Themes of Whiteness in Bulletproof Monk, Kill Bill, and The Last Samurai

Abstract

In 2003, Hollywood released three major films in which a White protagonist ‘‘mastering’’ an Asian martial art was part of the narrative: Kill Bill, The Last Samurai, and Bulletproof Monk. In each film, the protagonist’s ethnicity is questioned as an inhibition but found to be irrelevant. It is the position of the present study that these films are beneficially understood through a theoretical framework of strategic rhetoric of whiteness expressed in four common themes: The supraethnic viability of whiteness, the necessary defeat of Asians, the disallowance of anti-White sentiment, and the presence of at least one helpful and/or generous Asian cohort. The themes’ presence in the films, as well as their implications, both local and global, are examined in detail. Whiteness and the American martial arts films The martial arts film originated in Asia and first gained widespread popularity in America in the 1970s with the rise to stardom of Bruce Lee. During the 1980s, martial arts returned to American theaters but with a significant shift in the ethnic makeup of the martial arts star. In Bruce Lee’s absence, White men such as Chuck Norris, Jean Claude Van Damme, and Steven Seagal gained fame as ‘‘martial arts’’ actors. The shift in the ethnicity is a significant change that demands investigation because in 2003, Kill Bill, The Last Samurai, and Bulletproof Monk again made a White person ‘‘mastering’’ Asian martial arts a narrative theme in mainstream American film. It is the position of the present study that these films are beneficially understood through a theoretical framework of strategic rhetoric of whiteness. Themes of whiteness inform and affect the narrative structure of these films, allowing for perpetuation of specific ideological constructs of whiteness that include ethnic superiority and recurrent, stringent assignment of roles and functions based on ethnicity.