Would you edit Mickey Rooney out of Breakfast at Tiffany's?

So the acting bothers you - but the rampant racism doesn't?

And I don't think objecting to racism really qualifies as being "PC"...

 

I don't think it was intentionally racist against japanesse. Just an annoying neighbor done in the worst taste possible.

 

With any movie, you have to consider the social atmosphere in which it was created. Was Rooney's character viewed as racist at the time? I don't know - my gut says "yes, to a degree", but not to the degree it would be seen that way today.

Apparently the "New York Times" didn't mind. This is all their review says about Rooney:

"Mickey Rooney's bucktoothed, myopic Japanese is broadly exotic."

On the other hand, the "Hollywood Reporter" said this:

"Mickey Rooney gives his customary all to the part of a Japanese photographer, but the role is a caricature and will be offensive to many."

Pauline Kael seemed to be between the two:

"Mickey Rooney does a wild bit of racial caricature as the Japanese photographer who lives in the apartment above Holly's: it's the most lowdown and daring thing in the movie."

Do I think those involved believed Rooney's performance was truly racist? No, but I think they knew they walked a line. You could get away with a lot more racial stereotyping in 1961 than you can now, but there were still limits, and Rooney crossed a line.

To me, the racist nature of the performance is inseparable from his "annoying" tendencies. Mr. Yunioshi is annoying mainly because he's such a gross stereotype. If Rooney had played him as a cranky white guy, he wouldn't have been so unbearable...

 

Agreed. That opening scene and the one where she's on the fire escape singing the song are luminous. The rest is just sentimental crap.

 

He showed up on Karina Longworth's You Must Remember This podcast last year doing his Mickey Rooney impersonation for one of her episodes about MGM, but playing it completely straight. It was outstanding.

 

I've honestly never understood the love for "Tiffany's". I think it's a miscast mess of a movie.

I think a lot of it has to do with fondness for Hepburn, but she was almost as miscast as Rooney. I just don't accept Hepburn as a flighty socialite who uses men for money - especially one who's from Texas! Hepburn is far too regal for the role.

The producers considered Marilyn Monroe for the part, and she would've made much more sense. She seemed virtually perfect for the part!

 

Capote thought Monroe was a better fit for Holly, but the movie has only the slightest resemblance to the original story, which is much darker, and in which Capote is the observer and confidant to the Holly character but doesn't actually participate. There's no romance, just a series of vignettes about a self destructive character who seems doomed to remain stuck in her lifestyle. You can see why Capote thought of Marilyn Monroe.

The film is like the version of the story that's left after you take all the substance away: the title, the name of the main character, and the idea of Holly as a semi-tragic heroine who wants to find love but makes all the wrong decisions regarding men.

 

Never liked Peppard in the movie. Rate Rooney, don't think this was meant in a derogatory way ..just a fun character in the movie. Again, viewing things a half century later in movies there's a different perspective. Did the French ever complain about "Clouseau " played by a Englishman ?

 

Thanks to George Costanza, I'm aware of some of the changes between book and movie!

Just looking at the movie itself, I still think Monroe made more sense. Hepburn couldn't pull off any of the personality traits required for the part, IMO...

 

White people playing white people isn't really racism, is it?

And I don't think Clouseau was even really a parody of the French - he was his own weird thing.

Mr. Yunioshi was just insanely racist. As I said, people had wider leeway with such characters back then than they would now - we had a thread about Buddy Hackett's "Chinese Waiter" that got contentious because of arguments about the subject - but I still think that even for 1961, Rooney's performance was racist...

 

I'm amazed that there is even a discussion over whether or not this character is racist and offensive.

He's not "just a fun character". Everything about him that is "funny" (and I use the term in the broadest sense possible) is based on an offensive stereotype. I'll not dignify them by listing them but I think they are fairly apparent. There is nothing uniquely "funny" to the character that isn't a stereotype - changing the character to one of nebulous ethnicity would entail a total rewrite, would it not?

One needn't be Japanese to be offended by this character.

I'm not offended because I'm Japanese (I'm not). I'm not offended because one of my oldest friends is Japanese (he is). I'm offended because I'm a human being, and don't like to see large swaths of people belittled in this manner.

To address the OP's question, I would mostly certainly not edit the character out of the film. I taught a mini-course on racial and ethnic stereotypes in film to high school students, and I prominently featured excerpts from this film. None of the students had ever seen the film before (it's "old") - there was no laughter, only gasps.

 

I haven't seen the movie. How much of his screen time could you cut without affecting something important?

 

There's nothing important about his role. He's her apartment neighbor who has to let her in the building when she forgets her key, so hey gets mad. Its meant as comic relief, but even in the 60s I find it hard to believe anyone thought it was funny. Probably could cut 5 minutes of screen time that has no bearing on the plot.

 

I think the fondness for this, and also a big favorite of mine, Sabrina, is just plain because of Audrey Hepburn. Both films aren't meant to be realistic at all, and both are carried purely because of Audrey's charm. I think of them both as "cocktail" movies, light entertainment, full of charm, and not intended to be The 400 Blows, you know?

One scene though I think Audrey completely nails that I don't think Marilyn could do, and that's the scene where Lula Mae has to tell Doc she's not coming with him. I think Audrey's vulnerability in that single scene, and coming mid film, completely carries anything before or after it. While I think Marilyn was slightly underrated as an actress, I don't think she could make that kind of sadness, with subtle shades, believable. I completely buy her in that scene that she's made a new life, a new facade, to completely wall off that old part of her life.

 

Totally agree. Hepburn is entirely different league from Monroe as an actress. Casting Marilyn to play Holly (basically a cross between a socialite and a kept woman) would be such an obvious cliche, given her sex appeal. Casting Audrey, an almost exact opposite of Monroe was a strike of genius as was her rendition of Moon River. That's why people are still fascinated by BAT.

 

I'm pretty sure director Blake Edwards is on record as saying he regrets having the character in the movie.
That said, I wouldn't change it at all. It's there, deal with it, letting retrospective PC attitudes dictate what should or should not be allowable is just plain dumb. I don't like some of the stereotypes in "The Boys In The Band" but I don't wish them gone.

Anyone interested in the film should read the short story it's based on, quite an eye opener.

 

I can hear it now. "It's racist for editing out slavery, pretending it never happened." There's no winning for that film.

 

It's the rampant moralizing like this that often gets threads closed down. Don't expect someone else to be bothered by your interpretation of racism. You are being as judgmental as you perceive others to be.

Intolerance comes in many forms.

 

yes, be tolerant to those pesky racists

 

No. Not sure where you get that. Simple message: do not be intolerant. Racism is obviously wrong. There are other forms of intolerance on display here.

PM me if you wish but I won't continue on this thread because these topics have a way of spiraling down as this one already has .......

I'm just as guilty for getting involved.

 

no w

No worries, it's just that every time something serious gets said about something, the "anti-PC" folks come out and complain that people are being too sensitive. It's like they wish they could go back to a time where you could just make fun of people for being being gay, or a different race, or a different religion, or the fact that someone was poor, or just plain different than their 1950s white America. And I just don't have much "tolerance" for it.

 

let's leave our movies from the past alone and intact...

 

Indeed...

 

Sure, but if Mr. Yunioshi doesn't qualify as "racist", what the heck does???

If you wanna call me "intolerant" because I think Rooney's performance is radically racist and I don't see how it could be viewed otherwise, rock on - I can live with that...