White hot heroes: Semiotics of race and sexuality in Hollywood ninja films

Abstract

While the properties of gender across different cultures have degrees of overlap, representations of Japanese men in popular Western media are characterized by distinctive elements. This article discusses popular Hollywood action films featuring ninja and tracks its portrayal in Anglophone media. We pay particular attention to cinematic constructions of masculinity and sexuality from the integrated theoretical viewpoints of sociolinguistics, masculinity studies, and film semiotics. Based on the notions of linguistic and visual enregisterment, we employ concepts of mediation and simulation to illustrate two points— (1) a widely accepted martial arts typecasting of the ninja is a ‘copy without an original’ in Hollywood productions, and (2) characteristics of heroic and villainous ninja are conventionalized via dominant discourses of hegemonic masculinity based on race.