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Dragon Lady (stereotype)
Encyclopedia
A Dragon Lady is a stereotype of East Asian women as strong, deceitful, domineering or mysterious. The term's origin and usage is Western, not Chinese. Inspired by the characters played by actress Anna May Wong
, the term was coined from the villain in the comic strip
Terry and the Pirates
. The term has been applied to powerful Asian
women and to a number of racially Asian film actresses. The stereotype has generated a large quantity of sociological literature. Today, "Dragon Lady" is often applied anachronistically to refer to persons who lived before the term became part of American slang in the 1930s. It has also been used misogynistically to refer to any powerful but prickly woman, usually in a derogatory fashion.
in his comic strip
Terry and the Pirates. The character first appeared on December 16, 1934, and the "Dragon Lady" appellation was first used on January 6, 1935. The term does not appear in earlier "Yellow Peril
" fiction such as the Fu Manchu
series by Sax Rohmer
or in the works of Matthew Phipps Shiel such as The Yellow Danger (1898) or The Dragon (1913). However, a 1931 film based on Rohmer’s The Daughter of Fu Manchu, titled Daughter of the Dragon
, is thought to have been partly the inspiration for the Caniff cartoon name.
. Joseph Patterson, editor for the Chicago Tribune New York Daily News
syndicate, hired Caniff to create the new strip, providing Caniff with the idea of setting the strip in the Orient. A profile of Caniff in Time recounts the episode:
Caniff's biographer R.C. Harvey
suggests that Patterson had been reading about women pirates in one of two books (or both) published a short time earlier: I Sailed with Chinese Pirates by Aleko Lilius
and Vampires of the Chinese Coast by Bok (pseudonym
for unknown). Women pirates in the South China Sea
figure in both books, especially the one by Lilius, a portion of which is dedicated to the mysterious and real-life "queen of the pirates" (Lilius’ phrase), named Lai Choi San
. "Lai Choi San" is a transliteration from Cantonese
, the native language of the woman, herself—thus, the way she pronounced her own name. Caniff appropriated the Chinese name, Lai Choi San, as the "real name" of his Dragon Lady, a fact that led both Lilius and Bok to protest. Patterson pointed out that both books claimed to be non-fiction and that the name belonged to a real person; thus, neither the fact of a woman pirate nor her name could be copyrighted. (Neither Bok nor Lilius had used the actual term "Dragon Lady.") Sources are not clear on whether it was Patterson or Caniff who coined that actual term, though it was almost certainly one of the two.
, also known as Madame Chiang Kai-shek, to Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu
of Vietnam and to any number of racially Asian film actresses. That stereotype—as is the case with other racial caricatures—has generated a large quantity of sociological literature.
Today, "Dragon Lady" is often applied anachronistically to refer to persons who lived before the term became part of American slang in the 1930s. For example, one finds the term in recent works about the "Dragon Lady" Empress Dowager
Cixi
, who was alive at the turn of the 19th to the 20th Century, or references to Chinese-American actress Anna May Wong as having started her career in the 1920s and early 1930s in "Dragon Lady" roles. In both these cases, however, articles written in the early 1900s about the Empress Dowager or reviews of Wong’s early films such as The Thief of Bagdad
(1924) or Daughter of the Dragon (1931) — reviews written when the films appeared — make no use of the term "Dragon Lady". (One writer, however, did refer to the Empress Dowager as "a little lady Bismarck.") Today’s anachronistic use of "Dragon Lady" in such cases may lead the modern reader to assume that the term was in earlier use than appears to be the case.
The term was recently used in the episode "Margin of Error
" of the acclaimed HBO series, The Wire
. In the episode, Namond
, an aspiring drug dealer, watches as his mother, De'Londa Brice, fiercely berates Namond's boss Bodie over her son's employment on his corner. After Bodie concedes he exclaims, "Your mom, that's what niggas
call a Dragon Lady." Bodie's usage of the term in this sense is an example of the stereotype not being limited to just Asian-American women but African-American women as well.
Long Nu
(龍女, dragon lady) is a disciple of Bodhisattva
Guanyin in folklore. In "The Return of the Condor Heroes
", Xiaolongnü
(Little Dragon Maiden) is the female main character.
Anna May Wong
Anna May Wong was an American actress, the first Chinese American movie star, and the first Asian American to become an international star...
