Misplaced Vaudeville

This summer, while I was working as a cashier I read, among other books, Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's. Last weekend, I finally saw the perhaps more famous film adaptation (which in my opinion wasn't as good as the novella). One of the several things that I wasn't a huge fan of was the portral of Mr. Yunioshi. I realize that the movie was made 50 years ago, but the overblown stereotypical depiction of him seemed unnecessary and forced. At times he did provide some comic relief, but not in the MacBeth Porter kind of way. Problems with political correctness aside (which I have no real intention on touching on) it just seemed like an unnecessary distraction.

This is what I think separates the book from the movie in the case of Breakfast. In the novella, Capote writes like a more concise Hemingway; succinct and almost journalistic. The prose is beautiful, and by the end of my workday I was almost done with the book. The movie, on the other hand, felt like it ran long, and in comparison didn't have the same movement. A great example of this is the aforementioned Mr. Yunioshi and the role he played in the film. In an article I read today called Ethics, Stereotypes, and Holly Golightly (Link Here) Mr. Yunioshi's role is described as excess vaudevillian humor, common in the works of the films director Blake Edwards. It then goes on to discuss the place for and ethics of comic stereotypes in the author's opinion. It's an interesting and relevant article, especially when it points out how pervasive comic stereotypes are in film and television, often in the name of self-deprecation (e.g. Tyler Perry & Woody Allen).