society white is, in practice, a higher status skin color and male a higher status gender. But to the people who benefit from these unearned boosts to their status, the advantages conferred are like the air they breathe, constantly present but not recognized consciously. So if you complain, they take offense.
I took Miss Saigon as an allegory for colonialism and the Vietnam War in which Westerners wooed the colony and then exploited and destroyed it. I can see where the author is coming from, but I think there is more to these shows.
8
I saw "Miss Saigon" years ago. Meh.
The downfall of weak, faulty women is standard storytelling fodder, as is the characterization of non-white or non-American characters as not quite smart enough.
It's a bore, it's lame, and you'd think a talented writer/composer could come up with something more genuine.
15
this is a perfect example of what is wrong with America: I don't like something, so i have the right to take it down so no one else can decide on their own.
19
@bruce liebman
People, the people are free to spend their time and money enjoying what they like. If some are offended by art because it portrays a stereotype of their own identity they don't like for whatever reason, tough. That's life in the free market of ideas in the US. Money is speech, spend it to support or boycott ideas, politicians, art freely. There is no implied contract of what's right or wrong in the free market, just money and good deals.
2
I too am impatient with Asian tropes, especially about women, in American entertainment. I spent years in Japan and Southeast Asia and was married to a Chinese from Kuala Lumpur for 15 years. Asian women are physically strong and mentally sharp, and they're nobody's kitchen slaves. In fact, for years preceding and following WWII, mainland, middle-class Chinese women generally frowned upon the prospect of emigration to the United States as a life of drudgery, because in the U.S. they wouldn't have maids and nannies. So guess who would have had to do all the housework, sacrificing the benefits of their degrees from such prestigious schools as Hong Kong University.
3
With all due respect to the author, what he describes as unflattering 'stereotypes' of Vietnamese people are precisely the very things that we Westerners/Americans find so very likable about Asians----your politeness, respect for public order and civility, the comportment of your women (as opposed to the alpha-feminist American female archetype).
If it is strong, dominant, American-style he-man belligerence he seeks, there are plenty of cultural offerings here in the West that paint an entirely different picture. Ever seen 'The Deer Hunter', for example? Or any number of Asian-gang films which make MS-13 look Cub Scouts on a candy bar drive.
If you asked me which portrayal is the most offensive, it would not be the likes of 'Miss Saigon' or 'M. Butterfly'. If it is respect that the writer seeks, all he has to do is meet an American. We are remarkably adept at judging people on their own individual merits.
4
The author IS an American, born and raised here. And this feminist American woman thinks you have outdated views on women, wherever they are from.
5
Miss Saigon reminds me of a quote from Nguyen himself, where he wrote that the Vietnam War was "first war where the losers would write history instead of the victors, courtesy of the most efficient propaganda machine ever created." I hope other readers of this article will take that quote into consideration before concluding that Nguyen is arguing for the end of all non-PC art. The question here is, are we, as the audience, responsible enough to handle the implications of this art- however racist and sexist it may be? Personally, I don't think we are responsible enough. When we consider the narratives of what happened in Vietnam, Miss Saigon only enforces what America wants to think about the war while also excluding Vietnamese voices. When we begin to live in a world where the war is told through stories of the sacrifices of my Vietnamese parents instead of being told through Apocalypse Now and Miss Saigon, then maybe we can enjoy them for the pieces of art that they are. For now, they are just pieces of media that continue to center Americans and push Vietnamese people to the background.
64
@Michelle I think Mr. Nguyen is right about "Miss Saigon", but wrong about the Vietnam War. It is absolutely not the first war for which the losers wrote the history, "courtesy of the most efficient propaganda machine ever created." The American Civil War was the first, and the "Noble Cause" propaganda machine far exceeds anything dreamed up in connection with Vietnam. The South's propaganda coup has endured for a century-and-a-half and has been so pervasively successful that we have Army bases named after traitors. No other historical event can compare in that area.
30
@Michelle. But this is America. What other viewpoint would you expect? The Vietnamese will tell their story with their voices. An Amercian version of the Vietnamese experience would be condemned as cultural appropriation.
4
I saw the original production of this show several times. I saw the latest Broadway revival several times, and Miss Saigon remains one of my favorite musicals. Its deeply human themes about love, connection, family, and self-determination resonate and are universal.
I respectfully disagree with the writer (and I’m a big fan of his, having been wowed by The Sympathizer). In Miss Saigon, the Americans are portrayed as cocky, arrogant and boorish. They are not the heroes who save the day. They are the weak ones who leave the scene. As more evidence that the West isn’t some hero-filled utopia, the show-stopping song “The American Dream” is completely tongue in cheek and ultimately mocks the USA and the things that make us “great”.
The Vietnamese are not weak and effeminate. The main character Kim is presented as a strong woman whose self-sacrifice is powerful. Yes, her son will be taken to arrogant America but it’s not crazy to think that going there would provide a better life for him. This is not because America is superior to Vietnam or West is superior to East but because the future for the son of a prostitute would be bleak and would present few opportunities. The Engineer and Tuey, the other Vietnamese (or half-Vietnamese in the Engineers’s case) main characters, are each strong and self-determined in different ways. In no way, are they seen as weak.
Miss Saigon is a beautiful, sad story that is timeless. The author’s take on it is far too simplistic.
163
@HKL
My thoughts, exactly. I've seen the show three times. And, the final scene brought tears to my eyes every time. It is clear that this is a tragedy. It also shows a bit of the conflicts of the soldiers who served there. I served in Vietnam, living in Saigon for a few months of that time. The portrayal of life in Saigon is not too far from the truth.