, the term was coined from the villain in the comic strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
Terry and the Pirates
Terry and the Pirates (comic strip)
Terry and the Pirates was an action-adventure comic strip created by cartoonist Milton Caniff. Captain Joseph Patterson, editor for the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate, had admired Caniff’s work on the children's adventure strip Dickie Dare and hired him to create the new adventure strip,...
. The term has been applied to powerful Asian
Asian people
Asian people or Asiatic people is a term with multiple meanings that refers to people who descend from a portion of Asia's population.- Central Asia :...
women and to a number of racially Asian film actresses. The stereotype has generated a large quantity of sociological literature. Today, "Dragon Lady" is often applied anachronistically to refer to persons who lived before the term became part of American slang in the 1930s. It has also been used misogynistically to refer to any powerful but prickly woman, usually in a derogatory fashion.
Background
Although sources such as the Oxford English Dictionary list uses of "dragon" and even "dragoness" from the 18th and 19th centuries to indicate a fierce and aggressive woman, there does not appear to be any use in English of "Dragon Lady" before its introduction by Milton CaniffMilton Caniff
Milton Arthur Paul Caniff was an American cartoonist famous for the Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon comic strips.-Biography:...
in his comic strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
Terry and the Pirates. The character first appeared on December 16, 1934, and the "Dragon Lady" appellation was first used on January 6, 1935. The term does not appear in earlier "Yellow Peril
Yellow Peril
Yellow Peril was a colour metaphor for race that originated in the late nineteenth century with immigration of Chinese laborers to various Western countries, notably the United States, and later associated with the Japanese during the mid 20th century, due to Japanese military expansion.The term...
" fiction such as the Fu Manchu
Fu Manchu
Dr. Fu Manchu is a fictional character introduced in a series of novels by British author Sax Rohmer during the first half of the 20th century...
series by Sax Rohmer
Sax Rohmer
Arthur Henry Sarsfield Ward , better known as Sax Rohmer, was a prolific English novelist. He is best remembered for his series of novels featuring the master criminal Dr...
or in the works of Matthew Phipps Shiel such as The Yellow Danger (1898) or The Dragon (1913). However, a 1931 film based on Rohmer’s The Daughter of Fu Manchu, titled Daughter of the Dragon
Daughter of the Dragon
Daughter of the Dragon is a movie directed by Lloyd Corrigan, released by Paramount Pictures, and starring Anna May Wong as Princess Ling Moy, Sessue Hayakawa as Ah Kee, and Warner Oland as Dr. Fu Manchu...
, is thought to have been partly the inspiration for the Caniff cartoon name.
Terry and the Pirates
Terry and the Pirates was an action-adventure comic strip created by cartoonist Milton CaniffMilton Caniff
Milton Arthur Paul Caniff was an American cartoonist famous for the Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon comic strips.-Biography:...
. Joseph Patterson, editor for the Chicago Tribune New York Daily News
Tribune Media Services
Tribune Media Services is a syndication company owned by the Tribune Company.The company has two divisions, "News and Features" and "Entertainment Products"...
syndicate, hired Caniff to create the new strip, providing Caniff with the idea of setting the strip in the Orient. A profile of Caniff in Time recounts the episode:
- Patterson... asked: "Ever do anything on the Orient?" Caniff hadn't. "You know," Joe Patterson mused, "adventure can still happen out there. There could be a beautiful lady pirate, the kind men fall for." In a few days Caniff was back with samples and 50 proposed titles; Patterson circled Terry and scribbled beside it and the Pirates.
Caniff's biographer R.C. Harvey
R. C. Harvey
Robert C. Harvey , popularly known as R. C. Harvey, is an author, critic and cartoonist. He has written a number of books on the history of the medium, with special focus on the history of the comic strip, and he has also worked as a freelance cartoonist.Harvey describes himself as having created...
suggests that Patterson had been reading about women pirates in one of two books (or both) published a short time earlier: I Sailed with Chinese Pirates by Aleko Lilius
Aleko Lilius
Aleko Axel August Eugen Lilius, was an explorer, free-lance writer and photographer, variously described as an “English journalist,” “Russian-Finnish,” “an English writer of Finnish origins,” “a United States citizen of Finnish origin,” a “Swedish journalist and adventurer,” and an “intrepid...
