On November 27, 1940, Bruce Lee was born in San Francisco while his parents were on a US tour with a Hong Kong theater group. He appeared in Esther Eng's Golden Gate Girl as a baby. After that, he developed into a well-known kid celebrity in Hong Kong. After working in US TV and cinema as an adult, he went on to become well-known worldwide thanks to three martial arts films from Hong Kong and the US-HK co-production Enter the Dragon. On July 20, 1973, he passed away from cerebral oedema, almost exactly one day after Enter the Dragon was made available to the public.
Lee would have turned 80 on November 27, 2020, if he had survived. several individuals and several organizations from all throughout the world—from China to Russia to the USA and practically everywhere in between—will commemorate this day. This is due to the fact that Bruce Lee permanently altered popular culture throughout the world in the span of a few episodes of two US TV shows and four martial arts movies.
This is not the place to try to explain his life story or how much of an influence he had. The official book Bruce Lee, A Life (2018) by Matt Polly is now available. Several documentaries, like How Bruce Lee Changed the World, have explained how much he has served as an inspiration and muse for all kinds of activities, from art to music, sport to political activism.
His contributions to ethnic identity politics, film combat choreography, and martial arts have been the subject of numerous academic publications. I have contributed to several discussions over his interventions' cultural significance by writing not one, but two scholarly monographs.
What else can we say or discover about Bruce Lee, then?
In my most recent study. I made the choice to attempt to ignore him and push him out of the spotlight. By doing this, it became evident that Western media had certain preconceived notions about what we now refer to as martial arts even before Bruce Lee. The intricate relationship between the United States and Japan resulted in the frequent use of judo, jujutsu, and karate in Hollywood productions starting in the 1950s.
Indeed, one could argue that, even prior to Bruce Lee's arrival, East Asian martial arts images were thriving in Western popular culture and media. However, this is completely false in another (more nuanced but significant) regard. This is due to the fact that the term "martial arts" did not have a unified meaning in the Western language until Bruce Lee. Although some people may have performed karate, judo, jujutsu, or other forms of self-defense, these activities were not yet included in the category of "martial arts.
Actually, Bruce Lee is credited with the phrase "martial arts" making its first appearances in English-language movies. In the 1972 film Way of the Dragon (known as Return of the Dragon in the United States), Lee declares with pride, "I practice martial arts every day!" Soon after, Enter the Dragon (1973) became known as "the first American produced martial arts spectacular" according to its movie posters. The British character Mr. Braithwaite mentions "a tournament of martial arts" in the dialogue of the movie.
Prior to these incidents, the phrase "martial arts" was uncommon and was only occasionally used by experts to refer to the Japanese word bugei, which literally translates to "warrior art." However, after making an appearance in and around these two movies, it became extremely popular.
Saying that Bruce Lee coined the word would be untrue. However, not many people used it before he made it popular. In fact, it wasn't until the term "martial arts" made its cinematic debut that even experts in the field, like Donn Draeger, started using it as an organizing term, say for book titles.
Bruce Lee is credited with bringing the phrase "martial arts" into common usage in the West. It might not seem like much of a deal. However, it also implies that he planted the seeds for a new identity, one in which people may go forward and identify as "martial artists." Therefore, even if it is true that people practiced what are now known as "martial arts" prior to Bruce Lee, it wasn't until Bruce Lee—and possibly even after Saying that Bruce Lee coined the word would be untrue. However, not many people used it before he made it popular. In fact, it wasn't until the term "martial arts" made its cinematic debut that even experts in the field, like Donn Draeger, started using it as an organizing term, say for book titles.
Bruce Lee is credited with bringing the phrase "martial arts" into common usage in the West. It might not seem like much of a deal. However, it also implies that he planted the seeds for a new identity, one in which people may go forward and identify as "martial artists." Therefore, even if it is true that people practiced what are now known as "martial arts" prior to Bruce Lee, it wasn't until Bruce Lee—and possibly even after only because of him—that the very entity “martial arts” and the identity “martial artist” came into social and cultural existence.
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