FOX MOVIE CHANNEL DROPS ‘CHAN’ FILM FESTIVAL

Citing concerns about racial insensitivity, the Fox Movie Channel has discontinued a summer festival of “Charlie Chan” mysteries, saying the network has been “made aware” that the films “may contain situations or depictions that are sensitive to some viewers.”

The cable channel posted the announcement on its Internet site Friday, prompting negative responses from some fans who had requested the vintage movies but applause from Asian American activists who have long decried the films for perpetuating racial stereotypes and featuring white actors playing the lead role of the brilliant Chinese detective.

In its statement, the cable channel noted that the films inaugurated in the 1930s “were produced at a time where racial sensitivities were not as they are today” and invited feedback from viewers in the hope that “this action will evoke discussion about the progress made in our modern, multicultural society.”

The Chan films have received limited exposure in recent years in part due to such concerns, in much the same way the “Amos ‘n’ Andy” radio show (which featured white actors performing the African American voices) and television series have remained a source of controversy and are rarely broadcast.

Fox Movie Channel had been involved in an effort to restore and preserve nearly two dozen early Chan films, which were produced by its parent studio, 20th Century Fox.

A spokesman said that there had been negative feedback from some subscribers and that in hindsight the decision to air the films, which starred Warner Oland and then Sidney Toler as Chan, was “something we should have looked at a little more closely from the beginning.”

Based on the character created by Earl Derr Biggers, the films presented Chan as a brilliant sleuth but also with a thick accent and exaggerated features. Asian actors did appear in supporting roles, with Keye Luke (later seen on “Kung Fu”) playing Chan’s “No. 1 son.”

Among those who had complained about the films was the Organization of Chinese Americans Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based civil rights advocacy group. In a letter to Fox officials sent last week, Executive Director Christine Chen labeled the films “a painful reminder of Hollywood’s racist refusal to hire minorities to play roles that were designated for them.”

Karen Narasaki, executive director of the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium, said Fox’s action was “the responsible decision to make” given that the issue remains “very much a sore point” among Asian Americans.

Activists have long criticized the exhibition of films exhibiting what they have dubbed “yellowface” -- Caucasian actors playing Asian characters. In a commentary for The Times, Guy Aoki, founding president of Media Action Network for Asian Americans, called such images “no less hurtful and dehumanizing for us than blackface has been to African Americans.”

Not everyone, however, was happy about the decision, with Ira Hozinsky -- a self-described mystery film buff who resides in New York -- saying in an e-mail that the films had been scheduled in response to viewer demand and that there ought to be room for them on a channel with limited distribution.

Fox Movie Channel is received by 20 million homes, or less than a fifth of U.S. households.

White actors have played Chan as recently as 1981, when Peter Ustinov starred in “Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen.”