Numerous controversies arose in connection with the 1989 stage musical Miss Saigon during the show's 1990 transfer to Broadway, reaching their peak around August 1990. Afterwards, controversies surrounding the production continued through the early 1990s.
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Casting controversies of 1990
Jonathan Pryce Miss Saigon received criticism for the perception it contained racist or sexist overtones, including protests regarding its portrayal of Asians and women in general.Steinberg, Avi. "Group targets Asian stereotypes in hit musical," Boston Globe, January 2005. Retrieved on 2007 – December 15. Originally, Jonathan Pryce and Keith Burns, white actors playing Eurasian/Asian characters, wore eye prostheses and bronzing cream to make themselves look more Asian,Behr, Edward, and Mark Steyn. The Story of Miss Saigon. New York: Arcade Publishing, 1991. which outraged some who drew comparisons to a "minstrel show". The American scholar Yutian Wong observed Miss Saigons 1989 premiere in London's West End had uniformly positive reviews in British newspapers such as the Daily Mail, The Times, and the Evening Standard. British theater critics did not perceive anything objectionable about the musical, and the controversy about Miss Saigon only began in 1990 with the prospect of it appearing on Broadway, which Wong argued, was because the United States has a much larger Asian population than the United Kingdom.
In the London production of Miss Saigon, Lea Salonga originally starred as Kim, with Jonathan Pryce as the Engineer. When the production transferred from London to New York City, the Actors' Equity Association (AEA) refused to allow Pryce, a white actor, to portray the role of the Engineer, a Eurasian pimp, in the United States. The playwright David Henry Hwang and the actor B.D Wong wrote public letters of protest against Pryce's casting. Both Hwang and Wong had seen Miss Saigon in London's West End and felt Pryce's performance as the Engineer was demeaning to Asians. As Alan Eisenberg, executive secretary of Actors' Equity explained: "The casting of a Caucasian actor made up to appear Asian is an affront to the Asian community. The casting choice is especially disturbing when the casting of an Asian actor, in the role, would be an important and significant opportunity to break the usual pattern of casting Asians in minor roles." AEA's ruling on 7 August 1990 led to criticism from many, including the British Actors' Equity Association, citing violations of the principles of artistic integrity and freedom. Producer Cameron Mackintosh threatened to cancel the show, despite massive advance ticket sales. The Miss Saigon casting debate made it to the front pages of The New York Times 8 times in August 1990. Editorials in the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, and The Wall Street Journal published over the course of one week in August 1990 insisted Pryce should be cast as the Engineer on Broadway.
Though there had been a long, well-publicised international search for Asian actresses to play Kim, there had been no equivalent search for Asian actors to play the major Asian male roles—specifically, those of the Engineer (Pryce) and Thuy (Keith Burns). The American scholar Angelica Pao observed that, in the first production of Miss Saigon in London, Macintosh had gone out of his way to cast Asian actresses to play the Vietnamese women, arguing that this was necessary to provide authenticity, but he was content to cast white actors as Vietnamese men. However, others mentioned the Engineer was Eurasian (French-Vietnamese), arguing Pryce was being discriminated against on the basis that he was Caucasian. Also, Pryce was considered by many in Europe to have "star status," a clause that allows a well-known foreign actor to recreate a role on Broadway without an American casting call. After pressure from Mackintosh, the general public, and many of its own members, Actors' Equity reversed its decision. Pryce starred alongside Salonga and Willy Falk (as Chris) when the show opened on Broadway.Bright Lights Film Journal – Hollywood Yellowface Retrieved on 2007 – December 15.
Lea Salonga During the production transfer from West End to Broadway, another controversy that made global news erupted over Salonga's citizenship, as she was Filipina. The Actors' Equity Association (AEA) initially prevented her from reprising her role, wishing to give priority to Asian-American performers. However, Cameron Mackintosh claimed that he was unable to find a satisfactory replacement for Salonga despite the extensive search in which 1,200 candidates auditioned. Government officials in the Philippines expressed support for her, and her father threatened to return a United States flag that was given to the family after the death of his father, who served in the U.S. Navy for 30 years. Filipino columnist Max Soliven wrote: "It's sad that some Americans, in a land which has long preached equality of man and equal opportunity, have become such rabid, racial bigots."
Salonga told The Seattle Times, "It's not the end of the world. If Broadway does happen, then fine, it's great. If it doesn't, I'm not going to be a sourpuss. I'll probably go back to school or continue doing Kim in London. It's really up to me what I want to do." In the same interview, she also noted that reprising the role on Broadway "would mean another chance for the Filipino to get a foot in the door, and hopefully push it open all the way." On January 7, 1991, arbitrator Daniel Gerald Collins, a law professor at New York University, reversed the AEA ruling to allow Salonga to star. Five months later, Salonga thanked the labor union during her acceptance speech for her win at the 45th Tony Awards.
