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Charlie Chan and the Orientalist Exception

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Haiyan Lee
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Abstract

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This article seeks to make sense of the enigma of Charlie Chan by situating him at the intersection of critical legal studies, genre studies, cognitive psychology, and postcolonial critique. It contends that Chan is more than a shameful chapter in the history of American racism and Orientalism, rather a product of the legal Orientalist imagination's exploitation of a peculiar genre schema of detective fiction. As such, he is a figure of ambivalence, equivocation, and exception. On the one hand, Chan fits the stereotype of the maverick detective who must operate within the penumbra of formal judicial apparatuses—in the zone of the exception—in order to match wits with the master criminal. On the other hand, it is his “race” that reifies the power of the exception, making him the unctuous alter ego of the insidious criminal mastermind Dr. Fu Manchu.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 15 , Issue 4 , February 2017 , e4
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2017

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Filmography

Charlie Chan in Egypt. Directed by King, Louis. 20th Century Fox, 1935.Google Scholar
Charlie Chan in Shanghai. Directed by Tinling, James. 20th Century Fox, 1935.Google Scholar
Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen. Directed by Donner, Clive. American Cinema Productions, 1981.Google Scholar
Murder By Death. Directed by Moore, Robert. Columbia Pictures, 1976.Google Scholar
To Kill a Mocking Bird. Directed by Mulligan, Robert. Universal Pictures, 1962.Google Scholar
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