Dragon Lady is usually a stereotype of certain East Asian and occasionally

South Asian South Asia is the southern Subregion#Asia, subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geography, geographical and culture, ethno-cultural terms. The region consists of the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, ...

and/or

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...

n women as strong, deceitful, domineering, mysterious, and often sexually alluring. Inspired by the characters played by actress

Anna May Wong Wong Liu Tsong (January 3, 1905 – February 3, 1961), known professionally as Anna May Wong, was an American actress, considered the first Chinese-American movie star in Hollywood, as well as the first Chinese-American actress to gain intern ...

, the term comes from the female villain in the

comic strip A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st ...

Terry and the Pirates ''Terry and the Pirates'' is an action-adventure comic strip created by cartoonist Milton Caniff, which originally ran from October 22, 1934, to February 25, 1973. Captain Joseph Patterson, editor for the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate, ...

''. It has since been applied to powerful women from certain regions of

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...

, as well as a number of Asian and

Asian American Asian Americans are Americans of Asian ancestry (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of such immigrants). Although this term had historically been used for all the indigenous people ...

film actresses. The stereotype has generated a large quantity of sociological literature. "Dragon Lady" is sometimes applied to persons who lived before the term became part of American slang in the 1930s. "Dragon Lady" is one of two main stereotypes used to describe women, the other being "Lotus Blossoms". Lotus Blossoms tend to be the opposite of the Dragon Lady stereotype, having their character being hyper-sexualized and submissive. Dragon Lady is also used 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 Caniff Milton Arthur Paul Caniff (; February 28, 1907 – April 3, 1988) was an People of the United States, American cartoonist famous for the ''Terry and the Pirates (comic strip), Terry and the Pirates'' and ''Steve Canyon'' comic strips. Biography ...

in his

''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 The Yellow Peril (also the Yellow Terror and the Yellow Specter) is a racist, racial color terminology for race, color metaphor that depicts the peoples of East Asia, East and Southeast Asia as an existential danger to the Western world. As a ...

" fiction such as the

Fu Manchu Dr. Fu Manchu () is a supervillain who was introduced in a series of novels by the English author Sax Rohmer beginning shortly before World War I and continuing for another forty years. The character featured in cinema, television, radio, comic ...

series by

Sax Rohmer Arthur Henry "Sarsfield" Ward (15 February 1883 – 1 June 1959), better known as Sax Rohmer, was an English novelist. He is best remembered for his series of novels featuring the master criminal Dr. Fu Manchu."Rohmer, Sax" by Jack Adrian in Da ...

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'' is a 1931 American pre-Code crime mystery film 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. Wong plays Princess Ling Moy, a version of Fu Manchu's daughter

Fah Lo Suee Fah Lo Suee is a character who was introduced in the series of novels Dr. Fu Manchu by the English author Sax Rohmer (1883-1959). She is the daughter of Dr. Fu Manchu and an unnamed Russian woman, sometimes shown as an ally, sometimes shown as a ...

Page Act of 1875

The Page Act of 1875 limited the number of Chinese women allowed to immigrate into the United States, barring women from China, Japan, or any other Asian origin to enter the USA. This was a part of the Anti-Chinese movement. That later became the

Chinese Exclusion Act The Chinese Exclusion Act was a United States federal law signed by President Chester A. Arthur on May 6, 1882, prohibiting all immigration of Chinese laborers for 10 years. The law excluded merchants, teachers, students, travelers, and diplom ...

that prevented Chinese laborers from entering the USA from 1882 until it was repealed in 1943. It was thought that Chinese women bring prostitution. The Page Act was intended to control the Chinese American population. According to film historian Celine Parrenas Shimizu, in the early twentieth century most Chinese women in America were treated as prostitutes and this bled into American mainstream media, using the promiscuous image of the Dragon Lady as a way to denigrate Asian American women; they were sex objects to be exploited but not good enough to be American wives.

