Crazy Rich Asians film a good start for diversity
Whatever its flaws, Crazy Rich Asians shows us the importance of diversity and representation in popular culture. Karen Tay reports.
The New Zealand accent is mostly flat, with downward dog inflections where sentences come to an end. We sound slightly questioning, a little unsure but also quietly defiant.
I know this because I had to learn this very accent, a lot of it through osmosis, but some of it through concerted effort. I was 13 when I arrived in New Zealand. I could speak four languages fluently, one of them English. But what I didn’t know was the local lingo: twink, togs, ‘‘sweet as’’ or any of the other markers of those born into Aotearoa.
I didn’t know how to open my mouth and shut down the comments about the shape of my eyes, or how all Asians (as if we’re all the same) kept 20kg bags of rice in the pantry, or my then-inability to get the ‘‘th’’ sound right when speaking English – ‘‘say it again? Can you say th-ree? TH-ree.’’ Children can be cruel, especially to those who sound different.
This is a story I tell now, not to evoke pity or sympathy (I don’t need either) but to illustrate a certain kind of generic ‘‘growing up Asian in the west’’ experience. It’s also what came foremost to my mind when watching Hollywood blockbuster rom-com Crazy Rich Asians.
The movie has received a crazy rich number of accolades from Asian-Americans. It has also received some less flattering reviews from mainland Chinese who didn’t quite understand WTF the film was about, and flak from South East Asians enraged by the focus on Chinese Singapore ans while ignoring the contributions of other people of colour, mostly Indians, living in Singapore.
It’s a more than valid concern, and one that needs to be raised, questioned, examined and blown apart.
Yet I also can’t deny the power of having people who look (if not exactly sound) East Asian on the screen in a big Hollywood film. Henry Golding plays Nick Young, one of the main characters. He’s from Malaysian Borneo, where I was born. That’s something I had not expected to see represented in the mainstream for many more years, possibly not in my lifetime.
My girl Michelle Yeoh, who plays the ice queen mother-in-law, is Malaysian. Large swathes of the movie, including the infamous mah-jong scene at the end, were filmed in Malaysia.
For me, it wasn’t just about seeing faces that looked like mine on screen.
It was about having my culture normalised enough that we could look beyond the shallowness of whether Golding can really act, to the deeper issues of representation and inclusivity within the Asian diaspora, what it actually means, how far we have to go, and how we’re going to get there.
The true worth of the film isn’t in the lush sets (which look like they came straight out of tourism brochures), the ridiculously beautiful and unaffordable designer fashion or even the crazy rich lifestyles of the 0.1 per cent – it’s the fact that this is an opportunity for Asians to talk about and critique popular culture that features us. It’s the hope, however small, that more and better opportunities are coming.
Much has been made of the fact that this is only the second all-Asian cast in Hollywood since The
Joy Luck Club, based on a novel by Amy Tan, was released in the early 1990s.
It’s probably hard to understand the fuss if you’ve never been the minority in a society.
Revolutions have to start from somewhere, and we should regard this as the spark, not the flame.
There is power in popular culture. And by that, I mean the things that people all over the world consume and enjoy, like popular books, movies, music, art and fashion.
A Hollywood release means the ability to be syndicated, reproduced, and pirated all over the world. Crazy Rich Asians doesn’t delve into postcolonial theory or intersectionality, but let’s be honest, it wouldn’t have been made in the first place if it did, and even if it was, it wouldn’t have the reach it now has.
The cinema where I went to see the movie was deep in the suburbs of Auckland. It was filled with mostly Asian and Pasifika people.
We sat next to an Asian girl who had come to watch the movie alone. These were powerful moments, ties that connected.
Think of what we felt when Taika Waititi got to direct Thor: Ragnorak, or when Disney announced Moana?
Whatever its flaws, Crazy Rich Asians shows us the importance of diversity and representation in popular culture.
It tells us this without being preachy, and in a way that’s easy to digest.
While I wanted it to have the glorious beauty of an Asian Black Panther, I wasn’t overly disappointed that it didn’t. Revolutions have to start from somewhere, and we should regard this as the spark, not the flame.
One last thing though, before I sign off… everyone knows the best satay in the world is from a kopitiam in Malaysia, not a bloody hawker centre in Singapore.