26
@HKL The author also seems to have ignored the realities of being left in a war torn country after what started out as a civil war. The south was terrified of the vengance that the north would bring down upon them for having collude with westerners. And as for the child it’s a simple fact that mixed race childrem were excluded from schools and treated as social pariahs. Then it’s reasonable for the mother to try to give her child s “better” shot at a better quality of life in another country. And why would a mother then not grieve the loss of her beloved child, and despair so in such a collection of incredibly difficult circumstances that she might well lose hope or perspective, and commit suicide. I also see the author writing this op ed on 1960s and 70s Vietnam through the filter of 2019 glasses. His view is apt to be distorted. Why are people so fond of trying to write revisionist history that conflates the time and sensibilities of the time, with a time that has essen nothing to do with the current time. He may also want to watch Ken Burns’ retrospective in Vietnam, whence he will see a completely different perspective about the Vietnamese men who fought in the war. The Americans interviewed spoke of the ruthless efficiency of the N. Vietnamese army, and the comments made by some who fought for that army about the distinct disadvantage that Americans suffered in that war because of their size and height, and how it rendered them much clumsier in their movements.
24
Agree with you: works of fiction in which a passive victim shows no gumption turn me off.
But as I recall, Madam Butterfly/Miss Saigon, Kim shoots herself for the sake of her son, who she hopes will then be rescued from poverty to live a life of possibility in America.
This is hardly the act of a weak person.
The idea of Vietnamese as weak certainly does not describe the image Anglo friends of my generation have of either men or women from Vietnam. The Viet Cong defeated Americans through superior force of will and toughness.
Even popular films --"Full Metal Jacket" to name just one--portray the Vietnamese as powerful adversaries. One soldier says, "I do not know what I will do when I get back to the world [America] where there will not be anyone worth killing. This man [a dead Viet Cong] is the best man I've ever met."
This may be a generational thing, but my generation, if I may speak for it, did not regard Asian people as weak, or spiritually small or effeminate.
12
Professor Nguyen is not calling for censorship, nor is he looking to have this show cancelled.
Y’all go ahead and enjoy it, but keep your minds open to representation of the narrative from a different POV.
The message, from my reading of the (entire) article, is that representation matters, and if this singular point of view, is perpetuated, does fully represent the experience of the American war in Vietnam, for Vietnamese.
55
@TDP
"Now it’s “Miss Saigon’s” turn to die."
I guess I took this last sentence differently.
14
@TDP
"...nor is he looking to have this show cancelled. ".
Then, can you explain the meaning of the title of the article, "Close the Curtain on "Miss Saigon' "?
12
I've seen both Miss Saigon and Madame Butterfly. One year I saw the Butterfly three times in a very short period. In one version Butterfly sings her aria before her suicide at the anguish she feels at having her son torn from her. In another she danced the despair she felt at losing the man she loved - a dream scene in which he loved her. At the third version a shadowy older man dressed in a suit appears; he watched the entire opera from the sidelines. I took this to be the Lieutenant remembering what a terrible thing he had done. I certainly can understand the author's take on Miss Saigon, but the story is classic and still has much to tell us.
2
Tragic love stories are common and well received, with the gender and race of the tragic figures usually effectively irrelevant. We don’t have contempt for Juliette, nor view Juliette as a weak Italian. Jose in Carmen is not an insult to all Spanish men. I have always viewed Madame Butterfly and Miss Saigon as stories about passionate and tragic love, not about weakness.
8
It's interesting that this reflection on Miss Saigon doesn't go very deep into the detail of the story or its many updates since it first appeared in the 80s. I understand many of his overarching quibbles, but if we're really going to discuss it head on we should discuss it in all its flaw and evolution.
2
Those who have privilege often are blind and deaf to the messages of art/culture that is simply echoing that privileged position. And, because a cultural product is familiar and pleasurable, they are going to rush to defend it or deny its implicitly racist or privileged message.
Our culture is in a state of transition when stories like that of "Miss Saigon" (and of many standard operas, musicals and plays) are finally being seen for what they have always been: narratives that comfort the comfortable, that are implicitly about bolstering the status quo and privileged groups.
This doesn't mean that we need to throw all of our cultural artifacts into the dustbin immediately. It's a process. In time, they will be reinterpreted/replaced/expanded by new work that is more relevant to today.
6
When art is required to meet rules of political correctness, it is no longer art.
Mr. Nguyen, like so many professors of English, has drunk deeply from the pool of postmodernism. Under that influence, he has lost the ability to distinguish art from material reality, and he is very much under the sway of the materialist perspective (which is all that is left in postmodernism, which believes neither in the past nor the future, nor the possibility of truth in the present). In this perspective, everything is merely what it appears to be, and how it appears to me is the determinant of that: there is only the personal perspective. The only reality is my own personal identity. It must be a lonely place, indeed.
But this kind of materialism (which is nihilism) is another face of the demon Keats once described as La belle Dame sans Merci, and once you are in her thrall, you are truly lost.
And that, I am afraid, is the case for most of the disciplines once known as humanities.
12
This is a mess of an essay. It wants to have it this way and that way and everything in between.
Madame Butterfly is a gorgeous, soaring opera and the death of Cio-Cio can easily be seen as tragic and loving in any post-modern, revisionist way you like. The audience today has the insight to see the stereotypes at play here, and in the other shows mentioned. The work is no less moving, especially if one would put aside their demanding agenda and simply LOOK AT THE ART!
17
Like JRC, I saw Miss Saigon in Boston recently and was impressed by the voices, sets etc. It prompted me to learn more about the Vietnamese people. I got The Sympathizer by Mr Nguyen and read it through. Sometimes art can stimulate a conversation and expand our understanding in different ways.
8
Very interesting editorial. Thanks, enjoyed the play, liked the music, never thought about the racial implications.
It isn't my purview to tell any ethnic group to which I do not belong what is or isn't demeaning. I can see why the author dislikes this play.
But, it seems to me Miss Saigon is written about a time in history when South Vietnam fell to the communists and there were tens of thousands of women like the protagonist who were brutally punished for having racially mixed children. That the US was partially responsible for their plight is unarguable, but it is equally unarguable that the Vietnamese did horrible unspeakable things to their own people in the name of justice.
Because the play tells that story and reminds us what happened it has value. The rest is romance, fluff, and musical theater.
Jews are no longer like the Jews of Anitevka in Fiddler on the Roof. Just as we are no longer like the Jews of Goodbye Columbus or any of the other stories written about us 50 years ago. Maybe these stories have historical value for us and our children to watch, maybe not?
