After the big wins at the Oscars on Sunday, I wrote to gwangung to say that I thought this was a Big Joe Biden Deal, and I wondered if he thought so, too. I asked if he might like to share his thoughts with us – and he was happy to share his joy with us!
Every Award for Asians, Everywhere All At Once
by gwangung
This past Sunday, I sat down and did something I haven’t done for twentysome odd years. I watched the Academy Awards. Live. From start to finish (including monologue.
Because I was tuned in with the rest of the Asian American AND Asian community (two things Hollywood, like much of white society, conflate, but were utterly united in this) to see how well a movie called Everything Everywhere All At Once, starring Asian icon Michelle Yeoh and Asian American pioneer Ke Huy Quan, could do with its 11 nominations.
To say this was highly anticipated by Asians and Asian Americans is…an understatement. Here’s a post from well known Asian American blogger Phil Yu (aka Angry Asian Man) from last year’s Oscars:
I tweeted this during last year's #Oscars https://t.co/mWcy2TQCEO
— Phil Yu (@angryasianman) March 13, 2023
Of course, my (and a billion other eyes) weren’t glued to just the TV screen or monitor; we hadda scroll various social media (from Facebook to TikTok to, yes, even Twitter) to hear bon mots from the Asian online community. Asians are good at social media (remember? K-pop fans overwhelming white supremacists) and the snark of Asian Twitter is second only to Black Twitter.
And they were totally invested in EEAAO. Over and over, you can see AA posting, “That’s my mother up there” or “That’s me coming out to my parents.” The identification with the film was total across the board.
The reasons behind this are many and emotionally deflating. One is the total lack of representation; from 2007 to 2019, according to a report in Hollywood Reporter, Asians were only 6 percent of all roles with speaking lines (an IMPROVEMENT over the 20th Century). This covers other arts, as well; the Asian American Performers Action Coalition found that Asian made up less than 5% of roles on stage in NYC, an area with a 16% Asian American population (and in Seattle where Asians are 20% of the population but with only 5% off roles on stage—and I helped create a third of those).
Moreover, the kind of roles Asians play were almost always minor. That same Hollywood Reporter article also showed that only 3.4% of those roles were leading roles—and most of them were Dwayne Johnson. Blogger Will Yu started the meme #StarringJohnCho to show what it would look like if today’s Hollywood blockbusters cast an Asian-American actor.
Most gallingly of all, Hollywood practiced yellow face…the practice of casting white actors as Asian characters. Werner Oland as Charlie Chan is a classic example, but it was something still done in modern times; from 2000-2016, there was at least one major film a year that cast white actors as Asian characters, from the entire cast of 21 to Emma Stone in Aloha to Scarlett Johansson in Ghost In the Shell.
This resulted in the rather embarrassing fact that until this year, there were just as many white actresses who won Oscars playing Asian characters (Luise Rainier in The Good Earth and Linda Hunt in The Year of Living Dangerously) as Asian actresses winning them for playing Asians (Miyoshi Umeki in Sayonara and Youn Yuh-Jung in Minari).
With all of this history, pile on to that the toll of the pandemic (and so many racists nattering on about the Wuhan Flu) plus all of the anti-Asian violence (the Atlanta massacre in particular) and the Asian American community were hungry to claim a victory.
So, yeah. Asian folks were PRIMED.
As the evening went on, and EEAAO started racking up the wins, Asian social media slowly went out of their minds. Folks like Ming Na Wen, Daniel Dae Kim and Tammy Duckworth were fan-boying and fan-girling with everyone else. A post from Will Yu is kinda emblematic.
IF YOU’RE NOT TRYING TO GIVE ME THAT STEPHANIE HSU ENERGY WHEN I GET MY WINS THEN I DON’T WANT IT ✨ pic.twitter.com/ay8nkkgdwy
— William Yu 유규호 (@its_willyu) March 13, 2023
And one of my own posts went viral, racking up hundreds of re-shares (and shares of reshares).
