stereotype met with stereotype: An example from a musical

here is how much some of the younger vietnamese hated McKintosh's Miss Saigon. Yet I sang one (or two) of the featured tunes from it (Yvette and Kim). It is a nice, haunting tune. All this anger about a broadway musical is like stereotype met with stereotype. If Ms. Saigon is stereotype, then the reasons for disliking it so intensely are also based on stereotypes. Miss Saigon is West End/Broadway remake of Puccini's Madam Butterfly. the casting of both was always controversial. All this intense dislike of Miss Saigon and Madam Butterfly seems to be the making of something so gravely socio-political out of sheer beautiful music and spectacular stage setting, as though the tragic love story between an Asian woman and an American soldier were the humiliation of national identity on an international scope!
The truth is: the remake of Madam Butterfly in modern music was inspired by the sight of a real vietnamese woman putting her real AmeriAsian baby on the real baby-lift airplane to America: a true story!

So the story of Vietnam for the past century to date has all been about fighters and no victims? that's the reality? Give me a break!

I Am Miss Saigon, and I Hate It

Diep Tran reflects on how the musical “Miss Saigon” perpetuates Orientalist stereotypes and narratives in which the Vietnamese are victims, not fighters. This article was originally pub…

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