Today there are many offensive TV programs written about us dating back to "Bridget loves Bernie". I find the Goldbergs so offensive but so be it, art is art and reality is reality. These programs reinforce the notion of us as neurotic, advantage seeking, brilliant people looking for non-Jews to marry, much like the Seinfeld "shiksa-appeal" episode.
But...that was funny!
8
I saw "Miss Saigon" in Boston just a few weeks ago. I'd heard of but never seen the musical and didn't know the story line. A friend recommended the show based on the amazing set and performances.
I saw and experienced exactly what Viet Than Nguyen writes about. I was stunned. On the one hand I recognized the opportunity for Asian actors to play major roles in a big production and on the other--well, yikes, that incredibly racist and misogynistic POV.
The actors were amazing. Incredibly strong performances and stunning vocals. The set was, indeed, spectacular (including the helicopter scene). But I just felt pretty icky after.
4
Apart from racial/ethnic issues, I thought "Miss Saigon" was a poor play from a dramatic point of view. The only memorable moment was the helicopter at the end. My question re: Madame Butterfly: I believe the Puccini opera was based on a novel or short story written by an American. But is it far-fetched to think that a woman who lived one hundred years ago and entered into what she thought was a legitimate marriage, and then discovered she was betrayed, might commit suicide? Would that make her weak, or a victim who behaved honorably by her own standards? Victims aren't weak by definition. The lieutenant was a miserable human being, and Butterfly was a noble person. If she lived today, by the time he returned she would have divorced him, found someone on her level, and started a successful company to support herself and her son. Of course, then we wouldn't have the beautiful aria in her death scene.
15
Not to dispute Mr. Nguyen's point, but perhaps to complement it, the trend in theater (and in reality) of "love suicides" goes back in Japan to at least the late 1600s, well before Puccini (or Commodore Perry, etc.) And those suicides were often part of a relationship between people of markedly different social status/power. Some useful info here:
wiki.samurai-archives.com/index.php?title=Love_suicides
So I don't think the roots of these plays' dynamics are only coming from Western countries, though I'm quite sure they're partly doing so--and I also agree that the power dynamics of imperialism and colonialism are clearly involved in the examples Mr. Nguyen references. However, as regards the various iterations of the Butterfly story, the issues of gender and class discrimination, etc. were long attached to "love suicides" in Japanese culture and society as homegrown phenomena.
I'm curious if others have any info about other cultures, Asian or Western, that have contributed to the convergence of these issues, as addressed by Mr. Nguyen here.
15
@V.B. Zarr
Romeo and Juliet?
1
Interesting take on this story and the Characterization, again, of the East and the “other”.
That said, what I recall from the post-war years were many, many stories about the many, many half-American children left in Vietnam after the end of the war. I recall articles, probably in Time Magazine maybe even in the NYT about this situation and the expressed responsibility some felt for the plight of these children. This story involved a single instance of one American honoring his parentage and the recognition by the mother of the possibility of allowing her child to have a better life than the post-war Vietnam offer (which was I think pretty miserable until Les Tran died and the communist party evolved into welcoming the kind of trade and industry we see today—remember this was set in around 1974); hard to believe but, over 45 years ago.
That the mother killed herself, to me, was less about her physical death but more about her acknowledge loss of her lover as well as her child, albeit to perhaps a better future. To that end, seems more a noble act of self sacrifice than just an “other” death at the hands of the West.
1
Mr. Nguyen’s piece opens up a deeper conversation about American culture and the notion of its proprietors. Is there still a place in the US for a “dominant culture” which is afforded its own subjective vantage point even if it risks offending the cultures that it represents in the art it produces? Or has multiculturalism made that notion impossible? Do we grandfather in Ms.Saigon out of sentimentality or canonical tradition while eschewing the idea of producing any new types of plays like this? Ultimately I believe that it’s the free market that will decide the answer to these kinds of questions.
Perhaps Ms. Saigon has not yet arrived at the same place that old time minstrels once did, ultimately resulting in their demise. And, perhaps, this article is a harbinger for just that to happen to it. From reading the responses in this section however, I’m not quite sure we’re at that place yet.
3
Articles like this usually create controversies between 1)those who object to the articles being written at all and 2)those who conclude that the arguments in the article imply we should stop enjoying the artwork under discussion. I think both of these positions are wrong.
Articles like this should deepen our appreciation of these works of art that so perfectly capture prejudices we are in the process of outgrowing. if I ever see Miss Saigon, this article will help me appreciate what the show inadvertently reveals about western prejudices and orientalism. but it will not stop me from enjoying the music, costumes, and acting, and it would be a form of cultural lobotomy to stop appreciating such work just because we know longer endorse the values it expresses.
I have seen Madam Butterfly, which commits all the sins described in this article. I was painfully aware of them while watching the show, but that did not stop me from appreciating the music. I can also appreciate the sacred music of Bach and Mozart even though I reject the patriarchal aspects of the religion it celebrates.
Of course ignoring these things imight be too difficult for the author because of his experiences with prejudice. if so, he has my condolences. But I’m not going to stop appreciating this kind of regressive part just because he can’t. I’m willing to change pronouns and adjectives, but throwing out great works of art just because they bother him is more than he has a right to ask.
9
I humbly suggest that this author see, as soon as he can, Lauren Yee’s play CAMBODIAN ROCK BAND, which is an intimate masterpiece of theatre that will fill you with nothing but optimism for the future of plays about Asian characters and culture written in the English language. With more and more plays of this level of accomplishment out there in the repertoire, perhaps you won’t feel as much need to pull the plug on an earnest, culturally clumsy but essentially well-meaning pop-ballady melodramatic European musical from the 90s.
6
Considering that English is either an official or widespread unofficial language in many parts of Asia, there are certainly many examples of Asian characters and culture already written about in the English language.