In the end, EEAAO scored seven Oscars, including the biggies of Best Actress, Best Original Screenplay, Best Director and Best Picture. The party on social media is only now subsiding…
But is this a gamechanger? Maybe…and maybe not. Persistent stereotypes still have sway in Hollywood (like all of American society). Casting directors still think Asian actors were not very expressive. They certainly aren’t as experienced (because they aren’t getting cast). Ky Huy Quan will finally keep his health insurance and get cast (the clue-by-four of an Oscar helps), but it’ll probably be in dorky Dad roles, and Michelle Yeoh won’t get roles much beyond action or Asian exoticism (though maybe Wicked might break that?). There’s still a reluctance to green light projects wth Asians as headliners; still getting screenwriters asked “Can you change one or both of your protagonists to white?”
The triumphant parade of awards for EEAAO has a dark side. As EEAO Producer Jonathan Wang puts it, Ke Huy Quan didn’t leave acting; Hollywood wasted his talents for decades by not casting him, And it took Hollywood almost as long to put Michelle Yeoh number one in the call sheet—and there’s no buzz that it’s changing. Even now, Hollywood slips back into its old, habits. Naatu Naatu from RRR won for best song (as much as its choreography as anything else), but for the live Oscar performance, they did not use South Asians for the choreography and the majority of the dancers were not South Asian.
Still. Still. Still. There can be no commonplace without firsts. And this was a bunch of major firsts. Hollywood, and the the arts in general, is like the rest of American society (which includes politics). It is resistant to change, and those who want more inclusion, more equity, will have to seize the power from the current establishment to make it occur.
Let me end this with yet another tweet from Will Yu:
what a time we’re in 🤩 https://t.co/xTKLEt89i4
— William Yu 유규호 (@its_willyu) March 13, 2023
Will Yu created #StarringJohnCho.
#StarringJohCho helped Director John Chu pitch Crazy Rich Asians to the studios.
Crazy Rich Asians brought Ke Huy Quan back to acting.
Ke Huy Quan joined the cast of Everything Everywhere All At Once.
And the rest is history.
Success of EEAO: don't pander to a white audience and make weird-ass content FOR the people you're representing.
— cph (@cathyparkhong) March 13, 2023
gwangung
I’ll be hanging out, answering any comments or questions, which was sort a summary of the comments I’ve made before….
WaterGirl
Links in a chain. It can be hard to see the chain forming until it’s complete.
Dan B
It was exhilarating to see Asians and AA win. At the same time there were two straight people nominated for playing gay characters and Brandon Fraser won the Oscar. I’m still glad there are LGBTQ stories.
WaterGirl
I haven’t seen the film, but from the comments the other night, it seemed like people here either loved it or hated it. Was it universally well-received in the Asian community?
Since I haven’t seen the movie, my only other thought is to wonder if this is how the black community felt about Black Panther. Finally seen. Finally acknowledged.
WaterGirl
@Dan B:
Can you say more about what you’re getting at here?
UncleEbeneezer
I know everyone loves JLC, as do I (my wife even shared a golf cart with her on the Paramount lot and she is super-cool) but let’s be honest, Stephanie Hsu was robbed! Her performance was incredible and so much more crucial to EEAAO.
MazeDancer
And we don’t get to see it?
If it is as well done as this post, we certainly would like to enjoy.
Darkrose
Any of those movies Starring John Cho would have gotten me to the theater. Sigh. That man is fine.
gwangung
@WaterGirl: It wasn’t universally well received in the Asian/Asian American community, but the investment in the movie because of its recognition by the wider community sorta shifted the balance; there was a lot of “Well, I really didn’t understand it, but I loved how it’s being recognized. And…Michelle Yeoh.”
As compared to Black Panther, I think Crazy Rich Asians and Shang Chi muted some of the parallels, but that widespread recognition was still gratifying, whether it was here in America or overseas on the Asian continent.
UncleEbeneezer
@WaterGirl: No. Justin Chang of the LA Times was thrilled that it won (for all the important reasons) but thought it was pretty overrated as a Best Film nominee/winner (spoilers in article so you may wanna just read the excerpt):
“I’m not accusing “Everything Everywhere All at Once” of insincerity. As this year’s most flamboyantly operatic best picture nominee not directed by Baz Luhrmann, the movie is off-the-charts sincere. That’s partly the problem: It’s so eager to bare its soul, to show you just how much its heart breaks for Evelyn and Joy and Waymond and Deirdre and everyone in the whole damn multiverse, that it practically does all your emoting for you. There’s almost no need — and no room — for a viewer to feel anything at all.
