Suzy Wrong at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival - 30th anniversary

Suzy Wrong, Stereotype Slayer, hits the Edinburgh Fringe Festval

Thirty years ago today, I took my show, Suzy Wrong Human Cannon, to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, a historic first by a Chinese Brit.

It was a ground-breaking challenge thrown down to the degrading stereotypes embedded deeply in western culture, and it succeeded in making visible the pernicious way in which these representations thrive. And it was done by a Chinese woman, not a distanced academic with no skin in the game.

Yellow Peril tropes of vacuous Lotus Blossoms and evil Dragon Ladies had been around ever since the 19th century Opium Wars demanded subjugation of Chinese through dehumanisation as well as military conquest. When the target group is no longer recognised as human, Empire can perform all sorts of dog-whistle tricks to manipulate its own population into morally reprehensible behaviour from exploitation to outright war. This is particularly effective and serves a dual purpose if the domestic population is also directly suffering from its ruling classes' predations, but doesn't know who's doing it. Now you see it, now you don't. Hey, blame this group, instead.

In 1994, I'd half suspected my show might not be necessary. After all, surely we were all sophisticated enough to recognise the stereotypes of evil, dishonest, cheating, Fu Manchu creatures and reject them. The screening of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, at the same festival I was playing, disabused me of that optimism.

Sadly, the wave of character assassination in the Western media regarding the Chinese Olympians at Paris 2024 confirms what I've been warning for several years. They are back with a vengeance and being served up to a beleaguered home population in search of scapegoats for the social and economic wreckage wrought by successively savage rounds of government.

Crude scapegoating started in earnest after Obama's Pivot to Asia with Trump's Trade War. It was closely followed by US NED colour revolution attempts and the klaxon-horn accusations of the Covid pandemic as public health was weaponised.

So what's changed for Suzy Wrong?

So what's changed in 30 years? What would Suzy Wrong see that's different in our brave new world order since trailblazing her view at the Pleasance Theatre in Edinburgh in 1994?

First, there's over 800 million raised out of absolute poverty, a growing middle-class of 550 million, nearly twice the size of the US, a 97% satisfaction with the governing Communist Party of China, according to Harvard/Pew research. Pollution is on the wane as China gets to grips with renewables and blue skies are now the norm.

Their economy was motoring ahead until the US decided to put the boot in and then pretend that slow-downs have somehow happened organically, rather than resulting from wave after wave of hate-fuelled sabotage. China's phenomenal success engenders jealousy and they now have to contend with an Opium Wars 2 shaping up as the declining western nations seek the bludgeoning success of old Empires, now that they have little creative left to offer.

Cultural scar tissue

Although China is finding ways around these obstacles, this still leaves scar tissue. Culturally, there's a new colonialism rising as this stuff mutates and adapts. It's disappointing to see that China still hasn't thrown off its adoration of the white man from nearly two centuries of being beaten down. Andrew Tate only has to say something nice about China for uncritical Chinese media to lose their minds and fawn. Mediocre latecomers shove facts around a narrow bandwidth and middle-level bureaucrats throw their weight behind them as they're dragged into bad habits; mostly reactive, unable to project ahead or discuss principles and anything in the abstract.

And, of course, nothing is true unless a white or non-Chinese person says it is true. This takes us full-circle back to the 1870s downturn in the American economy when it took ten "Chinamen" to equal the voice of one white man and a "Chinaman's chance" meant no chance at all.

The harder the West attacks China, the more a significant strand seems to retreat into the old feudal thinking that the OG communists worked so hard to yank them out of. The effects of the psyops are sad to see.

Stuck at Technocrat Level

China has thrived, surpassing the west as technocrats. It has reached the highest levels in the face of unremitting hostility from the declining superpower. The ironies of hostile American policies boomeranging and propelling China to new standards of technological excellence are a pleasure to watch, proving necessity is the Mother of Invention.

However, the same pressures show signs of forcing a contraction of the recent explosion of China's renewed consciousness into old patterns of racial self-doubt and sexism. The West's efforts to contain China are not simply about economics and warfare — they've set their sights on China's cultural and psychological development into its new modern era, of which only 50 years have passed, a mere blip in history.

Have women peaked with former ambassador to the UK Fu Ying (2007-9) and the wonderfully womanly Liu Xin in the Chinese media? Both of whom I wish I'd had as role-models when I was growing up. Tiny girl-women put through elfin filters set to max with high tinkling voices now seems to be what pleases men.

Watching developments, I'm hoping this is just two steps forward and one step back, not a full stop. I'm reminded of the virtual reality game in Three Body Problem where civilisation gets so far and then is lost on the surprise turn of a star.

Raise your game, China. Don't lose the fight at the Technocrat level.

More about Anna Chen

Priscilla Queen of the Desert review: looks pretty, tastes foul

The stage musical version of The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert opened this month in London’s West End.

I saw the original film when it opened at the 1994 Edinburgh Film Festival. I’d been looking forward to it as I’d always warmed to the men and women I’d met in the gay community who were full of the exuberance of challenging their oppression and winning major battles. I found them to be great role-models and lots of fun. Here, at last, was a movie made about them.