Orientalism, racism, and misogyny
Background The question of accepting Vietnamese refugees was just as relevant in 1980s Britain as it was in the United States. Beginning in 1978, a vast exodus of people known as the "boat people" fled from Vietnam via boat, and many of them crossed the South China Sea to apply for asylum in the British colony of Hong Kong. British newspapers commonly called the refugees "Vietnamese boat people", but the term was something of a misnomer as the majority of the "boat people" were actually Hoa (ethnic Chinese) who suffered severely under Vietnam's Communist government. As was the case with the other nations of Southeast Asia, a disproportionate number of the middle-class people in Vietnam were ethnic Chinese, who were widely disliked on the account of their success in business and the professions. On 17 February 1979, Vietnam's ancient archenemy China invaded, leading to a short and sharp war. Though Vietnam defeated China, the war pushed anti-Chinese feelings in Vietnam to a hysterical level, leading to most of the Hoa fleeing Vietnam. As Britain had ratified the Vienna convention, the British authorities in Hong Kong had to consider the refugee applications of the "boat people", and many of the "boat people" did end up settling in the United Kingdom. British tabloids stoked fears about the possibility of the "Vietnamese boat people" overwhelming Britain, and falsely stated that most of them were infected with leprosy, prompting a popular outcry to stop the "boat people" from coming to the United Kingdom.
Composition Shimakawa further criticized Boublil and Schönberg for using no Vietnamese instruments and music in Miss Saigon, instead using instruments from Japan and Indonesia which she argued represented the attitude that Vietnam was just an exotic locale in Asia that Westerners might have adventures in, not an entity in its own right with its own culture and history. Shimkawa argued that the musical's logo, a painting of a helicopter done in a manner highly evocative of Chinese calligraphy, reflected the musical's perspective that all Asian cultures were just "mysterious aesthetics" for Westerners as the viewpoint in Miss Saigon is that all of Asia, not just Vietnam, is "inscrutable and/or incomprehensible (although potentially aesthetically and sexually pleasurable), defining Americaness in opposition". Finally, Shimakawa said the claim by Boublil and Schönberg as Frenchmen to have a special understanding of Vietnam because Vietnam is a former French colony went largely unchallenged by the British media when Miss Saigon premiered in London in 1989 and likewise by the American media when Miss Saigon made its debut in New York in 1991, which she argued reflected the tendency in the West to place a premium on white views of Asians over Asian views of themselves.
Romanticism In the 1991 book The Story of Miss Saigon by the Anglo-French journalist Edward Behr and the Canadian columnist Mark Steyn, the claim by Boublil and Schönberg as Frenchmen to have a special "insider's knowledge" of the Vietnamese is accepted as a fact, and Miss Saigon is portrayed as a historically accurate picture of the Vietnam war. The American scholar Yutian Wong complained about the first chapter of The Story of Miss Saigon written by Behr who covered the Vietnam War for Newsweek, where Behr confessed to sleeping with hundreds of Vietnamese prostitutes during his time in Saigon, experiences that convinced him that Miss Saigon was a realistic and accurate picture of Vietnam.
Wong charged that Behr made very sweeping claims about Vietnamese women, a subject on which he claimed to be an expert, based solely upon his experiences with the prostitutes, which she felt to be very misleading perspective on Vietnam. Wong wrote that Behr's nostalgic and romanticized account of prostitution in Saigon was "emptied of the violence, disease, abuse and humiliations suffered by the prostitutes themselves" that misleadingly made the brothels of Saigon sound benign and romantic. Wong also argued that Behr's claim that Miss Saigon was not racist and sexist because in real life the U.S. servicemen had a profound respect for the prostitutes whose services they used is contradicted by his statement that the slurs applied by the Marines to the prostitutes in Miss Saigon were merely "realistic", stating that the Marines in Vietnam did talk that way about Vietnamese women.
Orientalism In Miss Saigon, Vietnam is portrayed as a mysterious, exotic, sensuous place yet full of incomprehensible savagery and incredible “filth”. The opening chorus of the first song "The Heat is On in Saigon" begins with the lines: "The heat is on in Saigon/The girls are hotter 'n hell/Tonight one of these slits will be Miss Saigon/God the tension is high/Not to mention the smell". The fact the Vietnam War impoverished many Vietnamese people, and forced many women to turn to prostitution in order to survive, is not mentioned in Miss Saigon, and establishments such as the fictional Dreamland brothel are portrayed as the norm in Vietnam.
At one point, Chris sings a song about Kim that is addressed both to her and Vietnam, suggesting that Kim is Vietnam. In the song "Why, God, Why?", Chris sings: "Who is that girl back in the rusty bed?/Why am I back in this filthy room?/Why is her voice ringing in my head?/Why am I high on her cheap perfume?/Vietnam/Hey look, I mean no offense/But why does nothing here make sense?" Throughout Miss Saigon, both Kim and Vietnam are described by the American characters as a "mystery," which the American scholar Karen Shimakawa felt reflected racist and misogynic views about Asians and Asian women in particular.
Perpetual foreigner and white imperialism