I say all this knowing that there are few things more cinematically subjective than what makes us laugh and cry. And audiences have wept buckets over “Everything Everywhere,” whose sheer too-muchness — its pull-out-the-stops, feel-all-the-feels, everything-plus-the-laundry-sink energy — is exactly what they love most about it. It’s what they feel has been missing from movies, and perhaps the Oscars, forever.
The academy seems to agree. Against the unceasing din of the multiverse, what chance was there for the subtler glories of the best picture race — the haunting ambiguities of “Tár,” the lyrical epiphanies of “The Fabelmans,” the intensely pointed debates of “Women Talking” or, hell, even the exploding mortar shells of “All Quiet on the Western Front,” which are indeed quiet by comparison? The more I’ve thought about “Everything Everywhere,” for all its undeniable representational significance, the more traditional a best picture winner it seems. Beneath its veneer of impish, form-busting radicalism, it’s as epically self-important, broadly sentimental and thematically unambiguous a movie as any the academy has so honored.”
YY_Sima Qian
@gwangung: Wonderful post!
Sister Golden Bear
Thank you for sharing! As you’re probably aware trans people has similar challenges in the stage/movie industries. Not trying to play Oppression Olympics, rather focusing the commonalities and I definitely have some idea of the frustrations and elation.
Any recommendations for people on Asian Twitter to follow?
Sister Golden Bear
@gwangung: Also just wanted put an amazing trans actor, Rachel Crowl, on your radar. I believe you’re in the Seattle area, and if so, you can see her in “Between Two Knees,” which is an amazing play about the “lighter side of Native American genocide” as its creators put it. (It’s a Native American comedy group called the 1491s.) Extremely funny and biting. In past performances, at OSF and elsewhere, there’s inevitably white people walking out at intermission, which the cast thinks is hysterical. Rachel plays 14 characters both women and men (she’s one of the few trans women actors who’s comfortable playing male roles).
gwangung
@MazeDancer: Just a simple statement:
“FINALLY. More Asian women have won Oscars for playing Asian characters than white women have.”
@UncleEbeneezer: Yeah, I liked Stephanie’s work best of the five nominees. But it was a tough field. (As it happens, today is the 9th anniversary of when I met her when she was doing Fast Company off Broadway).
schrodingers_cat
I am happy for the cast and crew of the movie. Michelle Yeoh is a goddess. I saw parts of the movie on my flight back to the US from India this summer but because of the noise I was not really getting much of it. I need to see it again.
Asians are not a homogenous group so I don’t really know what this movie winning means for actors and other of subcontinental origin in Hollywood. Or say movies from India’s huge film industry
My guess is not much.
RRR’s win doesn’t fill me with any joy. I can now say that with a clear conscience having endured the entire movie.
Dan B
@WaterGirl: There have been many straight actors over the years who have won awards for playing gay. Abd there have been many gay actors in straight roles but its rare to have gay actors playing gay except in nuche products for LGBTQ audiences. Hollywood seems spooked about casting gay to play gay. So you have Cate Blanchett and Brendan Fraser playing LGBTQ. It seems a bit off.
gwangung
@Sister Golden Bear: Ah! Did not know she was trans! Saw it at OSF and plan to see it again at the Rep. That show also has an Asian American theatre connection, as they got a lot of confidence in doing what they did from seeing Qui Nguyen’s Vietgone at OSF, and they used one of the actors from that show in the OSF and Seattle Rep show.
And there are lots of folks to follow, Jeff Yang (@originalspin)(who happens to be the father of Hudson Yang, fro Fresh Off the Boat), Phil Yu (@angryasianman), Erin Quill (@Equill), Scott Kurashige (@Scottkurashige) just off the top of my head.
WaterGirl
@Dan B: Interesting!