and Vampires of the Chinese Coast by Bok (pseudonym
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
for unknown). Women pirates in the South China Sea
South China Sea
The South China Sea is a marginal sea that is part of the Pacific Ocean, encompassing an area from the Singapore and Malacca Straits to the Strait of Taiwan of around...
figure in both books, especially the one by Lilius, a portion of which is dedicated to the mysterious and real-life "queen of the pirates" (Lilius’ phrase), named Lai Choi San
Lai Choi San
Lai Choi San was a 20th century Chinese pirate. She was the most powerful and well-known female pirate leader in Chinese history, rivaled perhaps only by Cheng I Sao of the previous century, commanding a fleet of some 12 junks in the area of Macao and the South China Sea during the 1920s and 30s...
. "Lai Choi San" is a transliteration from Cantonese
Standard Cantonese
Cantonese, or Standard Cantonese, is a language that originated in the vicinity of Canton in southern China, and is often regarded as the prestige dialect of Yue Chinese....
, the native language of the woman, herself—thus, the way she pronounced her own name. Caniff appropriated the Chinese name, Lai Choi San, as the "real name" of his Dragon Lady, a fact that led both Lilius and Bok to protest. Patterson pointed out that both books claimed to be non-fiction and that the name belonged to a real person; thus, neither the fact of a woman pirate nor her name could be copyrighted. (Neither Bok nor Lilius had used the actual term "Dragon Lady.") Sources are not clear on whether it was Patterson or Caniff who coined that actual term, though it was almost certainly one of the two.
Usage
Since the 1930s, when "Dragon Lady" became fixed in the English language, the term has been applied countless times to powerful Asian women, from Soong May-lingSoong May-ling
Soong May-ling or Soong Mei-ling, also known as Madame Chiang Kai-shek or Madame Chiang was a First Lady of the Republic of China , the wife of Generalissimo and President Chiang Kai-shek. She was a politician and painter...
, also known as Madame Chiang Kai-shek, to Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu
Madame Ngo Dinh Nhu
Trần Lệ Xuân , popularly known as Madame Nhu, was considered the first lady of South Vietnam from 1955 to 1963. She was the wife of Ngo Dinh Nhu who was the brother and chief adviser to President Ngo Dinh Diem...
of Vietnam and to any number of racially Asian film actresses. That stereotype—as is the case with other racial caricatures—has generated a large quantity of sociological literature.
Today, "Dragon Lady" is often applied anachronistically to refer to persons who lived before the term became part of American slang in the 1930s. For example, one finds the term in recent works about the "Dragon Lady" Empress Dowager
Empress Dowager
Empress Dowager was the title given to the mother of a Chinese, Korean, Japanese or Vietnamese emperor.The title was also given occasionally to another woman of the same generation, while a woman from the previous generation was sometimes given the title of Grand empress dowager. Numerous empress...
Cixi
Empress Dowager Cixi
Empress Dowager Cixi1 , of the Manchu Yehenara clan, was a powerful and charismatic figure who became the de facto ruler of the Manchu Qing Dynasty in China for 47 years from 1861 to her death in 1908....
, who was alive at the turn of the 19th to the 20th Century, or references to Chinese-American actress Anna May Wong as having started her career in the 1920s and early 1930s in "Dragon Lady" roles. In both these cases, however, articles written in the early 1900s about the Empress Dowager or reviews of Wong’s early films such as The Thief of Bagdad
The Thief of Bagdad
The Thief of Bagdad may refer to:A novel and its film adaptations:* The Thief of Bagdad , a 1924 novel by Achmed Abdullah, derived from elements of One Thousand and One Nights fables...
(1924) or Daughter of the Dragon (1931) — reviews written when the films appeared — make no use of the term "Dragon Lady". (One writer, however, did refer to the Empress Dowager as "a little lady Bismarck.") Today’s anachronistic use of "Dragon Lady" in such cases may lead the modern reader to assume that the term was in earlier use than appears to be the case.
The term was recently used in the episode "Margin of Error
Margin of Error (The Wire episode)
"Margin of Error" is the sixth episode of the fourth season of the HBO original series The Wire. Written by Eric Overmyer from a story by Ed Burns & Eric Overmyer, and directed by Dan Attias, it originally aired on October 15, 2006.-Title reference:...
