Asian Representation in Hollywood

Three films: Crazy Rich Asians, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, and the upcoming Mulan movie

A box-office hit and a highly-praised Netflix original movie both standing with a 93% and 95% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, what does this say about having more authentic Asian representation in Hollywood?

I say authentic because Asian culture, like any foreign culture, can be easily ridiculed by people who try to write stories about a culture that isn’t their own. To be completely honest, I was about to skip seeing Crazy Rich Asians and I feel awful for saying that. Because had I not gone, I wouldn’t have been able to experience a cinematic masterpiece.

I was afraid of going to see a film with an all-Asian cast taking place in Asia because I thought that my culture would’ve been portrayed as it usually is on the big screen: poking jokes at Asian stereotypes… but both films had done neither of that.

Crazy Rich Asians, is a classic romantic comedy but more-so on the romantic side with a touch of good ol’ fashioned family drama. The story follows the incredibly charming Nick Young (Henry Golding) and the love of his life, Rachel Chu (Constance Wu.) Nick ventures to Singapore to attend his best friend’s wedding, taking Rachel with him as his plus-one. The drama starts when Nick’s family, who will also be attending the wedding, finds out that Rachel is an American born Chinese woman that doesn’t come from wealth. While watching this movie, you’ll get see multiple stories within Nick’s and Rachel’s family unfolding- so your attention is split between following multiple relationships evolve.

Crazy Rich Asians did an excellent job in portraying Western AND Eastern Asian characteristics while shedding light on the Asian-American life, relationships, and ideologies. From the dialect swaps, comparisons of poor and rich Asians, and highlighting cultural pretenses- what more can I say about this movie? Seriously, when I heard my own dialect being spoken on the big screen, I almost broke my neck. (~~I’m kidding, but not really.)~~

I’ve never heard Cantonese being spoken on the big screen before, for the first time ever, I didn’t need to read the subtitles! That was a groundbreaking moment for me, it was a moment of elation. “Wow, my culture is finally being represented.”

To finalize my critique on this must-see movie, now out on DVD, Crazy Rich Asians was excellent on it’s own. It was excellent without the need to joke about Asian stereotypes, or involve shots of the Great Wall of China, or have a martial arts fight sequence.

Not too long after this movie was released, Netflix debuted To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, another romantic comedy. Obviously not as extravagant as Crazy Rich Asians, this Netflix original movie is a classic, highschool cliché of “let’s play the dating game and not catch feelings for each other.”~~(BRILLIANT!)~~

The movie is about Lara Jean, a sixteen-year-old girl, who wrote love letters when she had a crush so strong that she couldn’t contain her feelings. However, when her love letters are accidentally sent out to each individual guy that she wrote about, her life turns into chaos as she finds herself lying to everyone she cares about in order to save herself from public humiliation. The story follows Lara as she “pretends to date” Peter Kavinsky, popular high school jock, in order to save herself from the tricky “love letter situation.” As the movie unravels and the truth unfolds, Lara learns that being honest with herself and with the people that she cares about is what matters the most. To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and Crazy Rich Asians, turned out to be huge successes considering the fact that both leads were Asian women. ~~(take THAT Hollywood!!!)~~

If you haven’t seen either of these two movies, you’re doing yourself an injustice. Support good films. Support minority leads. Support the representation!

This is the perfect lead to discuss my thoughts about the upcoming Mulan live-action movie. (Rescheduled to release in theaters at a later date due to the unfortunate current circumstances.) I’ve read a lot of comments online about how people will be boycotting the movie because it’s straying away from Disney’s storyline and further negating the beloved, classic songs. Listen, I get it. Disney’s Mulan was undoubtedly one of the best Disney princess movies to be made. From the music, the representation of culture, the storyline, the characters- you can’t help but be disappointed that they’re not making the Disney version into a live-action movie. The producers have stated that they wanted to imitate the original tale of Mulan rather than the Disney version. And honestly, I’ll still be showing up to the theaters the day it premieres just to support my people. From what we can already see from the trailers, Mulan is going to be an action-packed movie that pays homage to old-fashioned martial arts movies with the fight sequences and effects. I’m genuinely excited to see an all-Asian cast be represented on the big screen again!

Jon M. Chu, the director of Crazy Rich Asians, wrote in a letter to Coldplay about how he’s always had a complicated relationship with the color yellow. That was until Coldplay released their single titled, “Yellow” and sung about how it was a magical color that painted the stars, the color of a woman’s skin, and love. After hearing the color yellow being associated with derogatory connotations, Coldplay’s Yellow almost felt like an anthem to Mr. Chu.

Whether it be songs, films, books, etc. – everyone deserves to feel empowered, inspired, and represented through the art that surrounds them.

-Jessica Chau