Dan B
@Dan B: Hope this answers your question
Also Michelle Yeoh but that seems more like a mind bending role from what I’ve seen.
Sister Golden Bear
Casting directors who think that have obviously ignored the body of work of both Chow Yun-fat and Jackie Chan, just to name two. Hell, a big part of Chan’s appeal, aside from his mind-blowing stunts, are that most of his characters are adorable goof-balls.
Matt McIrvin
I loved EEAAO but it’s the epitome of a movie that is not for everyone; that any kind of person unlike me would hate it is perfectly understandable and I’m actually kind of shocked that it got as broadly positive a reception as it did.
UncleEbeneezer
@Darkrose: Do you watch K-dramas? There is a WHOLE LOT of fine-ness (of all genders) to swoon over. Even the awkward/”ugly” characters are usually pretty stunningly attractive. The only problem is that they never get as steamy as it feels like they should, lol.
CliosFanBoy
Werner Oland was actually very popular in China in the 1930s. Despite his “ah so” accent, Chan was always the smartest person in the room, and the people that treated him with disrespect would always be revealed to be fools and/or villains. But then there was the Black “comic relief” character in his movies, which was always hideously embarrassing.
FWIW, Oland was actually Swedish (!) but looked Asian enough that a lot of his fans thought he really was.
geg6
Great post. I loved Crazy Rich Asians so much. I can’t understand why all that talent is being wasted.
That said, I have no desire to see Everything, Everywhere. I’m happy to see it do so well, but everything I’ve read and seen about it tells me I would hate it. Anything having to do with a multiverse, whatever the hell that is, repels me. Probably because of the association with Marvel movies, which I consider the worst thing that’s ever happened in cinema. I know that is a very unpopular opinion here. I do love all the actors in EEAO, though. So I’m very happy for them and for the Asian communities who are finally seeing themselves on screen in a cultural phenomenon. Been some tough few years for those communities and I’m so happy they got some joy from this.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
I saw it last year before the hype.
Didn’t care for it at all, and found it too frenetic and weird.
Keep in mind – I have generally enjoyed Michelle Yeoh, but that movie was way overrated.
MazeDancer
@gwangung: Thanks! Well worth its viralness.
CliosFanBoy
As much as I love watching Michelle Yeoh I just did not enjoy EEAAO. The hot dog fingers grossed me out, but it was more than that. It was just one of those films that I recognized as a really good movie that I just couldn’t get into.
Craig
@Sister Golden Bear: yeah, that’s just dumb. Tony Leung has been the best actor in the world for 20 odd years. People can be pretty stupid.
Emma
@WaterGirl: “Was it universally well-received in the Asian community?” I loved it, but my aunt and mom didn’t want to even see it because they don’t like the way Michelle’s English in interviews sounds like she’s putting on a fake posh accent. (Which is hilarious, because the more “heartland-y” types in Singapore and Malaysia would totally say the same of them.) And the more annoying opinions from mainland Chinese criticize her and KHQ’s Mandarin for not sounding nice/educated. (Personally, I would have enjoyed hearing Evelyn and Waymond speaking in Cantonese, as their Mandarin accent leads one to believe that Cantonese is their first language, but eh, pissing off the little pinkies is good too.)
But this movie really hits a chord with Asian Americans in particular across the generations, at least from my limited experience. My friends, Chinese and non-Chinese, hadn’t even seen it, but as soon I as I started quoting Evelyn and talking about the generational trauma theme, they were all like EMOTIONAL DAMAGE HAHAHA *cry*
Thank you for writing this post, gwangung!
Sister Golden Bear
@gwangung:
Was that the Asian actor who was the other ensemble player? If so, he’s a nice guy. I met in him the bar where all the OSF actors go post-show. Also met one of the actors in the “Cambodian Rock Band,” which I’m pleased to see is continuing to tour, albeit with a somewhat different case in the Bay Area.
Rach was a successful Off Broadway actor, with a number leading roles, until she transitioned about 15 years ago. Then the only part offered to her were the “live tranny hooker” and “dead tranny hooker.”