So interesting. I am a fan of Miss Saigon and this opinion piece has given me a lot to think about. I always thought that Kim makes the sacrifice for her son out of strength, but I can understand a view that interprets her act of suicide as weakness. I never felt that the musical portrayed Vietnamese people as weak, but not being Vietnamese, I'm not the best judge. I do feel that it is important for Americans not to forget the horrors imposed on Vietnam (and the 'collateral' damage to Laos), and the musical does this in a dramatic way. Miss Saigon opens this week in LA. Perhaps I will see it a bit differently this time. We'll see.
I do suggest that Mr. Nguyen avoid Flower Drum Song, The King and I, Porgy and Bess, and definitely, South Pacific. He's not going to like them as much as I do. But his point is well taken, it is possible to enjoy 'problematic' art, but also see the problems.
21
Mr. Nguyen has written a thoughtful, observant article and I was particularly impressed with his point about how Ms. Saigon's view of Asian characters is amplified by the lack of alternative stories and perspectives re Asian experience on offer in Broadway and Hollywood.
I'll add two thoughts, from personal experience.
1. As a kid growing up in Ireland a few decades ago I was annoyed by the craven stereotypes of Irish people in Hollywood movies, eg, Finian's Rainbow (but many more). Those phony stereotypes pushed aside both the best and the worst of our culture, suffocating our efforts to figure out (and improve) our own identity and daily lives. I don't want to overstate this, as there were more important things going on than Hollywood movies, but nonetheless it helps me relate to Mr. Nguyen's op-ed.
2. More recently I have lived in East Asia for seven years. I don't want to speak for Vietnam, of which I have no experience, but the other countries I've lived in have struck me as places where women are today still treated very much as second-class citizens. So the dynamic, and representation, of women's positions and choices that trouble Mr. Nguyen are, at least in some contemporary Asian societies, very much a home-grown issue and not just an imposition of the Western eye. Again, I want to acknowledge that in my own Irish background women have also been much abused systematically. But this issue is also about gender discrimination, not just ethno-cultural difference.
44
As someone who fancies himself to be a writer of stories about Asia, I am reminded of Mao Zedong's cultural revolution when I read an article like this. And the movement for political correctness carried out by some liberals in this country seems to me to be profoundly anti-literary. It assumes that the primary purpose of literature is to support a political agenda. It negates the writer's freedom to create characters and meaningful stories following his/her own inner compass, however flawed that may be.
In other words, literature should be the expression of a free spirit. And if people in the theater cry over the fate of Miss Saigon or Madame Butterfly, I can't see what's wrong with it. Not all Asian women are like Mulan or the Trung Sisters. Many of them are poor, and are cruelly exploited for it. These stories about people in faraway countries may end up showing us how very much they are like ourselves..
71
@Donald Seekins Mao used military force and threat of imprisonment and/or death to shift culture from the top down. Mr. Nguyen is using the free press and his pen to shift culture from the bottom up. The two are hardly parallel. The first is an example of totalitarian rule. The second is an example of how democracies work.
In addition, Mr. Nguyen is not "anti-literary." He's not speaking out against literature. He's speaking out against the ideologies of racism and sexism.
10
Any literary work of value, be it a novel or a play, has a subtext, a deeper meaning. Sure, the story, the plot will entertain us, seduce us and excite us. But the question an artist, a writer or playwright must ask is, what's this piece really about? What reality, truth or paradox lies underneath it all? The interpretation of that reality obviously changes with time just as societies and cultures evolve. Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" played in it's time as a comedy about the humiliation of a Jewish moneylender. Now it is interpreted as an example and evidence of historical antisemitism and stereotyping (which might have been Shakespeare's real intention). Mr. Nguyen is suggesting, correctly in my opinion, that apart from lazy entertainment, which requires no effort from either performer nor spectator, real art has meaning.
7
I saw Madame Butterfly three weeks ago at the Central City Opera and I completely disagree with your analysis. The female director and her Asian cultural consultant did an amazing job of staging Madame Butterfly to show Pinkertons true arrogance and insensitivity and highlight Butterflys strength and resilience.
It's all about staging. We should not throw away beautiful art. We should show it to teach, and we can update the staging and cinematography of older plays and operas to broaden the audiences eyes and horizons.
Puccini's opera is a musical masterpiece, and the libretto, while staid and intolerant, also can be used to show how the true beauty and strength of Butterfly if it is staged with care and consultation.
Art is human, so art is flawed. To say that art should be locked away and forgotten is to censor the history of our species and to prevent future generations from confronting our flawed human history. It prevents audiences from confronting the flaws in ourselves.
33
@Jacqueline While mentioning Madame Butterfly, the analysis is about Miss Saigon, not the Puccini opera.
@Jacqueline
This writer understands very little about Madame Butterfly. While the opera and the original Belasco play contain cultural cliches, the title character is never portrayed as weak. This factual error undermines his argument.
4
We who are offended at those who are offended should lighten up.
Things we once revered will be revealed to be problematic (a weak word). That's never going to stop happening.
I hope Mr. Nguyen also took from the show a message about ill-advised military interventionism and the failure to take ownership of mistakes/messes made.
13
@Ellen I hope you understand the callousness of asking a refugee, like Mr. Nguyen, to take a message about "military interventionism" from a musical. Respectfully, he does not need to as he has lived through the consequences of American intervention himself. His own experience could tell you much more than Miss Saigon could.
1
@Ellen
You saw the beautiful trees. But, you missed the forest.
I feel I learned a lot reading this. The main thing I learned is that racism and hate are not always the handmaids we believe they are. On the contrary, maybe it is so common for "love and desire" to play out in "racist and sexist ways" that we can't even see it, or we refuse to believe it even when it is so eloquently spelled out for us.
When I first heard Miss Saigon as a young white man nearly thirty years ago, I was utterly unprepared to consider the material racist in any way. I understand now that the reason for that has less to do with my own shortcomings and more to do with, as Mr. Nguyen points out, the severely limited exposure I had to fully-formed Asian characters. Though that is slowly changing, it is still a major problem in this country.
For my part, I know from experience that it is is awfully easy to settle into a comfortable theater chair and let a spectacle like Miss Saigon thrill you, pull at your heartstrings, and lull you into a state of willing acceptance. And as the spectacle hands you a tissue on the way out, you might even think the emotions you just paid handsomely to feel are the only right ones, and that questioning them would be like questioning love itself. But, with this persuasive opinion, that is exactly what Mr. Nguyen has done.