''Terry and the Pirates''

''Terry and the Pirates'' was an action-adventure comic strip created by cartoonist

. 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:

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 Robert C. Harvey (May 31, 1937 – July 7, 2022) was an American author, critic and cartoonist. He wrote a number of books on the history and theory of cartooning, with special focus on the comic strip. He also worked as a freelance cartoonist. ...

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 Axel August Eugen Lilius (2 April189024June 1977) was an explorer, businessman, diplomat, writer, journalist, and photographer of Finnish, Swedish, and Russian extraction. He has been described as an English journalist, a Russian Finn, an A ...

and ''Vampires of the Chinese Coast'' by Bok (

pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...

for unknown). Women pirates in the

South China Sea The South China Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean. It is bounded in the north by the shores of South China (hence the name), in the west by the Indochinese Peninsula, in the east by the islands of Taiwan and northwestern Phil ...

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 (meaning ''Mountain of Wealth'') was a Chinese people, Chinese pirate active in the 1920s and 1930s. Her historicity, or at the very least the historicity of most of what is known of her, is disputed since the main source on her life i ...

(). "Lai Choi San" is a transliteration from

Cantonese Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding are ...

, 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 East, Southeast and South Asian women, such as

Soong Mei-ling Soong Mei-ling (also spelled Soong May-ling, ; March 5, 1898 – October 23, 2003), also known as Madame Chiang Kai-shek or Madame Chiang, was a Chinese political figure who was First Lady of the Republic of China, the wife of Generalissimo and ...

, also known as Madame Chiang Kai-shek,

Madame Nhu Trần Lệ Xuân (22 August 1924 – 24 April 2011), more popularly known in English as Madame Nhu, was the ''de facto'' First Lady of South Vietnam from 1955 to 1963. She was the wife of Ngô Đình Nhu, who was the brother and chief advisor ...

of Vietnam,

Devika Rani Devika Rani Choudhuri (30 March 1908 – 9 March 1994), usually known as Devika Rani, was an Indian actress who was active in Hindi films during the 1930s and 1940s. Widely acknowledged as the first lady of Indian cinema, Devika Rani ha ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

, and to any number of Asian or Asian American 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 (also dowager empress or empress mother) () is the English language translation of the title given to the mother or widow of a Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or Vietnamese emperor in the Chinese cultural sphere. The title was also g ...

Cixi Empress Dowager Cixi ( ; mnc, Tsysi taiheo; formerly romanised as Empress Dowager T'zu-hsi; 29 November 1835 – 15 November 1908), of the Manchu Yehe Nara clan, was a Chinese noblewoman, concubine and later regent who effectively controlled ...

(Empress Dowager Tzu-hsi; ), who was alive at the turn of the 20th century, or references to Chinese-American actress

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 ''

'' (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.

was the contemporary actress to assume the Dragon Lady role in American Cinema in the movie ''

'', which premiered in 1931.

Josef von Sternberg Josef von Sternberg (; born Jonas Sternberg; May 29, 1894 – December 22, 1969) was an Austrian-American filmmaker whose career successfully spanned the transition from the silent to the sound era, during which he worked with most of the major ...

's 1941 ''

The Shanghai Gesture ''The Shanghai Gesture'' is a 1941 American film noir directed by Josef von Sternberg and starring Gene Tierney, Walter Huston, Victor Mature, and Ona Munson. It is based on a Broadway play of the same name by John Colton, which was adapted fo ...

'' contains a performance by

Ona Munson Ona Munson (born Owena Elizabeth Wolcott; June 16, 1903 – February 11, 1955) was an American film and stage actress. She starred in nine Broadway productions and 20 feature films in her career, which spanned over 30 years. Born and raised in ...

as 'Mother' Gin Sling, the proprietor of a gambling house, that bears mention within presentations of the genre. Contemporary actresses such as

Michelle Yeoh Michelle Yeoh Choo Kheng, ( ; born 6 August 1962) is a Malaysian actress. Credited as Michelle Khan in her early Hong Kong films, she rose to fame in the 1990s after starring in a series of Hong Kong action films where she performed her own ...

in ''

Tomorrow Never Dies ''Tomorrow Never Dies'' is a 1997 spy film, the eighteenth in the ''James Bond'' series produced by Eon Productions and the second to star Pierce Brosnan as fictional MI6 agent James Bond. Directed by Roger Spottiswoode from a screenplay by ...