So she ended up leaving acting for a decade or so, thinking her career was over. By luck she ended getting cast as the co-lead in the award-winning indie film, “And Then There Was Eve” (Absolutely gorgeous cinematography, you’d never guess they had small budget.) That restarted her career. As Rach says, she spent three decades playing a man, so why not put that to use as an actor.
UncleEbeneezer
@Sister Golden Bear: Celeste Ng and Viet Than Nguyen are both great follows but I think the latter is no longer on Twitter.
gwangung
@Matt McIrvin: Yes, that’s exactly it for me, too. Totally in my wheelhouse, and the qualities that others here say turned them off (quite justifiably) were ones that I ate up like candy. The movie had a precise idea of what it wanted to do, and it resisted any effort to “broaden its appeal” (which is a thing that happens a lot to non-white writers in high level theatres; such efforts actually blanderize the work and crush the thing that makes it worth seeing).
eclare
@geg6: Come sit next to me, sister. The only superhero movie I have seen was Iron Man, and that was only because Robert Downey, Jr. was in it. I get the same feeling you do, just not for me. But it is on a channel I get, so I may give it a try.
TaMara
@geg6: If it helps, this is less about multi-verse (I share your aversion) and more about husbands and wives, mothers and daughters, daughters and fathers – across generational lines – than anything else. It is life-affirming and mindblowing all in the same moment.
I do understand those who disliked it, it is not for everyone, but thought-provoking? Yes. Experimental? Yes! Worth best picture? Absolutely. It took risks and it paid off.
They defied every executive who tried to talk them out of casting their perfect cast, including trying to convince them into making it about a white family (WTF).
The editing was outstanding. And to top it all off, it was filmed in 34 days, finishing just as the pandemic shut everything down. Then two years of editing to get it just right.
my two cents
schrodingers_cat
@eclare: Can I join you? I haven’t seen any of the Marvel universe movies with the exception of the two Spiderman movies with Tobey McGuire. And they were good not great.
Tokyokie
I’ve been watching Asian movies for years, and like them better than American ones. (Sadly, the Hong Kong film industry has really gone downhill since the handover and increased marketing efforts by the Hollywood studios, while the PRC’s tight content controls have essentially muted Zhang Yimou and others.) But I still find Korean movies a lot more interesting than Hollywood ones because of the way they tweak film conventions, and I think Song Kang-ho is the best actor in movies today. But we seem to be forgetting that just a couple of years ago, Parasite was the big winner, so EEAAO is more of a groundbreaking success for Asian-Americans (even if the lead actress ids Malaysian), which is fine with me. I don’t go to comic-book movies, and I need something in between Scorsese films.
eclare
@schrodingers_cat: Of course! BTW congratulations on your new artist tools! I am sure you will enjoy them, what a variety of colors.
Sister Golden Bear
@geg6:
You may still hate it, but FWIW it’s more fantasy-ish than sci-fi (think Being John Malkovich), and the meta verse element is more along the lines of “ever wonder how your life might have turned out differently” and being able to see glimpses of some of the other outcomes.
@Emma:
I’ve heard the same thing from my Asian friends about both EEAAO and Seeing Red, as well as my Hispanic friends about En Canto. Both grew up in families where the parents were never to be challenged, so it was incredibly cathartic for them to see stories where the parents not only realized they’d screwed up but apologized for it, and sought to make amends.
gwangung
@Sister Golden Bear: James Ryen (6′ 4″, built like a linebacker)? Yeah, he’s an OSF regular.
I think I know most of the Cambodian Rock Band cast from OSF. Most of them are in the Bay Area (Abe Kim, Jane Jui [she dubbed Michelle’s voice in EEAAO in the Cantonese opera scene and Moses Villarama). Daisuke Tsuji isn’t there, but he’s on Broadway in Life of Pi, but you get Francis Jue. And Brooke Ishibashi is on tour with the Into the Woods cast that finished a smash tour on Broadway.
gwangung
@Tokyokie: Yes, it’s an Asian American story (distinct from Asian stories); the whole immigrant story and accepting children. And it played really well into the multiverse device, dealing with all the what ifs.
