Question about Festive Pantomime Racism

I have a question about UK pantomimes and racism, which I'm hoping someone out there will be able and inclined to answer for me.

The situation is this: I went to a pantomime today (for the second time in my life. The first time was when I was about 5. This second time, I'm not proud, I'm a parent. Forgive me. Anyway). It was an amateur dramatic production - we couldn't afford any of the professional shows anywhere. (As I say, I'm a parent.)

The production was of Aladdin. The story started in Egypt but flitted quickly to "Peking". Aladdin and the Princess were not the Disney ones I am unfortunately most familiar with. No: Aladdin was from "Peking". The Princess was called Princess Mandarin. Aladdin's mother was Widow Twanky, who ran a Chinese Laundry. Aladdin's brother was called Wishy Washy, and every time he entered he did a version of the flamboyant 'crane technique' kick that Daniel Laruso learns from Miyagi in The Karate Kid. You know the one. In response to this the audience were enjoined to shout "ah-so!". Which they did.

The Chinese characters were all "ah-so" sing-song "ching-chong Chinamen". Mercifully, most of them spoke without affecting "accents" or "bloken Engrish". However, the two key Chinese characters were two "Chinese Policemen", evidently crafted from Laurel and Hardy plus Mickey Rooney's Mr Yunioshi from Breakfast at Tiffany's. These two characters affected the accents, the 'hilarious' T-R pronunciation problems and the hilarious names ("Wan Long Poo" is but one example). At one point they had their own lengthy scene in which they traded rapid-fire "he a ping pong sing song ching chong" type exchanges in a contrived argument about too many Chins and Wings and Wongs in the Chinese phone book, in which one might wing the wong wong, etc., etc. You get the picture.

Entire scenes, long dialogues, and virtually all of the comedy in the entire production was structured and organised by and through the play of the most crass of stereotypes about "Chinese" dress, dialogue, concerns and lifestyle. I could go on and on about it. But I won't. Instead, I really just want an answer to the question of these representations, these fee-charging productions, and whether they are even legal. Is yellow-face really still alive and well? Is it really just ok?

Watching it, I was constantly thinking, ok, what if we substituted the "Ching-Chong Chinaman" clichés about China and Chinese with something equivalent about Africans, Indians, Israelis? Blacked-up or browned-up actors playing out the most shocking caricatures: what would have happened? Would it have been ok? Would it not?

There are obviously structures of visibility, perception, and feeling around racialised discourses at different times and in different places. There are obviously going to be different sensibilities and sensitivities and different things that will or won't offend at different times. But why is it still so ok to be overtly racist about Chinese characters in at least one British Pantomime this year?

In the past and elsewhere, in books and articles, I myself have more than once followed Meaghan Morris in her inestimable analysis of race and ethnic visibililty and visuality, in her reading of the Breakfast at Tiffany's scene as it is used in the film Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story. Morris reads a scene in which we see Linda seeing Bruce Lee seeing Mickey Rooney's Mr Yunioshi as hideously racist, while all around are consumed in laughter. Only Linda notices (what Bruce has known all along) that this stuff is all entirely racist. Everyone else thinks it's harmless fun.

So I have analysed this sort of stuff before, using the critical terms and perspectives afforded to me by Meaghan Morris, Rey Chow and Jacques Rancière, among others. Equally, and at the same time, I have also, of course, laughed at ultimately racist, sexist and classist jokes. But this bit of harmless family fun today completely took me off guard. Maybe it's my lack of knowledge of a genre. Maybe I'm over-sensitive. But, could someone enlighten me about its legality? How can it even be legal? I'm confused. Then: How widespread is it? Why was everyone laughing? Why was it not openly perceived as and condemned as racist?

Answers as comments or as emails to BowmanP@cf.ac.uk

Happy New Year!