25
Mr Viet Thanh Nguyen's op-ed is well argued and makes a valid point. Much of what is 'common knowledge' in the West about Asia -which geographically spans east to west fromTurkey to Japan and includes parts of Russia all the way to Indonesia -would be ridiculed if it were about Europe and its offshoots in the US, Australia and NewZealand. I remember as a young teen reading "The World Of Suzy Wong", the short stories of Somerset Maugham and even the virtually 'sacralized' A Passage to India " and wondered why these books were so distant from the vibrant society I lived in. One of the best books about colonial India is Orwell's Burmese Days but I never hear it referred to compared to his 1984.
Bravo Mr Nguyen for raising issues that NEED to be raised. I would recommend that critics of Mr Nguyen read Toni Morrison's The Source of Self-Regard a collection of essays which so much more eloquently than I can addresses this matter. Keep on writing Mr Nguyen, your voice and analysis is sorely needed especially today!
24
@bindu621: Yes! Burmese Days is a wonderful book. It deserves a wider readership.
2
As a child I loved watching the Charlie Chan movies as that inscrutable wise disciple of Confucius solved mysteries. Just another take on the role of the exotic 'Other'. During the 60's I met plenty of Miss Saigon's. They were another reason why I turned against the war: The corrupting influence of American money on the culture and vulnerable populations of displaced Vietnamese. Not really a good choice of subject matter for a good cry.
4
'Miss Saigon' was a big draw when shown in the 90s, and my boss in the corporate sector would give us (his guardians who kept barbarians at the gate) tickets to see The Phantom, Les Miserables and then came Miss Saigon.
My husband, a musician, and I went to see this grand production with the counselor for our class of 'Dreamers', sponsored by my boss and his wife. Under the wing of the counselor from Puerto Rico, the children in his care, all graduated from high school and went on to college.
When the curtain closed, it was a feeling of sorrow for The Children of this World that this viewer took with her, remembering a Belgium journalist and his testimony entitled 'The Sparrows of Saigon'. Working for him as a young team, an international one in the global humanitarian community, he would remind us not to take ourselves so seriously on occasion.
'Small, weak and effeminate people'?, Mr. Nguyen, while this play may be closer to your heart, our perspective, whether East or West of The Moon, remains different. There is a showing of 'American Consumerism', where a large car was to be seen embraced in the final act, leaving my spouse feeling disconcerted.
Keep telling American Asians that they are being portrayed as weak, but they know better, with wisdom. Your heart and soul may be in the right place, but regardless of age, it is a reminder that we all have miles to go. Love is many a splendored-thing and often the cause of tears.
3
Thete is much to consider he re. There is also the matter of where the bar is set. "Heart of Darkness" is a 90 page masterpiece with many facets and perspectives. "Miss Saigon" is merely OK.
2
"All In the Family", also, opened our eyes to the American experience. In Archie Bunker and his family, we saw a little bit of all of us, in the stereotypes portrayed, that made us uncomfortable. Through art and comedy, while barely skirting the censors, we were exposed to our reality; the good, the bad, and the ugly. Watching reruns today, one can see how far (or not, Jane Doe Ponytail comes to mind) we have come, in fact, such that younger viewers may scratch their heads contemplating the premise of many episodes. Similarly, since the time period of Miss Saigon, Vietnam and most of Asia has transformed remarkably. The difference is, it seems to me, that Vietnam seems to be moving forward while we drift backward. As such, we need storytelling like Miss Saigon more than ever.
6
Never saw "Miss Saigon." Tickets too expensive, and the premise, of which I was vaguely familiar, did seem overheated. On the other hand, I found it hard to put down my copy of "Heart of Darkness," -- which I really don't think makes me a bigot -- and found "Things Fall Apart" to be a very difficult read. I read it with dutiful interest, and I read Mr. Nguyen's critique with an open mind. As stated, I never saw Miss Saigon, so I can't defend it. However, comparing "Miss Saigon" to Achebe's reading of "Heart of Darkness" is instructive, because Heart of Darkness is not a book about race, but about the psychology of human experience. It was written in a time where assumptions about eurosuperiority were a given, so if you want to criticize Conrad for having a sensibility of a man of his times, I guess let'er rip. Or we could celebrate his genius while recognizing the racial limitation of his day, without taking credit for having a sensibility that, superior though it may be, we certainly did not gain by being smarter or wiser. Our genius lies in living now instead of then. If Conrad lived today, he wouldn't be voting for Donald Trump.
16
You’re absolutely right. He wouldn’t vote for Trump. Presumably, he’d still be a citizen of Great Britain.
4
@Dave Smith
And actually, he was born in Poland. Wrote in English because he wanted to be sure his books were read.
3
I would suggest the author not go see the revival production.
7
@JP Perhaps those of us who see Trump as a racist demagogue should be told simply not to attend his rallies. As a Vietnam veteran, I witnessed the horror caused by the Miss Saigon stereotypes. They framed the miscalculations that resulted in the deaths of 58,000 Americans and three million Vietnamese. I too saw the movie and appreciated its emotional intensity, and I suspect many viewers enjoyed the play purely as a work of art, but works of art have a way of shaping the way we think. I wonder how much Gone with the Wind did to enhance Jim Crow and frame our ugly state of race relations.
3
Much of what Viet Thanh Nguyen says or feels about "Miss Saigon" is neither new nor outrageous.
The problem comes with his seeming to concede that art can be both racist and offensive, yet then insisting that it can't be, and if it is, or if some people say it is, it can't exist. As the author explains "Miss Saigon" is taken directly from Puccini’s opera "Madama Butterfly", so by his reasoning it also can't exist. Using such reasoning, Shakespeare plays, including Othello, which is racist, and The Merchant of Venice, which is anti-Semitic, can't exist.
Most disturbing is how the author deflects so as to label anyone a bigot who does agree that "Miss Saigon" must be censored.
