Editing Fu Manchu (section)

== Cultural impact ==
The style of facial hair associated with Fu Manchu in film adaptations has become known as the [[Fu Manchu moustache]]. The "Fu Manchu" moustache is defined in the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'' as a "long, narrow moustache whose ends taper and droop down to the chin",<ref>{{cite web|url=https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/fu_manchu |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180301104132/https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/fu_manchu |url-status=dead |archive-date=1 March 2018 |title=Fu Manchu |work=Lexico |publisher=Oxford Dictionaries and Dictionary.com |access-date=2018-03-01}}</ref> although Rohmer's writings described the character as wearing no such adornment.

Before the creation of Fu Manchu, Chinese people were often portrayed in [[Western culture|Western media]] as victims. Fu Manchu indicated a new phase in which Chinese people were portrayed as perpetrators of crime and threats to Western society as a whole.<ref name="Frayling">{{cite book |last=Frayling |first=Christopher |author-link=Christopher Frayling |year=2014 |title=[[The Yellow Peril: Dr Fu Manchu & The Rise of Chinaphobia]] |place=New York |publisher=Thames & Hudson |isbn=978-0-500-25207-9}}</ref>{{page needed|date=September 2020}} Rohmer's villain is presented as the kingpin of a plot by the "yellow races" threatening the existence of "the entire white race", and his narrator opines, "No white man, I honestly believe, appreciates the unemotional cruelty of the Chinese."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/173/173-h/173-h.htm |title=The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu |via=Project Gutenberg}}, ch. 13, 16</ref>

The character of Dr. Fu Manchu became, for many, a [[Stereotypes of East Asians in the United States|stereotype]] embodying the "[[Yellow Peril]]".<ref name="Seshagiri 2006 162–194"/> For others, Fu Manchu became the most notorious personification of Western views of the Chinese,<ref name="Frayling"/>{{page needed|date=September 2020}} and became the model for other villains in contemporary "Yellow Peril" thrillers:<ref>{{cite book |last1=Marchetti |first1=Gina |editor-last1=Pomerance |editor-first1=Murray |title=Bad: Infamy, Darkness, Evil, and Slime on Screen |date=1 February 2012 |chapter=12. From Fu Manchu to M. Butterfly and Irma Vep: Cinematic Incarnations of Chinese Villainy |publisher=SUNY Press |isbn=978-0-7914-8581-1 |language=en}}</ref>{{rp|188}} these villains often had characteristics consistent with [[Xenophobia|xenophobic]] and [[Racism|racist]] stereotypes which coincided with a significant increase in [[Chinese emigration]] to [[Western world|Western countries]].{{citation needed|date=February 2023}}

After the [[World War II|Second World War]], the stereotype inspired by Fu Manchu increasingly became a subject of [[satire]]. Fred Fu Manchu, a "famous Chinese bamboo saxophonist", was a recurring character on ''[[The Goon Show]]'', a 1950s British radio comedy programme. He was featured in the episode "The Terrible Revenge of Fred Fu Manchu" in 1955 (announced as "Fred Fu Manchu and his Bamboo Saxophone"), and made minor appearances in other episodes (including "China Story", "The Siege of Fort Night", and in "The Lost Emperor" as "Doctor Fred Fu Manchu, Oriental tattooist"). The character was created and performed by the comedian [[Spike Milligan]], who used it to mock the racist attitudes which had led to the creation of the character.<ref>{{cite web|last=Laughlin|first=Will |url=http://www.braineater.com/fu.html |title=Blood of Fu Manchu |work=Braineater |access-date=2020-09-27}}</ref> The character was also parodied in a later radio comedy, ''[[Round the Horne]]'', as Dr Chu En Ginsberg MA (failed), portrayed by [[Kenneth Williams]].

Dr. Fu Manchu was parodied as the fiendish Dr. Wu in the action-comedy film ''[[Black Dynamite]]'' (2009), in which the executor of an evil plan against [[African Americans]] is an insidious, moustache-sporting [[kung fu]] master.<ref>{{cite AV media|last=James St. Clair|title=Fiendish Dr. Wu|date=2011-04-24|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuFL8Le1Pqk| archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211211/BuFL8Le1Pqk| archive-date=2021-12-11 | url-status=live|access-date=2018-02-09}}{{cbignore}}</ref>{{better source needed|reason=This video could be removed at any moment because YouTube user 'James St. Clair' isn't the copyright holder of ''Black Dynamite'' (2009). |date=September 2020}}

Science historian Fred Cooper and colleagues draws a parallel between [[COVID-19 lab leak theory|narratives that COVID-19 was created by China]], and the machinations of Fu Manchu, who is "expert in the deadly application of animal and biological agents" and who has been depicted on US television shows as threatening the West with lethal diseases.<ref name=fu>{{cite book |vauthors= Cooper F, Dolezal L, Rose A |title=COVID-19 and Shame{{snd}}Political Emotions and Public Health in the UK |publisher=Bloomsbury |chapter=Chapter 3: Coughing while Asian: Shame and Racialized Bodies |date=31 March 2024 |isbn= 9781350283404 |url=https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK592730/}}</ref>