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This article has been published in: Ocula 22, Be cool. How a Cultural Icon is Born

author: Marilena Parlati (Dipartimento di Studi Linguistici e letterari, Università di Padova, Padova (IT))

Serial Crime, Serious Threats? Replicating the ‘Yellow Peril’ in British Popular Crime Fiction

language: english

abstract: From 1912 and for numerous decades, Sax Rohmer contributed to create, and recreate, an archvillain of tremendous vigour, Fu Manchu, whose routing lives, appallingly magnetic powers, subterranean connections made him a global star. In this paper I peruse this multi-faceted serial icon, formulaic and yet also changing over time, and see its presence and apparent disappearance from the cultural panorama of the Anglophone world. This multimedial serial figure has been let loose, like Frankenstein’s creature, and its progeny may still be detected in film, cartoons and global popular culture.

citation information: Marilena Parlati, Serial Crime, Serious Threats? Replicating the ‘Yellow Peril’ in British Popular Crime Fiction, "Ocula", vol.21, n.22, pp.141-149, April 2020. DOI: 10.12977/ocula2020-12

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