Steriotypes in American and International Jackie Chan films

I recently did a report that keyed in on the relationship between films featuring the action star Jackie Chan and stereotypes that both he and his Chinese co-stars display in his films. Throughout my research I keyed in on the following stereotypes, all Chinese know Kung Fu, the Chinese people are submissive, Chinese people communicate using over the top animated actions, and Chinese men display more feminine characteristics then say American men. My hypothesis before beginning the research for my report was as follows. In films that were shot in China and Hong Kong that were primarily made for a Chinese audience there would be no strong stereotypical Chinese actions displayed. In contrast I believed that i would find strong Chinese stereotypes in the films shot outside of China with a more broad viewing audience in mind, of which included American citizens. I ended up watching Police Story and Project A for the control (movies filmed in China/Hong Kong) and Rumble in the Bronx, Rush Hour, and Operation Condor for the movies that I believed would display the stereotypes i was hunting for.

What I found was not exactly what I expected. In the first two movies that I watched (Police Story and Project A) I discovered that both of these movies supported the stereotypes that all Chinese know Kung Fu and that the Chinese people communicate using over the top animated actions. However, the other two stereotypes I was looking for (submissive and feminine men) were both none existent in the movies. Jackie's characters had love interests in both movies and he was never overly submissive. In fact in Project A, Jackie even yelled at his superiors.

The American/International films were a different story. All of the stereotypes rang true. After the evaluation of these movies I realized that it was not fair to judge them as far as stereotypes go without first running them through sort of a "Jackie filter". Jackie's movies are always all about Kung Fu. That is his style. Jackie was also trained as a child in the art of Chinese Opera and finally, Jackie does slapstick comedy. These three facts together invalidate the presence of the stereotypes that all Chinese know Kung Fu and that the Chinese use exaggerated actions. The invalidation of the Kung Fu stereotype is obvious and I feel that the exaggerated actions stereotype is invalid because all slapstick style comedy uses these super exaggerated auctions to convey a comedic style. Also, through Jackies Opera training I figured that he was probably taught to use exaggerated auctions so that people in the audience could understand the emotions the performers were trying to display.

My conclusion was that movies such as Jackies actually help spread steriotypical ideas and that these movies must be viewed in the light that they were simpy made for entertainment and in no way display how the Chinese truly act.

I would love to hear what you all have to say about this topic. What experiances with this have you come across?