" of the acclaimed HBO series, The Wire
The WIRE
the WIRE is the student-run College radio station at the University of Oklahoma, broadcasting in a freeform format. The WIRE serves the University of Oklahoma and surrounding communities, and is staffed by student DJs. The WIRE broadcasts at 1710 kHz AM in Norman, Oklahoma...
. In the episode, Namond
Namond Brice
Namond Brice is a fictional character on the HBO drama The Wire, played by Julito McCullum. Namond is the son of Wee-Bey Brice and De'Londa Brice and was a middle school pupil during season 4. He is friends with Michael Lee and Randy Wagstaff and often bullies Duquan "Dukie" Weems...
, an aspiring drug dealer, watches as his mother, De'Londa Brice, fiercely berates Namond's boss Bodie over her son's employment on his corner. After Bodie concedes he exclaims, "Your mom, that's what niggas
Nigga
Nigga is a term used in African American Vernacular English that began as an eye dialect form of the word nigger .- Use in language :In practice, its use and meaning are...
call a Dragon Lady." Bodie's usage of the term in this sense is an example of the stereotype not being limited to just Asian-American women but African-American women as well.
"Dragon Lady" in Chinese culture
Whereas "Dragon lady" is a stereotype in Western culture, it is not in Eastern culture. For one thing, Western dragons are fire-breathing. Eastern dragons mostly live in water and their job is to bring rain. The term sometimes has a positive connotation in Chinese.Long Nu
Long Nu
Long Nü , translated as Dragon Daughter, along with Sudhana are considered acolytes of the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara within Chinese Buddhism. However there are no scriptural sources connecting both Sudhana and Long Nu to Avalokiteśvara at the same time...
(龍女, dragon lady) is a disciple of Bodhisattva
Bodhisattva
In Buddhism, a bodhisattva is either an enlightened existence or an enlightenment-being or, given the variant Sanskrit spelling satva rather than sattva, "heroic-minded one for enlightenment ." The Pali term has sometimes been translated as "wisdom-being," although in modern publications, and...
Guanyin in folklore. In "The Return of the Condor Heroes
The Return of the Condor Heroes
The Return of the Condor Heroes is a wuxia novel by Jin Yong, and the second part of the Condor Trilogy. It was first serialized between May 20, 1959 and July 5, 1961 on Ming Pao. The story revolves around Yang Guo and his lover Xiaolongnü in their adventure in the wulin fraternity, which does not...
", Xiaolongnü
Xiaolongnü
Xiaolongnü is the fictional female protagonist of Jin Yong's wuxia novel The Return of the Condor Heroes. The author describes her physical appearances as "skin as white as snow, beautiful and elegant beyond convention and cannot be underestimated, but appears cold and indifferent" .-Name:It is...
(Little Dragon Maiden) is the female main character.
See also
- Ethnic stereotypeEthnic stereotypeAn ethnic stereotype is a generalized representation of an ethnic group, composed of what are thought to be typical characteristics of members of the group.Ethnic stereotypes are commonly portrayed in ethnic jokes.-Ethnic stereotypes:*African Americans...
- Ethnic stereotypes in comicsEthnic stereotypes in comicsReflecting the changing political climate, the representation of racial and ethnic minorities in comic books have also evolved over time. This article is intended to document and discuss historical and contemporary racial and ethnic stereotypes in the medium of mainstream comics.-Sociopolitical...
- Femme fataleFemme fataleA femme fatale is a mysterious and seductive woman whose charms ensnare her lovers in bonds of irresistible desire, often leading them into compromising, dangerous, and deadly situations. She is an archetype of literature and art...
- Stereotypes of East and Southeast Asians
- Stereotypes of South AsiansStereotypes of South AsiansStereotypes of South Asians are oversimplified ethnic stereotypes of South Asian people, and are found in many Western societies. Stereotypes of South Asians have been collectively internalized by societies, and are manifested by a society's media, literature, theatre and other creative expressions...
- Stereotypes of West and Central Asians
- Ling WooLing WooLing Woo is a fictional character in the US comedy-drama Ally McBeal, portrayed by American actress Lucy Liu. Ling was a cold and ferocious Chinese American lawyer who spoke Mandarin and was knowledgeable in the art of sexual pleasure unknown to the Western world...