Themes of Whiteness in Bulletproof Monk, Kill Bill, and The Last Samurai

In 2003, Hollywood released three major films in which a White protagonist “mastering” an Asian martial art was part of the narrative: Kill Bill, The Last Samurai, and Bulletproof Monk. In each film, the protagonist’s ethnicity is questioned as an inhibition but found to be irrelevant. It is the position of the present study that these films are beneficially understood through a theoretical framework of strategic rhetoric of whiteness expressed in four common themes: The supraethnic viability of whiteness, the necessary defeat of Asians, the disallowance of anti-White sentiment, and the presence of at least one helpful and/or generous Asian cohort. The themes’ presence in the films, as well as their implications, both local and global, are examined in detail.