Half a century after his death, Bruce Lee remains a symbol of physical strength and masculinity for the Asian community and an icon of 20th century cinema. But his daughter says there’s more to his legacy than he deserves to be recognized for.
Shannon Lee, who was 4 when her father died in 1973, said she rejected traditional and toxic ideas of masculinity and instead valued the expression of emotion. Reflecting on her father’s life on the 50th anniversary of his death Thursday, Lee said she hopes others will recognize how Bruce Lee defined strength: as vulnerability.
«As masculine as he appeared physically, through the amount of force and martial arts action, there’s actually a very inherent type of softening to his masculinity that I think gets overlooked,» Lee said, who is executive producer of HBO’s «Warrior.» «He advocated really showing up, really being present.»
Bruce Lee, who died in Hong Kong at age 32, has been largely credited with popularizing martial arts in the West, introducing the art form into new cultures and across color lines, as well as bring her to the big screen in movies like “Enter the Dragon.”
But to the Asian-American community, he was seen as a hero of resistance, challenging stubborn stereotypes around Asian men, who were often portrayed as weak, emasculated, and deferential. However, Shannon Lee said, it was really his father’s emotional intelligence that made him such a trailblazer.
«We have a letter in which he wrote to the head of this studio and says, ‘Listen, I want to offer you the most incredible action movie, but you not only have to give me your head but also your heart,'» he said. .
She said that since her father’s death, some have taken a view of him that she considers «patriarchal.» In Quentin Tarantino’s controversial 2021 film «Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,» Bruce Lee is portrayed as an arrogant and competitive character, a portrayal that generated significant backlash.
“His interpretation of my father was this male fighter. ‘So he must have been a jerk. And he must have been arrogant. He must not have been some kind of vulnerable human being,’” Lee said of Tarantino. “Honestly, he didn’t believe in competition. … He didn’t think he was a good role model for personal excellence and personal growth, because he’s always up against someone else.”
Tarantino doubled down on her performance at the time, telling critics who disagreed with her to «suck on a d—» on an episode of the Joe Rogan podcast.
Lee said that his father, rather, emphasized collaboration. That’s why, he said, he believed in making martial arts more inclusive, often risking judgment in doing so.
Throughout his career, Bruce Lee accepted students from a variety of backgrounds; one of his first students was Jesse Glover, a black man who would become his first assistant instructor in the US Glover, a victim of police brutality, had taken up martial arts for self-defense. Bruce Lee’s highly publicized friendship with NBA legend and civil rights advocate Kareem Abdul-Jabbar also became a symbol of intercommunal solidarity and alliance.
“I go back to my father’s quote: ‘Under the sun and the skies, there is a family. There is a human family,’” Shannon Lee said.
“He did things that were looked down on at the time, like teaching Chinese kung fu to non-Chinese,” he said. “But it was something that he felt: ‘I want to share what I love with people that I don’t have a connection with.’ So I have to share it with people.’”
As open and vulnerable as he was, Bruce Lee was also firm in his limits, his daughter said. He refused to accept unequal treatment or take on roles that would hurt Asian Americans in Hollywood, she said.
“When the systems wouldn’t allow him to take those steps forward, he’d say, ‘Okay, I’ve got to find a different way,’” he said. «That requires an incredible amount of inner strength.»
Throughout the years, Bruce Lee has remained a fixture in pop culture. And Shannon Lee said many have tried to dissect the events that led him to walk his own unique path or «find the wound» that motivated him. But ultimately, his father operated with happiness and pride in his culture, one that didn’t need to be signed off on by mainstream white approval. And that’s what makes his legacy so deep, he said.
“He represented Asian joy, you know, because he was very proud to be Chinese, and he was very proud of what he could do, and he wanted to share it. He wanted to celebrate it,” he said. «He took those things about him that were different and unique and turned them into his own superpowers, because he loved them.»