“Breakfast at Tiffany’s may not be as charming as we remember
The big picture
- Holly Golightly’s profession in
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
is subtly hinted at, but she probably worked as a sex worker in the 1961 film. - The character of Mr. Yunioshi, played by Mickey Rooney, is a horrible example of yellowface, a disrespectful and outdated tradition in Hollywood.
- Despite its enduring status as a classic,
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
contains problematic elements, such as stereotypes and offensive depictions, that may make viewers uncomfortable.
Blake Edwards‘ Breakfast at Tiffany’sbased on Truman Capote novel of the same name, is often considered a classic of American cinema. We often remember the sweet love story between its two main characters, Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn) and Paul Varjak (George William Peppard); and, of course, for Hepburn’s dazzling fashion looks. Who could forget Hepburn’s soothing voice singing “Moon River” as she lightly strums a guitar outside her New York window? However, beneath the glitz and glamor of its exterior lies a dark underbelly, full of problematic elements that make Breakfast at Tiffany’s less charming than many fans may remember. On the one hand, there is a horrible case of yellow face in the form of Mickey Rooneythe character of Mr. Yunioshi. As atrocious as this may seem in itself, the character of Holly Golightly herself has a darker truth that unveils the veil of glamorous urbanity.
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Breakfast at Tiffany’s is a romantic comedy film by director Blake Edwards based on the 1958 short story by Truman Capote. The 1961 film stars Buddy Ebsen, Audrey Hepburn, Patricia Neal and George Peppard. The plot revolves around Holly Golightly as she falls in love and the trials and tribulations that accompany it.
- Release date
- October 6, 1961
- Director
- Blake Edwards
- Cast
- Audrey Hepburn, George Peppard, Patricia Neal, Buddy Ebsen, Martin Balsam, José Luis de Villalonga
- Duration
- 115 minutes
- Writers
- Truman Capote, George Axelrod
What is Holly Golightly doing in ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’?
First, we need to clarify the situation about Ms. Golightly’s profession, which in 1961 may have needed to be hidden. In more modern times, one can simply assert that she is a sex worker of some caliber. The profession, which has more recognized forms in today’s world, largely does not carry the same stigma as it did in 1961, which is probably why the film attempts to allude and intimate what is quite obvious. Today, there are also a whole range of activities covered by the umbrella term “sex work” (all of which would have been discouraged in cinema at the time). Golightly is seen entertaining men of status and wealth as well as known mob associates. She even describes a mysterious type of “photo” that she might agree to take with her neighbor, Mr. Yunioshi (more on that later). Since she has no other reported sources of income, the public must draw their own conclusion as to her sources of income since even in 1961, apartments in New York City were not cheap. Whichever view one takes, something even slightly risky would probably not have managed to escape contemporary censors, especially in an era when couples watching television typically slept in separate beds.
Related
Why Marilyn Monroe Turned Down “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”
“You consider yourself a free spirit, a wild thing.”
In an interview with Playboy (via The New Yorker), However, Author Truman Capote was quoted as saying that the character Holly Golightly was an “American geisha” and that she was “not precisely a call girl.” While this distinction may carry weight in the short story, Golightly’s portrayal in the film is not so ambiguous. It is unclear whether Edwards did not intentionally make such a distinction or whether he did not think one existed. Given that today’s society is able to more openly discuss sex (and sex work), whatever services Golightly provides would still clearly fall within the contemporary spectrum (which is an expansion of what would also have considered sex work in 1961). We know from instances in the film that strongly allude to this, but the most obvious and relevant is when Golightly mentions receiving $50 for the “powder room”. Even allowing for the rate of inflation, only the most deliberately obtuse viewer will see anything but an obvious exchange of money for services rendered.
Why did ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ hide Holly’s sex work?
So why soak the truth in a clandestine metaphor? The obvious answer is that the audience is supposed to love Holly Golightly; Holly is the woman every young man wants to marry, and every older man wants to have as a daughter. But in 1961, the charming lead actress in a major film couldn’t be a sex worker. Not because they were lacking in 1961, nor because it was less lucrative or less known than today, but art tends to oscillate between the ideal and the real (the Hays code sought to enforce the first). The cultural shifts of the 60s and 70s paved the way for a more open society (but not completely) where stories could feature sex workers in any role. This raises the following question: if Breakfast at Tiffany’s were made today, could Holly Golightly be an overt sex worker? We can wait for a reboot, but that doesn’t really matter because today, as it should have been in her time, she can be whatever she wants.
Mickey Rooney’s “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” is a horrible case of yellowface
But if the film was made today, he certainly wouldn’t feature the buffoonish and disconcertingly insensitive display of Mickey Rooney (a very white man) as Mr. Yunioshi, Holly’s nondescript neighbor in East Asia. Rooney’s impression was not new for the time; in fact, it’s part of a tradition known as yellowface, where white actors are made up to look East Asian, rather than casting someone of that actual origin. The most glaring example, besides Rooney’s role in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, is Charlie Chan’s series of films in the 1930s and 1940s, which started with East Asian actors and then switched to a main character of Swedish descent. Of course, this was not due to a lack of East Asian leaders, but rather to the rise of anti-Japanese sentiment among many white Americans before and after World War II.
The character of Mr. Yunioshi exists in the short story but is given relatively little attention, certainly nothing like what viewers see in the film, and is not detailed in the same way. If there was a complete list of the most offensive East Asian stereotypes, Breakfast at Tiffany’s I would check them all off in one go. But more than being a caricature of Asian Americans, Rooney’s confusing performance is also an unnecessarily farcical bit that seems to fit into Vaudeville, rather than the rest of the film. Meant as a sort of comic relief, audiences are left wondering if the rest of the film is even tense enough to need it, given its calm and rather sober mood. Mr. Yunioshi’s on-screen appearances seem to almost exist in a different film, as if the editors had lost the original footage in the cutting room and spliced two films together hoping no one would notice.
Going to such lengths to make an undeserved affront to an entire group of people, and not even studying the scenes to see if they are appropriate, only adds insult to insult. It should be noted that Mr. Yunioshi’s conviction is not a recent revelation, because even when it was published, many viewers, including critics of the The Hollywood Reporterhighlighted the offensive nature of the character. For this reason, Breakfast at Tiffany’s often subject to boycottswith a television channel in the United Kingdom, according to The Expresseven airing a version with the Mickey Rooney scenes removed entirely.
Despite the controversy, Breakfast at Tiffany’s remains a staple of American cinema, and it’s ultimately up to viewers to decide for themselves. Each generation judges what is acceptable and what should be selected for posterity based on its own social and moral standards. Regardless, it cannot be denied that Breakfast at Tiffany’s has carved out a place for himself in cinematic history – he may not be as sweet and charming as we like to remember him.
Breakfast at Tiffany’s is available for streaming on Paramount+
Watch on Paramount+
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