Imagine my surprise to see the all-white troupe of drag queens at the centre of the story looking after their own interests as a minority; cast as heroes, not against their enemies in the real world, but against Cynthia, an evil East Asian woman who is a Filipino import bride with a manic compulsion for firing ping-pong balls from her vagina. Depicted as the shrewish scourge of Bob, the beloved blue-collar mechanic, in reality the women she represents make up one of the most pitiful, least powerful minorities on the planet. Cynthia fulfils every dirty sleazy lazy stereotype conceived around the Yellow Peril and their sexuality.

What’s more, we are manipulated into identifying with Ralph/Bernadette (Terence Stamp), a solid-built pre-op male when he savagely beats up a woman in a bar. But that’s OK, it’s a butch bull-dyke he’s so bloodily putting in her place.

With both of these women, their differences puts them beyond the scope of our sympathies and legitimises them as targets. They are a far cry from the model “normal” woman the film finds acceptable: the white businesswoman, also a gay mother, possessing all the confidence her class and colour confer. You can be a lesbian but you must be feminine and able to thrive as one of the bourgeoisie. If you are feminine, as Cynthia unmistakeably is, then no jungle-fucking allowed: you must have control over your sexuality. The message is clear: transgressive outsiders are objects to be feared, hated and bashed up. Conform or suffer the consequences.

A passing group of Aborigines is let off because they agree to dress up in the heroes’ tranny garb, revealing yet more egotism from the filmmakers; they’re alright because they are like me.

The film can squeal and flaunt its self-proclaimed courage on the surface all it likes: it screams to me of cowardice and failure, of picking on those weaker than yourself, of a desperation to be taken into the fold as “one of us” rather than standing proudly by your identity and taking the consequences. A film that’s supposed to celebrate the cult of individuality is undermined by its deeper message that you must conform to some pretty basic sheepherding. Underneath the flamboyence there is a reactionary thrust to its values. It uses fear of Other to condition its audience which I find quite hypocritical when you consider who’s making this film and about what.

Madam Miaow as Suzy Wrong

The 1994 Edinburgh film festival coincided with the fringe festival debut of my solo show, Suzy Wrong — Human Cannon, in which I’d directed maximum firepower at some of the nastier stereotypes of East Asian women littering the joint: happy hookers Suzy Wong and Juicy Lucy from Virgin Soldiers, dragon ladies Madam Mao and Imelda Marcos, and assorted sex myths. The show’s climactic “coup de theatre”, following a wind-up where I hinted that I might put out ping-pong balls, was my appearance with a kapok-stuffed sex-doll, cunningly concealing a pump-action ping pong ball gun whose muzzle fired out of the business end of my blow-up friend: Suzy and her Uzi. Night after night I enjoyed reversing expectations and mowed down the expectant audience who were gagging for it, dahlings.

But I had been wondering whether in 1994 it was still worth bothering satirising stupid outmoded depictions of us Pacific Rimmers.

Priscilla was a sharp reminder that the battle was still on.

Oh, I would have liked a Q& fuckin’ A session with writer and director Stephan Elliott that night, all right.

This was gay liberation lite. The original Gay Liberation movement had a connection with all the other groups struggling for their emancipation. There was a sense of purpose, a political and philosophical basis to their activities and outlook. You can see the vestiges of that golden age in Peter Tatchell, whose political nous and humanity puts many of us to shame.

Now, if you’re East Asian, or the wrong sort of woman, you can be portrayed as a monster deserving of beatings and abuse with hardly a dissenting murmer. You don’t count. The characters in the film and those involved in the making of the film may be part of a minority that’s suffered, but they’re OK – the boot is now on the other foot and in everyone else’s face. Their comradeship only extends to anyone who happens to be built in their image. Screw empathy and compassion, it’s their turn now and they’re going to enjoy kicking down from their elevated status a rung or two up the ladder.

But it looks pretty and spectacular and we can ignore the sick messages pouring out.

So. There I sat in the Edinburgh Filmhouse — dehumanised as a woman, dehumanised as an East Asian, dehumanised as a human being. But audiences will love it and make Mr Elliott a shedload of money. After all, We Will Rock You is still running against all good taste.

UPDATE: London reviews of Priscilla, the Musical here

UPDATE Tues 15th January 2013: One thing learned from the Lobstergate row — currently engulfing Suzanne Moore, Julie Burchill and now Julie Bindel, all strong women and nice big juicy targets — is that "trannie" is now deemed to be an insulting term for trans-women. As language moves around (I feel uncomfortable with "oriental" and "Chinaman" but gleefully use "Pacific Rimmers" whenever possible) I am happy to be sensitive to to the use of "trannie" which appeared in the comments. This is something we can agree on — but it shouldn't detract from the core of the argument of this piece. Solidarity is a two-way street.

Priscilla Queen of the Desert review: looks pretty, tastes foul

The stage musical version of The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert opened this month in London’s West End.

