Celebrity, ageing and Jackie Chan: middle-aged Asian in transnational action

Abstract

Assessing ageing is one of the key tasks confronting celebrity and star studies today. If film could reflect upon its own relation to death only from the 1950s on, in films such as Sunset boulevard (1950) and Whatever happened to Baby Jane (1962), where ‘the aging process of the first generation of stars exposed a glamour worn thin on screen’, today ‘the allure of the star’ is most definitely ‘inseparable from his or her heroism and ruin’ (Celeste 2005, Journal of Popular Film and Television, 33, pp. 32, 29). Today, moreover, middle age increasingly matters. With 78 million people in the US aged 44–62, internet and print marketing, movies, television and more tout rejuvenation through Botox, steroids, plastic surgery and wardrobe/cosmetic make-overs. Hollywood stars and celebrities point us towards a brave new world where mature adulthood is seen primarily in chronological, biological and medical terms. It is no coincidence that photographs of healthy, wealthy stars grace each issue of AARP Magazine. Trainers, nips, tucks, lighting, make-up and digital retouching all help. Nor is it coincidence that roughly half are men – most white; a goodly number black. What, however, of middle-aged, Asian, male celebrities? Global mega-star Jackie Chan offers the perfect opportunity to explore ageing, race and masculinity in transnational action. Drawing upon Gina Marchetti's analysis of Chan's ‘flexible masculinity’ in the Rush hour trilogy (2009), I study the nine films released theatrically post-2000 featuring the middle-aged star. In conclusion, I speculate upon what the future will bring, remembering that we are all ‘aged by culture.’ Screen Actors Guild (SAG) statistics chillingly indicate just how few roles are available to actors (if especially to actresses) of all races after 40. Asians in particular are marginalised. Might other models of ageing be possible? How do film stars and celebrities impact upon conceptions and experiences of ageing today in our increasingly ‘mediagenic’ culture? Jackie Chan serves here as ‘special case’ and as ‘test case’.

Keywords:

• Jackie Chan
• ageing
• middle age
• action film
• masculinity

Notes

1. ‘AARP’ stands for American Association of Retired People, the foremost organisation advocating on behalf of older and retired people in the United States. AARP Magazine was called Modern Maturity before 2002.

2. Beginning in Malaysia, moving to the Sahara, then Johannesburg, and finally Rotterdam, Who Am I? addresses questions of citizenship (Marchetti, 2001). Kwai-Cheung Lo (1996) and Kenneth Chan (2004) make similar points about other films.

3. Because other Asian productions have gone straight-to-DVD in the United States I do not analyse them here. I also do not analyse San suk si gin (Shinjuku incident, Tung Shing Yee, 2009), although it has been played theatrically in select US cities.

4. Laikwan Pang (2007, p. 209) says Hong Kong is losing its local identity because it is now situated between the global and the national. Yet Hong Kong cinema may never have had a ‘local’ identity, split as it was between Cantonese and Mandarin-language film-making. None the less, argues Meghan Morris (2005, p. 10), today it is increasingly ‘multi-glossic’ in orientation.

5. In most of his Hong Kong films, Chan is a ‘sexless loner’ (Gallagher 2001, p. 17).

6. Some examples include Jui kuen (Drunken master, Wo-ping Yuen, 1979), Jui kuen II (Drunken master II, Chia-Liang Liu, 1994), ‘A’ gai wak (Project A, Jackie Chan, 1983), ‘A’ gai wak juk jap (Project A II, Jackie Chan, 1987), Ging chat goo si (Jackie Chan's police story, Jackie Chan, 1985), Ging chaat goo si juk japp (Police story II, Jackie Chan, 1988), Ging chat goo si 3 (Police story III, Stanley Tong, 1992), Ging chaat goo si 4 (Police story IV, a.k.a. First strike, Stanley Tong, 1996), Long xiong hu di (Armour of God, Jackie Chan, 1986) and Fei ying gai wak (Armour of God II, Jackie Chan, 1990).

7. In the first film Soo Yung (Julia Hsu) is a child. Like the majority of female characters in Chan's films, she is adept at martial arts.

8. See also Hunt, 2003, pp. 168–189.

9. O'Hehir (2001, p. 58) dislikes Tucker because he ‘flirts with minstrel-show caricatures’. Ebert (2001, online) finds him misogynist, aggressive and obnoxious. Rush hour 2’s constant play with sexual and ethnic stereotypes offers neither critique nor reversal. The first major Hollywood film to be shot in Hong Kong, it consistently backs away from local concerns as well.

10. Shanghai noon joked about the Western. Because Shanghai knights takes place largely in London, it cannot parody Western conventions.

11. The relative anonymity of Steve Coogan in the United States led Walden to pay six-figure salaries for cameos by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Luke Wilson (Fleming and Dunkley 2004, p. 4).

12. Chan (2004, pp. 89–90) concentrates instead on the film's politics. He likes the undermining of the ‘political seriousness of Bond as a cinematic figure of Cold War ideology’ and the ‘sexualizing of James Tong as a character’, viewing the latter ‘as a contribution to the filmic representation of Asian men as sexual beings’. He also argues that ‘the tuxedo becomes a narrative device through which Jackie Chan, the kung fu star, can again demonstrate and authenticate to his audiences his daredevilry, hence making invisible the tuxedo: Chan does not require any special suit to perform the incredible stunts, to fight like a pro, and to sing and dance’.

13. Berardinelli (2003, online) agrees that Chan's ‘action days are long behind him … [T]rying to keep him ducking, dodging, fighting, and scrapping is leading to diminishing result’.

14. In many of his Hong Kong movies, Chan recreates Keaton's stunts: Ging chaat goo si 4 (First strike) echoes The navigator (1924); Fei ying gai wak (Armour of God II, a.k.a. Operation condor) and Sing si lip yan (City hunter, Stanley Tong 1993) recreate stunts from Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928); ‘A’ gai wak juk jap (Project A II ) reformats another stunt from the same film, and taps Cops (1922) and Convict 13 (1920), too; Ging chat goo si 3 (Police story 3, a.k.a. Supercop) transforms two stunts from The general (1927); Ging chat goo si (Police Story) redoes The cameraman (1928); Shuan long hui (Twin dragons, Ringo Lam, Hark Tsui, 1992) plays with The playhouse (1921) (Corcoran 2002, p. 127).

15. Men over 40 get 43% of all male roles. This number is slightly higher (by 3%) than in 2006. Women over 40 get only 28% of all female roles. This number is unchanged since 2006 (Screen Actors Guild, 2009, online).

16. He founded the Asian-based Jackie Chan Foundation in 1988. The Foundation runs summer fitness camps and programmes for at-risk teens, a student film festival, a drama workshop for disabled children and sports tournaments. Chan has also supported the Asian Youth Orchestra, offered scholarships, given thousands of bicycles to orphanages in Korea and Taiwan and donated surgical equipment to remote villages in mainland China (Gray 1999, p. S-10). Other charity efforts include donating $1.5 million to fight the SARS epidemic in 2003, giving money to tsunami relief in 2004 and earthquake relief in 2008 and supporting the 2008 Beijing Olympics.