Reel Talk: Bruce Lee's Legacy and Birth of the Dragon

In the modern cultural landscape, Bruce Lee is more myth than man. An icon on par Muhammad Ali, Lee's image, fighting style, and physical feats have been consistently celebrated, embellished, and idolized in everything from t-shirts, video games (i.e. Mortal Kombat and Tekken), and even completely fake videos that we share on social media (no he didn't actually play someone in ping pong using nun-chucks). Hell you could argue that the success of the Ip Man franchise is partially based on the real-life Wing Chun master's connection to Lee. As such, it makes sense that Hollywood would want to develop their own origin story about Lee and his legendary life.

However, even before its hit theaters the latest Bruce Lee inspired film, Birth of the Dragon, has hit roadblocks. Most of the criticism has been heaped upon the film's script which allegedly tells the story of Lee's rise in the martial arts scene from a white man's perspective. As I haven't seen the film I can't verify or deny this claim, but if this is the case that's a gigantic problem. Here's a couple of reasons why.

White Filmmakers Have A Biased Point of View

When Detroit was released early this month there was a pretty stark divide in reception between white critics and critics of color (not all on either side). While many white critics lauded Detroit for its hard-hitting story and emotional impact, many black critics felt the film had a detached perspective by focusing on police abuses and cover-up instead of the emotional impact of such violence and injustice. You could argue this is partially due to director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal's stylistic preferences, usually very procedural, but it's hard to imagine a black director or writer presenting police violence as a horrific outlier in American life.

Generally, I don't think film-makers are ill-intentioned when they make films about people of other races. But it will make plenty of people suspicious before they even see a single frame of your film, if your movie's subject is a person of color and the majority of your team is white. Because try as you might to put yourself in the person's shoes, a white man is ill-equipped to comment on the Asian-American experience in 1960s San Francisco.

Perhaps the team behind Birth of the Dragon took this into account and that's why they included a white character. However, when the subject matter is arguably one of the most iconic Asian-Americans of all time, someone behind the camera or writing the script with a similar background should be weighing in.

It Adds To A Long Cultural History of Colonialism

One of the remnants of European colonial expansion is fiction that features white men discovering things like hidden cities, natives with different customs, or individuals with seemingly inhuman abilities. Anything you can imagine Edgar Rice Burroughs or Rudyard Kipling writing fits this model.

Historically this played out in movies where a white man embraces another culture and becomes its champion or white savior (films as recently as The Last Samurai follow this model). But the white observer model isn't much better.

Not only because of the aforementioned bias in this perspective, but it implies that this story needed to be conveyed by someone else. Put another way, if Lee's martial arts origins are impressive enough the story would find an audience without its white translator.

Bruce Lee Pushed For His Voice and Inclusion

One of the reasons Bruce Lee remains an icon is his originality. There's so much about him and his persona that is instantly iconic. His fighting style, the noises he made when he completed moves, his training regimens, and nun-chucks are all immediately recognizable. And that's not by accident.

Lee left the U.S. to pursue leading roles in Hong Kong. After his two film deal he set up his own production company. Enter the Dragon was made in conjunction with the American Warner Bros. and Hong Kong's Golden Harvest studios. Be it a fight scene or a philosophical musing, Lee's films are full of his identity as a man and martial artist.

Which is why making a movie about him that's not from his perspective is not only bad form in modern cinema, it goes against the legacy of the man it's about.