Shifting Focus: Asian German Film Representation since 1910

SHIFTING FOCUS: ASIAN GERMAN FILM REPRESENTATION SINCE 1910 constitutes the first ever full-length critical history of Asia and Asians within German cinema. I insist that Asian subjects and influence in German film are not wholly invisible, as is often polemically stated. Instead, Asians on German screens are figuratively blurry and out of focus, in a depth of field beyond our line of sight. Refocusing our attention on Asian representation reveals over 300 films that belong to a counter-history of German cinema since 1910. The main criterion of my selection process for films to analyze is the prevalence of South, Southeast, and/or East Asian topoi. By including films with Asian settings, Asian filming locations, Asian characters, credited actors of Asian descent in at least supporting roles, Asian-coded props, and/or film titles referencing Asia, I have amassed a substantial body of films fulfilling some or all of these criteria. Chapter Two of this dissertation provides a chronological overview, writing Asian representation (back) into German film history. Chapter Three explores recurring tropes in the representations of Asians through German cinema, tracing how certain filmic stereotypes employed a century ago still occur today. Chapter Four outlines a selection of subversive and empowering moments in film history that complicate the recurring representational stereotypes covered in Chapter Three. After these more overarching chronological and thematic/formal analyses, Chapters Five and Six spotlight two landmark examples of Asian German representation that are, thus far, lacking in critical scholarship; through theoretically informed analyses, these case studies will demonstrate the importance of an Asian German film studies lens. My dissertation looks beyond traditional notions of national cinema and the canon to paint a more heterogeneous, nuanced picture of who and what comprises German cinema and culture. The increased awareness of anti-Asian racism sparked by reactions to COVID-19 is a reminder that my work is prescient, as it provides a visual/filmic history of Orientalist discourses and tropes that have helped shape conceptions of Asianness today. However, I also use this broad corpus of films to highlight several opportunities for the contemporary Asian German community to find much-needed points of identification and empowerment.