Breakfast at Tiffany’s

No list about racebending would be complete without this unfortunate stain on an otherwise classic movie. Mickey Rooney’s portrayal of Mr. Yunioshi is without parallel in most of cinema history. Calling it offensive does not suffice; we need to invent a new word. It is… OK, let’s say that a portrayal of your average Asian character is like a nice refreshing drink. Well, you know how sometimes you open a drink, maybe a beer or a soda, and you put it down and turn away for a minute and when you come back you grab a can thinking it is the one you just opened so you take a big swig but then it turns out it’s an old one from the night before that you hadn’t gotten around to recycling yet? And it is all warm and flat and full of backwash? And you get that feeling in your throat like you want to gag but you have to swallow the disgusting concoction first? That is what Rooney’s performance is like. Or, as Complex magazine said when they rated it Hollywood’s most racist movie ever, “in the history of inexplicable Hollywood racism, Breakfast at Tiffany’s takes the motherfuckin’ rice cake.”