The author is right to argue for greater representation. However, he then still insists on censoring and cancelling the play while insisting everyone say it isn’t actually censoring since he's positioned it as being all about a lack of balance. Unfortunately, no matter how he tries to position it, he’s still censoring and cancelling. Most problematic is he seems to believe this somehow means racism does not exist
The portrayal of I. Y. Yunioshi by Mickey Rooney in the movie "Breakfast at Tiffany's" makes me physically ill. Yet the columnist Jeff Yang offered the correct answer: "Far from boycotting the movie or even begrudgingly accepting it, I think it should be mandatory viewing for anyone who wants to fully understand who we are as a culture, how far we've come and how far we still need to go."
37
Two things are going on here. One is that the play reflects the current and long standing American prejudice against anyone who isn’t white. The second thing going on is the propensity of self proclaimed “artists” to produce yet another revival. Easier than creating something entirely new.
13
Respectfully, no Mr. Nguyen. As a teacher of English literature would you recommend to burn books like Lolita, the Sun Also Rises (or any Hemingway book, for that matter), the wizard of Oz, streetcar, etc etc? All with difficult stereotypes.
I think not.
Miss Siagon is a beautiful story and a work of art. People understand that distinction.
109
@Someone
I cannot for the life of me imagine what you think Lolita has to do with the author's very specific (and to me, spot on) criticism of Miss Saigon, and the long tradition of paternalistic treatment of Asian people in our entertainment.
35
@Mike,
And yet when the Special Representative for The 1979 International Year of the Child, forty years ago, was chosen by the UN Secretary General and the Executive Director of UNICEF, the latter both male, they did so with care and offered the assignment to a strong female from East Asia.
There was entertainment, and one of the biggest draws was a successful concert held for what was known at the time as 'The Boat People', without a drop of paternalistic treatment towards the above refugees.
5
@Mike Oh, that's an easy one.
Burning books is burning books. It doesn't matter what the first one that's burned is; the one you like will be the next.
Labeling a piece of art as inherently racist or inherently evil, is calling for it to disappear, to be banned or censored or burned.
There is nothing honorable in that.
8
To summarize: this offended me, so no-one else should be able to see it. Unfortunately, these days there is a never-ending line of people eager to take offense at ever-smaller transgressions. If we accept this, we will lose much of our cultural and historical heritage. Please just stop it.
220
@HR
That's very shallow. Yes, it's easy to point out that people are sometimes quick to be offended at small things. But is it even conceivable to you that sometimes, people who are offended have every right to be offended? We're not talking about a tiny detail in a larger work - her critique is about the entire plot and the entire show. The thing she finds offensive is the very heart of the show. And it seems to me that she has a point.
22
@Mike I wonder if the writer, Mr Nguyen, is also offended that you have mistaken him for a woman? But I agree HE has a good point.
For some of these kinds of objectionable portrayals, sometimes I think it's not a bad thing to let them continue to be seen, but along WITH commentary like Mr Nguyen's, to help audience recognize and perhaps "unlearn" the stereotypes in the show. Certainly censorship is never the answer. More speech is the answer - from thoughtful critics like this one.
17
@Mike
I'm not sure I understand what "the right to be offended" is. How does that put the brakes on the argument? If that's a valid "right," then other people similarly have the "right" not to be offended, or the "right" to disagree with the offended person.
14
I saw the show many years ago, and like several who posted, enjoyed it immensely. It ran with controversy almost from the start, Professor Nguyen raises a strong point, but what of the Veteran, Chris ? I ran with the story, so I imagined someone drafted and sent off to war while still a kid - and who came home shattered by the experience. In this musical, the heroine becomes a suicide. For Professor Nguyen, that becomes an allegory for a kind of East-West relationship. The other side to this might not be M. Butterfly (which I also enjoyed), but a story reflecting the suicides of some returning Veterans. That certainly has been used in plays and screenplays.
10
One of the beautiful things about Miss Saigon is precisely that it so directly critiques ideas of Western superiority by showing some of devastating consequences that actually played out in Vietnam. It challenges the mythology of American military power with truth. The author here suggests that somehow it perpetuates ideas of Western or white superiority, but I took a completely different message from that show.
109
@Scott - agree completely. I suppose the nature of art is that people can interpret it differently. In my view Mr Nguyen's argument is the left wing version of the authoritarian Trump crowd, who would ban NFL players for taking a knee. They are both wrong in applying a very subjective test: if it offends my sense of propriety, it must be banned.
The fragility of that sort of thinking has been very much exposed in this case because the critic probably has not really understood the writer's overall meaning.
In my view, the 'weakness' of an Asian character is not weakness, but rather innocence. The message of the musical is that the US should be ashamed by the Vietnam War because it shamefully and hypocritically intervened into Vietnam.
7
Mr. Nguyen;
I respect your opinion and maybe I should not even comment, (as I am a 56 white man), but I'm also an art lover, lived in Japan, and a quite educated theatre-goer. I say, emphatically, no, the curtain should not "close" on "Miss Saigon." It should not change in any way that was not there on the original opening night for this reason: It is a work of art, a singular creation, by its creators in a post in time. That point in time reflects the creator's purposeful point of view about the characters and story that they've created. Of we took your advice, we would end up, well, may only with "Hamilton" as it's extremely contemporary- but what will critics say about it in 25 years; "What were they thinking?, etc." If we followed you advice we could not do almost any show every devised. It is a story. Those are the characters. The music is great. The characters complicated, multi-faceted. Some people are weak, others strong, others ambiguous. Should we never do "Fidler on the Roof," "South Pacific," "Annie Get Your Gun?" NO! Sure, a lot of those shows are very silly, to be sure, but with a little CONTEXT and a modern reinterpretation, all can be ok. How do directors deal with the terrible Native American portrayal in so many shows? Did you hear about "On the Mountaintop" where MLK was played by a white actor? The director was honoring MLK's dictum that one should be judged by the content of their character,not the color of their skin, but got shut down.
24
The author states deeply profound and genuine objections to the deployed Asian stereotypes in Miss Saigon. Me - I simply loved the music in the Miss Saigon musical.
