[What's Up, Tiger Lily?] abounds with clichés about Orientalism that relate to Allen's Jewish, sex, and loser jokes. All four patterns constitute a central theme: a narrow perspective is being imposed on an alien reality. (p. 116)

[Two] jokes converge when Wing Fat and Shepherd Wong argue over whether Wong looks Chinese or Japanese: the tradition of "But you don't look Jewish," and the Occidental's inability to distinguish among Orientals. All these Western-bias jokes about the East emphasize the fact that this film imposes an outsider's perspective on the action, and that such a perspective can only distort its material.

As though further to distort perspective, the film often refers to the fact that it is a film by offering film parodies. For example, Cobra Man not only speaks in a Peter Lorre voice but at one point complains, "Oh, my throat. This Peter Lorre imitation is killing...