I saw the original film when it opened at the 1994 Edinburgh Film Festival. I’d been looking forward to it as I’d always warmed to the men and women I’d met in the gay community who were full of the exuberance of challenging their oppression and winning major battles. I found them to be great role-models and lots of fun. Here, at last, was a movie made about them.

Imagine my surprise to see the all-white troupe of drag queens at the centre of the story looking after their own interests as a minority; cast as heroes, not against their enemies in the real world, but against Cynthia, an evil East Asian woman who is a Filipino import bride with a manic compulsion for firing ping-pong balls from her vagina. Depicted as the shrewish scourge of Bob, the beloved blue-collar mechanic, in reality the women she represents make up one of the most pitiful, least powerful minorities on the planet. Cynthia fulfils every dirty sleazy lazy stereotype conceived around the Yellow Peril and their sexuality.

What’s more, we are manipulated into identifying with Ralph/Bernadette (Terence Stamp), a solid-built pre-op male when he savagely beats up a woman in a bar. But that’s OK, it’s a butch bull-dyke he’s so bloodily putting in her place.

With both of these women, their differences puts them beyond the scope of our sympathies and legitimises them as targets. They are a far cry from the model “normal” woman the film finds acceptable: the white businesswoman, also a gay mother, possessing all the confidence her class and colour confer. You can be a lesbian but you must be feminine and able to thrive as one of the bourgeoisie. If you are feminine, as Cynthia unmistakeably is, then no jungle-fucking allowed: you must have control over your sexuality. The message is clear: transgressive outsiders are objects to be feared, hated and bashed up. Conform or suffer the consequences.

A passing group of Aborigines is let off because they agree to dress up in the heroes’ tranny garb, revealing yet more egotism from the filmmakers; they’re alright because they are like me.

The film can squeal and flaunt its self-proclaimed courage on the surface all it likes: it screams to me of cowardice and failure, of picking on those weaker than yourself, of a desperation to be taken into the fold as “one of us” rather than standing proudly by your identity and taking the consequences. A film that’s supposed to celebrate the cult of individuality is undermined by its deeper message that you must conform to some pretty basic sheepherding. Underneath the flamboyence there is a reactionary thrust to its values. It uses fear of Other to condition its audience which I find quite hypocritical when you consider who’s making this film and about what.

Madam Miaow as Suzy Wrong

The 1994 Edinburgh film festival coincided with the fringe festival debut of my solo show, Suzy Wrong — Human Cannon, in which I’d directed maximum firepower at some of the nastier stereotypes of East Asian women littering the joint: happy hookers Suzy Wong and Juicy Lucy from Virgin Soldiers, dragon ladies Madam Mao and Imelda Marcos, and assorted sex myths. The show’s climactic “coup de theatre”, following a wind-up where I hinted that I might put out ping-pong balls, was my appearance with a kapok-stuffed sex-doll, cunningly concealing a pump-action ping pong ball gun whose muzzle fired out of the business end of my blow-up friend: Suzy and her Uzi. Night after night I enjoyed reversing expectations and mowed down the expectant audience who were gagging for it, dahlings.

But I had been wondering whether in 1994 it was still worth bothering satirising stupid outmoded depictions of us Pacific Rimmers.

Priscilla was a sharp reminder that the battle was still on.

Oh, I would have liked a Q& fuckin’ A session with writer and director Stephan Elliott that night, all right.

This was gay liberation lite. The original Gay Liberation movement had a connection with all the other groups struggling for their emancipation. There was a sense of purpose, a political and philosophical basis to their activities and outlook. You can see the vestiges of that golden age in Peter Tatchell, whose political nous and humanity puts many of us to shame.

Now, if you’re East Asian, or the wrong sort of woman, you can be portrayed as a monster deserving of beatings and abuse with hardly a dissenting murmer. You don’t count. The characters in the film and those involved in the making of the film may be part of a minority that’s suffered, but they’re OK – the boot is now on the other foot and in everyone else’s face. Their comradeship only extends to anyone who happens to be built in their image. Screw empathy and compassion, it’s their turn now and they’re going to enjoy kicking down from their elevated status a rung or two up the ladder.

But it looks pretty and spectacular and we can ignore the sick messages pouring out.

So. There I sat in the Edinburgh Filmhouse — dehumanised as a woman, dehumanised as an East Asian, dehumanised as a human being. But audiences will love it and make Mr Elliott a shedload of money. After all, We Will Rock You is still running against all good taste.

UPDATE: London reviews of Priscilla, the Musical here

UPDATE Tues 15th January 2013: One thing learned from the Lobstergate row — currently engulfing Suzanne Moore, Julie Burchill and now Julie Bindel, all strong women and nice big juicy targets — is that "trannie" is now deemed to be an insulting term for trans-women. As language moves around (I feel uncomfortable with "oriental" and "Chinaman" but gleefully use "Pacific Rimmers" whenever possible) I am happy to be sensitive to to the use of "trannie" which appeared in the comments. This is something we can agree on — but it shouldn't detract from the core of the argument of this piece. Solidarity is a two-way street.