27
Do we watch "Good Morning, Vietnam," and decry the stereotypes? No, most of us appreciate the comedic genius of Robin Williams and appreciate the break from a drumbeat of war images from America's horrific invasion. Miss Saigon is not so much a characterization as it is about that time and circumstance.
29
The key point here is not about boycotting this play or censoring it. "Perhaps those of us who detest the play would not be so upset if there were other stories about Asians or Vietnamese people that showed their diversity. If there were a thousand stories onstage and onscreen about us — or even if there were just a dozen — we might forgive “Miss Saigon.”
It's the Narrative Plenitude. We as Asian Americans are still stuck with Narrative Scarcity when it comes to our stories.
41
J.H. I agree with you that there should be more stories about Asians, written from an Asian perspective. But, it is for Asians to tell these stories since it is your/their history and point of view that needs to be told. Otherwise you will end up with the cowboys view vis-a-vis the Indians in Westerns.
If Asians want to have more influence and stories then they need to become writers, directors, producers etc. in larger numbers. That’s how it works. Crazy Rich Asians is an example. It’s no secret that there are more African American movies now (albeit, not enough yet) because there are more African Americans going into the arts. Do you know why there are so many shows about Jewish life in America? Its not because Americans had an innate love for the Jewish culture or Jewish experience, especially not in the 40s/50s/60s. It’s because when other businesses were closed to Jews in the 20s/30s/40s, they went into the new mediums of TV and movies IN DROVES. They told their stories, often in comedic ways, and shared their history and perspective. No Hollywood establishment was saying, “we need another Jewish movie or Holocaust story.” They went out and did it.
So, if you and the OpEd writer want to see Asians portrayed better and more often, then go ahead and do it. But “Don”t Cry for Me Argentina” about a tremendous work of art that told a story in a sensitive, deeply moving way with incredible music because you don’t like the “subliminal” message you think it delivers.
3
@J.H. After the "Oscars Too White.." drama, Whoopi Goldberg ( et. al.) said it best " ..rent a warehouse, write a script, film the actors and make a movie (or play) !!" that's how you make change happen. Get to work.
3
I do see the 'Great White Father'-ism of the story now. I wonder if similar cultural chauvinism is essential to movies like 'South Pacific', or even 'American in Paris'. What will we do for entertainment? ('The Last Samurai' maybe, although that probably stereotype also.)
11
p.s. I have read the the play is correct about the daunting prospects faced by these Vietnamese women left behind and their children. They lived by selling cigarettes on the street, or worse, and were not integrated into society. Miss Saigon strikes me as being a strong and resourceful young woman, though desperate.
13
Mr. Nguyen's points are well-taken. His heart-felt sentiments are understood. As a Vancouver born Chinese Canadian, I don't think mothballing "Miss Saigon" is going to do anything to mitigate "deeply held notions of Asian inferiority". If anything, it's going to lead some "others" to think "we" are touchy and more than a tad whiny. Stereotypes will be perpetuated not eradicated.
If we are to learn anything from the current US President's ravings about "the Other", it is that there are always people out there eager to embrace the baseless rants of the unthinking. I doubt reasonable people of any background think a "Broadway musical" like "Miss Saigon" is representative of Asian culture any more than "Porgy and Bess" is the Rosetta Stone to understanding African-American life.
Rodgers and Hammerstein's "South Pacific" was once touted as making inroads into bridging East and West. "Teahouse of the August Moon" as well although that tale was more a gentle critique of nascent post-WW II American global reach. In the long run, their lasting impact was absorbed into the general (un)consciousness. There's no reason to think "Miss Saigon" will be different.
Art has its way of addressing real world issues just as journalism, science, and enlightened political action have theirs. Squelching any of these great paths of human expression, no matter how well-intentioned, may (and often DO) cause greater problems than the ones such censure hopes to resolve.
54
@G.L. Chew. I have never thought of Asian Americans. Continental Asians or Asian Canadians as being “whiny.” That stereotype is sometimes used to label Jews like me.
My main point though is the most significant point of the movie version of South Pacific was the portrayal of a romantic relationship between a cherished American figure, (a World War II soldier), and a beautiful woman of another race. At the time of Jim Crow.
I wasn’t around yet but I was told the movie was quite progressive. That it was quite controversial in the parts of the United States that one would expect. Then, and unfortunately, now.
2
I am familiar with Puccini's opera and saw "Miss Saigon" when it was new, though I don't remember it very well. What Mr. Nguyen (significantly) ignores is that Puccini opera (based on a play by the American Belasco) is a pretty savage critique of the Western characters--more specifically their inability to take Japanese culture seriously. Butterfly was early 20th century, and in many ways years ahead of its time. Puccini's sympathies are NOT with the Americans! Your critique may apply to "Miss Saigon" but Puccini is on your side!
117
@Arnold Davis EXACTLY. Anyone who comes out of Puccini's opera thinking Pinkerton is anything other than a complete cad must have been asleep through the show.
12
The fact that Miss Saigon makes one angry is what art can accomplish. Stereotypical attitudes have existed and still exist today. Miss Saigon like Madam Butterfly have a place in our theater history. It is a beautiful musical that makes you weep and weep you should. We might just all be weeping for different reasons.
18
@larryL Art that challenges assumptions might make us angry in a way that deepens our understanding of culture or human nature. Art that reinforces stereotypes makes some of us angry in exactly the way Nguyen describes and to which so many readers object. His essay functions as the cultural critique that the art fails to do.
I saw the show a couple of decades ago in London's West End and was enthralled. We have tickets for the upcoming show in Seattle, and I am excited for it.
I respect your opinion, but lighten up, Mr. Nguyen. Enjoy life and art.
123
@J Darby
He is telling you that your enjoyment of this play is at his expense, and that of the other Asian people denigrated in Broadway and Hollywood depictions.
Since you are not the one being denigrated, it's easy to say, lighten up.
But if there was a play about obtuseness and arrogance of white Americans, would you enjoy it? And if not, would you appreciate being told to lighten up?