'' may be constrained by the stereotype even when playing upstanding characters. These actresses portrayed characters whose actions are more masculine, sexually promiscuous, and violent.

Lucy Liu Lucy Alexis Liu is an American actress. Her accolades include winning a Critics' Choice Television Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards and a Seoul International Drama Award, in addition to nominations for a Primetime Emmy Award. Liu has star ...

is a 21st century example of the

Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood, ...

use of the Dragon Lady image, in her roles in '' Charlie’s Angels,

Kill Bill ''Kill Bill: Volume 1'' is a 2003 American martial arts film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. It stars Uma Thurman as the Bride, who swears revenge on a team of assassins (Lucy Liu, Michael Madsen, Daryl Hannah, and Vivica A. Fox) an ...

, and

Payback Payback may refer to: * Revenge, a harmful action against a person or group in response to a grievance Payback may also refer to: Art, entertainment, and media Fictional entities * Payback, a member of the fictional comics superhero team Shadow ...

.'' Other American films in which Asian women are hyper-sexualized include '' The Thief of Baghdad'', ''The Good Woman of Bangkok'', and ''101 Asian Debutantes'', where Asian women are portrayed as prostitutes. ''

Miss Saigon ''Miss Saigon'' is a stage musical by Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil, with lyrics by Boublil and Richard Maltby Jr. It is based on Giacomo Puccini's 1904 opera ''Madame Butterfly'', and similarly tells the tragic tale of a doomed rom ...

'' is an American musical with examples of this as well.

Hollywood costuming

Nancy Kwan cheongsam scene in Suzie Wong

Dragon Lady characters are visually defined by their emphasis on "otherness" and sexual promiscuity. An example of headwear for Dragon Lady costumes is the

Hakka The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka Han, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas are a Han Chinese subgroup whose ancestral homes are chiefly in the Hakka-speaking provincial areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, Zhej ...

hat or other headdresses with eastern inspiration. For body wear, traditionally Dragon Ladies have been put in sexualized renditions of the ''

cheongsam ''Cheongsam'' (, ), also known as the ''qipao'' () and sometimes referred to as the mandarin gown, is a Chinese dress worn by women which takes inspiration from the , the ethnic clothing of the Manchu people. The cheongsam is most often see ...

.'' Examples of this in '' The World of Susie Wong'' include

Nancy Kwan Nancy Kwan Ka-shen (; born May 19, 1939) is a Chinese-American actress, philanthropist, and former dancer. In addition to her personality and looks, her career was benefited by Hollywood's casting of more Asian roles in the 1960s, especially in ...

's character in cheongsam that accentuates her hips and breasts.

Explanatory notes

:1.

Lady Bracknell ''The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People'' is a play by Oscar Wilde. First performed on 14 February 1895 at the St James's Theatre in London, it is a farcical comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious ...

in Oscar Wilde's ''

The Importance of Being Earnest ''The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People'' is a play by Oscar Wilde. First performed on 14 February 1895 at the St James's Theatre in London, it is a farcical comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious ...

'', 1895, is described in such tones and the playwright all but uses the word ''dragon''. She is "perfectly unbearable. Never met such a Gorgon ... I don’t really know what a Gorgon is like, but I am quite sure that Lady Bracknell is one. In any case, she is a monster, without being a myth ..."

Background

Page Act of 1875

''Terry and the Pirates''

Usage

Hollywood costuming

See also

Explanatory notes

References

Further reading

Additional Milton Caniff bibliography