Sean Connery is a laughable as an Asian

Most people know I love James Bond. It's a family ritual that goes back to my dad -- watch James Bond while making turkeyburgers or something else in batches large enough to feed armies and then putting them into the deep freeze.

I finally got a chance to see You Only Live Twice on Spike (formerly TNN, until the frat-boy market got large enough to get people's attention). The one thing I found funny about that movie was the idea of Sean Connery posing as a Japanese man to infiltrate a fishing village near Blofeld's volcano hideout. Frankly, slapping a black wig on him, shaving his chest hair off and making him tanner made him about as Asian as slapping "flesh" makeup on the Wayans brothers and calling them a bunch of White Chicks.

While yellowface has been common in popular media in America for the longest time, with such legends such as Katharine Hepburn and Mickey Rooney bringing their own special spin on the Asian look to roles, it's hard for me to get offended at the idea of James Bond posing as a Japanese man. I'll get pissed off about Mickey Rooney's performance in Breakfast at Tiffany's, but Bond? Hell, I can let this slide.

James Bond, first off, isn't Japanese to begin with. He's a British secret service agent who was trying to blend into the background. Mercifully he didn't do the broad Asian accent or anything like that -- whenever he opened his mouth, the rich Scottish brogue came out. I thought it was funny as hell to think that Blofeld wouldn't notice something weird -- along the lines of, "Who's that six-foot, hairy Scottish guy trying to pretend he's Japanese?"

Granted, there's still the "ancient Asian secret" thing going on in the movie -- as well as the idea that all Asian things are exotic -- but it's not as horrid as Live and Let Die, which takes the whole blaxploitation thing to a whole new level. For 1967, a Japanese woman played a secret agent -- that survives to the end and is around for the fight is kinda cool. Granted, she didn't do much in the final fight except look scared, but most Bond girls were like that for the longest time -- or at least the ones who weren't villans. Besides, my heart belongs to Michelle Yeoh, who was a cool, ass-kicking, smart Bond girl who did her own thing way before Jinx stepped into the picture.