7
I saw the production in London in 1993, and I cried and cried. The tears were more that Chris & Kim were separated during the fall of Saigon amid the chaos. By the end, I hated that Kim killed herself - it seemed to be such an easy ending. Suicide is so complex that using it as an ending to an already sad story seems narratively cheap. But here especially, where I wasn't necessarily "woke" enough to see the wider implications of this, but where I did see how Kim was used as a sacrificial lamb in a story that tried to tell the story of many Vietnamese refugees. I'm sure many were brought to the same desperate place as Kim, but they didn't see their existences as so unworthy that they killed themselves, hoping only for their children's salvation in the west.
I'm also very proud to say that I've taught Vietnamese refugees in the US, and many of these now-adults are hoping to use what they've learned here to return to Viet Nam and continue the post-war growth and success that the country has experienced. These are the experiences we ought to be hearing more about.
16
I'm not Mr. Broadway here,
but this column echoes the
PC criticism which greeted
a revival of West Side Story
a number of years ago and is now threatening to wipe
out the murals in San
Francisco. we must,it seems to me,avoid any
sort of revisionist history
at all costs. it's kind of like
watching Turner Classic
Movies. no one endorses
the overt racism in these
movies from the 1930's
and 40's,yet we can still
enjoy them. political
correctness destroys art
of any kind.always,forever.
173
Mr. Nguyen’s views are compellingly important and if they can be characterized as “political correctness”, then we should all be politically correct. Thank you Mr. Nguyen for articulating how so many of us feel about the fantasies perpetuated by works like “Miss Saigon”, which can be dangerous because they substitute for the following truths of the Vietnam War: powerful people using the poor to fight an unnecessary war for the benefit of the powerful, American and French war crimes and the startling resilience of the Vietnamese people who refused continued colonization. The cringeworthy US fantasy of “Miss Saigon” is in the same category as the 1915 film “Birth of a Nation,” “Gone With The Wind,” “Driving Miss Daisy,” “Green Book” and others. Thankfully, writers and artists like Mr. Nguyen are countering these fantasies with art whose truth resonates with much larger audiences.
16
@B PC: I agree. Beyond your points, those who seem to attack Mr. Nguyen for his viewpoints sadly reflect an all-too-common thread now in our society. Rarely do we see comments where someone says, "Hmmm...I don't know that I agree with your article or opinion, but you have made me think. I have to consider my own opinion more deeply if I am to defend it. But I have learned something."
Wouldn't it be nice to see comments like that? I try, but need to be much better at it.
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@Frank Your argument can be used to support all the southern states that want to keep the Confederate flags flying at the state buildings. Is it political correctness on the part of the African Americans or is it lack of empathy on the part of the majority? Is it such a loss to the arts community to permanently "kill" certain works? Shouldn't we just create more works, hopefully that elevate and elucidate? When someone PAYS Broadway tickets (not cheap), they are implicitly endorsing stereotypes that Mr. Nguyen described in Miss Saigon. When we pay cable to watch "classics" filled with racism and sexism, we implicit endorse those things. Companies are paying good money to buy ad times for your eyeballs.
5
This comment is less about Ms Saigon than about Dien Bien Phu, which happened when I was in high school. As a result I had a different image of Asians from the Ms Saigon one. In 1945 Japan surrendered not because of weakness, but because it saved lives. In 1948 China became communist because Mao and others were tired of being subordinate to western countries. North Korea acted because an American General defied the commander in chief and was going to invade China.
These were not necessarily good results for those folks, at least in some countries, but it was in every case an Asian decision.
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If the premise of "Miss Saigon" makes one uncomfortable, by all means, avoid it. But if we are all going to dismiss art that includes stereotypes, particularly that which was conceived in a different time, well then we are going to lose a lot of cultural works.
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@NM
This isn't a question of art that "includes" stereotypes. The stereotype here goes to the very heart of the story. This doesn't necessarily mean that the play is irredeemable, or that it should never be performed. But Mr. Nguyen raises a point worth thinking about.
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@NM
"But if we are all going to dismiss art that includes stereotypes, ..."
You could say the same thing about cable news except there's nothing to lose.
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@NM, You may or may not have a point. But understand that your argument would also apply to Birth of a Nation and Triumph of the Will (both of which also found receptive audiences in their day).
I look forward to everything Nguyen writes as he is one of my favorites of this generation, but I must disagree with him here. I saw the musical when it debuted in New York and I have to say I was one of those moved people. This criticism reminds me of the criticism that surrounded "The Color Purple" when that movie debuted. I am an African-American male and all of the criticism was around how my demographic was depicted. But I never gave the criticism much credence as I know that art's job is not to depict characters the way we wish they were in all of their strengths. It is art's job to at times overdramatize situations in the hopes that you strike an emotion with the viewer. Isn't that all that opera strives to do? I feel I know what Nguyen is getting at but I can't be any angrier at this production than I can be at Shakespeare for portraying Othello as an angry black male full of murderous rage. At the end of the day if a story can possibly hold an element of truth I believe it is worth telling at the expense of a few unflattering portrayals. I think we root for Kim not because she is a weak victim but because we have been touched by her story. It's all I ask art to do.
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@Jerry M: What a thoughtful and intelligent comment! You obviously put both logical, real-life thinking along with a love of culture such as this into your enjoyment of the theatre. Just my opinion, but I would like to see more people have such a well-grounded sense of the world around them.
9
When I first saw Miss Saigon in the early nineties, I struck me as the anti-M. Butterfly (David Henry Hwang's brilliant look at orientalism, not the Puccini) as I was watching it, just as Nguyen describes in his piece. I hated almost every moment of the musical.
I'm Asian American. Nguyen, unless I misreading the piece, isn't calling for the show's censure, which I would be against, he's calling for a larger market for Asian American stories. Some of my Asian American friends love the musical, and that's fine. I love watching Turandot. It's complicated.
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As the daughter of a Vietnamese woman and the American soldier she me during the Vietnam/American War, there is a truth here... in the desperation, in the struggle, in the reality of life and love during war time. It would be a disservice to censure or cancel this. This is my truth, even if it makes people uncomfortable.
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