00:00In 2018, I watched the release of movies like Crazy Rich Asians and To All the Boys I've Loved Before
00:05gain international fame as necessary steps to a more diverse film industry.
00:10The success of these movies got me thinking about the role Asian actors have played in American film.
00:15And that led me to Anna Mae Wong.
00:23Anna Mae Wong is considered one of the first Asian American Hollywood stars,
00:27rising to fame in the 20s and 30s.
00:29I decided to take a walk in Anna's shoes this week.
00:32And by shoes, I mean makeup.
00:34But knowing little about how makeup was worn in the 20s and 30s,
00:36and even less about Anna's unique style,
00:39I decided to reach out to an expert.
00:41Gabriela Hernandez, founder of Best of May Cosmetics and makeup historian.
00:45So, how would you describe Anna Mae Wong's makeup and her overall aesthetic?
00:51She was inspired by the flappers.
00:53She was kind of an avant-garde.
00:55Very stylized type of looks as far as how she did her hair.
01:00The really, really thin brows and the really bold lips
01:04to even perpetuate her role as like the dragon lady.
01:09How would you describe the most prominent makeup trends from the 1920s?
01:13So, the brows definitely were one of the statements of that period.
01:19Then you had the bold lips.
01:22It was intentionally meant to make your lips look puckered and smaller.
01:26She did the same thing, but it was drawn so that it was a little bit harsher.
01:31She was trying to be more exotic.
01:34The use of like a thin liner like that didn't really come into fashion until the 50s.
01:39Her look was bold.
01:41Some women started to want to be independent and actually not be beholden to a man.
01:47There was the flappers, so the women that wanted to express themselves in a different way
01:52and wanted to be more independent.
01:54You had prohibitions, so you had hidden speakeasies where people could go for entertainment.
01:59You would have the smokey eyes and the look that Anna Mae Wong was wearing was more of a character.
02:06She managed actually to get some roles where she was the main star.
02:10And that was quite an achievement during that time.
02:13When it comes to makeup, Anna Mae Wong was clearly ahead of her time.
02:17But after learning about her use of style and beauty to amplify her roles,
02:20I wondered how this second generation Chinese American navigated the film industry back in the early 1900s.
02:26I met with Graham Hodges, professor of history at Colgate University and author of Anna Mae Wong,
02:32From Laundryman's Daughter to Hollywood Legend.
02:34Anna Mae Wong is an important cultural figure because she's probably the most famous Asian American woman of the 20th
02:41century.
02:42She also crystallizes what an actress of Asian descent does in Hollywood.
02:48The roles that she has to take, the difficulties she has with scripts, with directors.
02:55But at the same time, the stick-to-itiveness to manage a career that lasts for four decades in over
03:0255 movies.
03:03Her first big role is called Toll of the Sea.
03:06People are just amazed by her ability to cry on cue, by the costumes she wears, by the hairstyles.
03:13The problem for Anna Mae is that she's Chinese American during the era of Chinese exclusion.
03:19This goes from 1882 until 1943, in which there are heavy bans on particularly Chinese women coming into the country.
03:28That ban then translates into a lot of social discrimination.
03:32She cannot have a relationship with a white man on the screen.
03:35She can't kiss the guy. She can't be the happy ending of a romantic film.
03:39Something has to happen to her.
03:40Usually, she has to go through some kind of torture. She always dies at the end.
03:44Breaking Point for her is the production of the most famous novel ever done by an American about the Chinese,
03:51and this is The Good Earth.
03:52It's Pearl Buck's Nobel Prize-winning novel.
03:55Pearl Buck declares it should be made with Chinese actors.
03:58This should be a huge innovation.
03:59All of her backers are saying, it must be Anna Mae as Olan, who is the good wife.
04:05It goes to Luz Rayner, who'd won the Oscar.
04:07So after that, she takes a famous trip to China. She'd never been there before.
04:11And so she spends about seven months in China learning about Chinese theater, film.
04:17And when she goes back, she says, I'm only going to do movies that are positive about China.
04:21American attitudes about China are changing at this point.
04:24Producers are more willing to give her positive roles.
