Based on Dorinne Kondo's fieldwork, this innovative book brings together essays, vignettes, and an interview with playwright David Henry Hwang in an illuminating discussion of how the Asian identity is used and misused in popular culture. Examining Japanese avant-garde high fashion and Asian American theater, Kondo shows us how cultural perceptions are expressed and overturned in performance -- whether in the seductive spectacle of a Comme des Garcons fashion show, where striking originality has shattered the stereotype of the Japanese as imitators and technicians, or the gender-bending of M. Butterfly, which calls into question the male dominance and heterosexism of Oriental culture.

Demonstrating how issues of race, gender, nationality, and sexuality are articulated in the realm of popular culture, Kondo asks us to reappraise our assumptions of what Orientalism means in the world. Both theoretically and politically compelling, About Face offers a penetrating look at how old images of Orientalism are being contested and reshaped by a dynamic, new vision of cultural identity.