‘Crazy Rich Asians’ could change Hollywood
LOS ANGELES: The unexpected success of ‘ Crazy Rich Asians’ could bring wide- ranging changes to Hollywood.
‘Crazy Rich Asians’, the first major Hollywood movie featuring an Asian and AsianAmerican cast in 25 years, made US$ 237 million ( RM995 million) worldwide at the box office and became the highest- grossing romantic comedy of the past decade.
Ironically, the film’s success is linked to one of the most common criticisms waged against it: that the movie uses affluence to sell its diversity.
To some critics, by celebrating the lives of only very rich and very beautiful Asian people, the movie failed to really capture the beating heart of Asian and AsianAmerican people.
But even its biggest detractors might agree that you don’t have to fully embrace the affluence porn or the upper- crust narrative of ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ to understand that its success has the power to break down barriers.
‘Crazy Rich Asians’ appeal is in how it sells the billionaire fantasy of the Young family. Even with a modest budget (a reported US$ 30 million), it was the year’s most sumptuous movie, showcasing lavish condos and homes and letting Tan Sri Michelle Yeoh’s Eleanor Young flaunt lavish fashion ( her character wears Valentino in the kitchen) and a ring with jewels as big as meteorites from her personal collection.
And when Peik Lin (Awkwafina) explains how the Youngs amassed their fortune, or when Nick Young (Henry Golding) explains who his cousins are and what their social status is, it sounds more like a Greek myth or superhero origin tale than a story about regular people.
But the luxury serves another purpose here too: It makes the Youngs aspirational and desirable.
“It’s clear nobody had faith in a fluffy rom- com about the lives and loves of Asian people going down smoothly without a heaping spoonful of affluence porn,” Emily Yoshida wrote in her review of the film for Vulture.
In movies, most often adaptations, affluence and luxury have been a way for Hollywood to make something esoteric or niche appeal to more mainstream audiences.
‘ Crazy Rich Asians’, while satirising the gaudiness of some characters and the outright fiendish behavior of others, presents Eleanor and the Young family’s wealth as something earned.
Reflexively, the fairy tale-like riches in ‘ Crazy Rich Asians’ offer viewers a glimpse into the humanity of Asian people – in characters like Eleanor, Rachel, and Rachel’s mother – that Hollywood has rarely made room for in the past.
The next win for AsianAmerican cinematic representation will be when movies regularly feature Asian Americans who aren’t crazy rich
Many critics have speared ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ attention to the 0.1 per cent of rich Asians, calling it not really a win for representation since it failed to tell the stories of all Asian people.
“Part of the way that this movie is being sold to everyone is as this big win for diversity, as this representative juggernaut, as this great Asian hope,” Sangeetha Thanapal, a Singaporean-Indian writer and activist, told the New York Times.
“I think that’s really problematic because if you’re going to sell yourself as that, then you bloody better actually have actual representation” of Singaporean minorities – Malays, Indians, and ethnic minorities,” she said.
The movie was also dragged for not being “Asian” enough.
“In terms of representing all of Asians and Asian Americans, it doesn’t hit that mark. It is a very specific story to a specific enclave, and even within that enclave, a specific class of that enclave,” Nancy Wang Yuen, a sociologist at Biola University, told the Washington Post.
To be fair, the movie, by its title alone, never promised a serious story of financial haves and havenots; to bury it for that reason seems irrational. It was never billed as “a deep meditation on the troubling financial inequality of Singapore.”
And beyond its title, the movie is a story about assimilation, immigration, Rachel’s mother’s struggle to move to America to give her child a better life.
It isn’t some kind of revelation about how romantic love triumphs, of just a vapid showcase of wealth. Rather, the real romance in the movie comes from Rachel teaching Eleanor about her family’s experience, and Eleanor’s acceptance and realisation of Rachel’s family experience.
When it comes to not telling the multiple stories of the Asian and Asian-American experience, members of cast acknowledged the criticism and are aware of it.
“I think Asians are not a monolith, you can’t lump them all together,” Constance Wu told Rolling Stone prior to the film coming out, anticipating the knock that ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ might leave some Asians and Asian Americans feeling left out.
“I do think people might be upset about it, because while it does share this experience, this experience might not ref lect their own and they might still be looking for their story.
“But hopefully there will be more opportunities, because one story can’t represent the whole.”
I think Asians are not a monolith, you can’t lump them all together. I do think people might be upset about it, because while it does share this experience, this experience might not reflect their own and they might still be looking for their story. But hopefully there will be more opportunities, because one story can’t represent the whole. Constance Wu, actress