04:28The kind of issues that she faced in the 1920s, Asian American actors are still struggling with today.
04:34Anna Mae Wong can inspire Asian Americans through her perseverance, her dedication, her refusal to be rejected, and her success.
04:48It's clear Anna Mae Wong jumped through hoops for her career.
04:51Armed with my newfound knowledge of Anna, it was time to tackle her makeup routine.
04:58The first thing I tackled were Anna's iconic 20s style brows.
05:02So I decided to cover them using Elmer's glue, powder, and foundation.
05:05A technique used by many drag artists today.
05:11This was my first time attempting to do this, and I'm not going to lie, I overestimated my abilities.
05:16This was a hard task, but after many, many rounds of glue, copious amounts of powder, and foundation,
05:22I finally got them to a place I was happy with.
05:29According to Gabriella, most women in the 20s would have shied away from face makeup, opting instead for just a
05:35layer of powder.
05:36Since I covered my brows, though, I did apply some of the same foundation to the rest of my face
05:40to even things out.
05:44Once my foundation was blended, I went in with some Ben Nye contour cream.
05:48And they did contour during that time to make sure that the angles were seen from the cameras,
05:55because the lighting in the film weren't as good at capturing lights and shadows.
06:00So a lot of times they had to paint them in so that you would see shadows on the face
06:06when they were filming like black and white movies.
06:12Then I followed up with a heavy dose of Ben Nye's color cake makeup to even out my complexion and
06:17create a porcelain-like finish.
06:21Then came the tricky part, drawing on my fake eyebrows.
06:25This is what we're working with, and this is what we're trying to achieve.
06:29We actually started out with silent film, and in those films you needed to be able to portray expression without
06:36actually having people hear what you were saying.
06:39So the eyebrows were part of your acting.
06:46Eyebrows are on. That was so hard. I don't think I did a great job, but it was my first
06:53time.
06:54In the 20s, most women wore smokey eyes, but Anna Mae Wong opted for a cat eye shape.
07:00She was pushing the shape of her own eyes and making them even more elongated and almond shape,
07:07so that it was very exotic and it kind of helped her image on screen as being this character.
07:15She also smudged liner onto her bottom lash line to give her eyes a more sultry effect.
07:21All right, I'm going to start to bring the color into my inner corner.
07:26She has extremely long bottom lashes, and we got a pair of bottom lash falsies from a brand called House
07:33of Lashes,
07:33and I'm going to put a little bit of lashes on my top lash line as well.
07:36False lashes were very, very common as far as theatrical use in movies because they would photograph better.
07:52Once my eyeliner was done, I applied a layer of cake mascara.
07:56After wetting the cake with water, I used a small brush to sweep the product onto my eyelashes.
08:06To finish off the face, I followed up with some liquid blush and a rosy red shade and moved on
08:11to lipstick.
08:13So I'm going to put the lipstick on now, and this is Nars Ingrid, which is a very, very deep
08:18kind of aubergine berry shade.
08:21She had the bold lip, and depending on the type of filming that she was doing,
08:26if she was doing a black and white or a Technicolor production, it was either a red shade or probably
08:32a very darker shade for black and white.
08:51I'll be honest. When I look back on anime's filmography, many of her roles make me cringe.
08:57She was a concubine, a slave, a dragon lady meant to instill fear in the audience.
09:03But taking a step back, I realized that she represents so much more.
09:26Anime Wong made a space for herself in an industry that was stacked against her.
09:30This is something that actors of color still face to this day.
09:36If you ask me, anime Wong was the ultimate hustler.
09:41A woman who leaned into her Chinese heritage through her makeup and styling choices to take advantage of an extremely
09:47slanted system.
09:48She's very inspiring, I think, to people look at her and say, this is somebody who really worked against ferocious
09:55odds.
09:56And as bad as racism is now, it was much, much worse in the 1920s.
10:00And yet, she actually was able to be a successful person that we can look at, admire, and enjoy today.
10:14Thanks so much for watching, guys. Click here to subscribe to Refinish 99, and click here to watch another video.
10:20See you next time. Bye!
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