Is "Breakfast at Tiffany's" — the lighthearted 1961 classic starring Audrey Hepburn — a racist film that perpetuates negative Asian stereotypes?
Asian American activists think so, and Sacramento, Calif., Vice Mayor Steve Cohn agrees — he plans to bleep out offensive scenes when he shows the film in his district Saturday.
Thursday, Cohn publicly apologized to Sacramento's Asian American community and the rest of the citizenry for including the film in his Screen on the Green free movie series.
"We were unaware of this racist content," he said.
In the movie, Mickey Rooney plays Mr. Yunioshi, the bumbling, cantankerous upstairs neighbor of Audrey Hepburn's character, country girl turned socialite Holly Golightly.
Rooney's character "conjures all the requisite 'Jap' stereotypes: grotesque buckteeth, thick-rimmed glasses, unforgivable 'Asian' accent," wrote Dr. Christina Fa of San Francisco-based Asian American Media Watch in a letter to Cohn.
Fa, a longtime Sacramento resident, called the film "arguably the most racist anti-Asian film in American cinematic history" and asked it be canceled. The movie won two Academy Awards for its music.
Read the complete story at sacbee.com.
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