And the fact that EEAAO got so many acting nominations is the real breakthrough. Before Minari, none of the Asian-oriented pictures that were nominated for Best Picture (Crouching Tiger, Last Emperor, Parasite) got nominations for their casts, which I found really suspicious.
Brachiator
I think that Michelle Yeoh was cast as the captain in Star Trek: Discovery because she is a good actress and charismatic. She was also a tremendous Mirror Universe villain.
But I note all the other points presented in the main essay and greatly enjoyed reading it. I suppose it says something that foreign Asian films get respect even though Asian American actors have had problems getting cast in domestic films.
Craig
Thanks for this post. I saw EEAAO first week it was out and it reduced me to a crying, laughing blob of a movie fan. I’ve rarely seen a movie so infused with joy. Everything about it, from The Daniels basic writing structure, to their obvious thrill at the crazy visuals that they can imagine and actually pull off, to how that energy was transferred to the cast, it all just screams I LOVE FCKN CINEMA!!!!. Then they’d turn straight to a beat that would just leak water out of my eyes. I’ve loved Asian Cinema since I first moved to SF and my friends and I would go watch double features of Jackie Chan, John Wood, and Tsui Hark movies at The Strand theater on Market Street for $2. Here’s to hoping that this will be a continuing, sustained change in Hollywood.
UncleEbeneezer
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: yeah, the first 45 minutes were like a Rick & Morty episode relying too heavily on the assumption that weird/intense = clever. Once it got to the more serious issues at the heart of the story, though, I found it was incredibly moving.
gwangung
@Sister Golden Bear:
As one wag put it, that moment when Evelyn apologized is when they knew a) this was a fantasy and b) Michelle Yeoh nailed the Oscar.
Sister Golden Bear
@gwangung: Yep, that was James I was thinking of. FWIW, he also subbed for Tsuji in Cambodia Rock Band for a couple performances that spring. While I can’t really imagine someone else playing Duch role, but I’m interested to see what Jue does with it. I’m FB friends with Brooke, although we’re not close. I was wondering why she wasn’t in the Berkeley Rep production, but it’s great here that’s because she’s working elsewhere.
Heh. No lie detected.
Roger Moore
This, to me, is the big thing. For all that Hollywood has a liberal reputation, it is deeply conservative in a lot of ways. It has a very strong sense that thing X has worked in the past, so let’s keep doing thing X. This is why actors (and even directors) get typecast, why the whole industry will get taken over by a particular genre (comic book movies right now), and why studios keep making sequels and prequels and midquels. It’s also why the studios want new actors who look like the established ones. The studios are incredibly conservative and risk averse in the kinds of things they are willing to try.
Sister Golden Bear
@gwangung: Fun bit of BTK’s backstory. The bit where Rach plays the wacked-out New Age guru who performs the marriage was inspired by the 1491s seeing the Native-appropriating New Age store in Ashland, and then vowing they had to ridicule those sorts of folks.
Sister Golden Bear
@Roger Moore:
There’s a long-standing Industry joke that studio execs want something new, creative, and innovative — and exactly like some prior movie that made lots of money.
gwangung
@Roger Moore:
Yeah, that’s true. Surprises like EEAAO and Crazy Rich Asians crack the door a bit, but the finance people take over and fall back on the old ways. You’d think they woulda followed up on Joy Luck Club in the 90s, but they have to have clue-by-fours applied.
But there ARE some projects getting green-lit, so it’s our job to take advantage of it to produce more good work and to watch good work that comes down the pike
@Sister Golden Bear: BWAH HAH HAH!
Roger Moore
@gwangung:
It doesn’t help that studio executives are not very diverse, either. It might be easier to convince them that audiences will react well to Asian American stars if there were a few more Asian Americans in charge of deciding which films get made. Until we have diversity in management, it will always be hard to have diversity on screen.
raven
Well I love Ang Lee’s films!
gwangung
@Roger Moore: Yeah, tell me about (and it doesn’t help when we do get folks in there, they act like dicks). Generally, you can get your work done with fewer compromises going the independent route, but that doesn’t have the imprimatur of established big studios with a lot of folks….it’s a tradeoff you have think about in order to make.
kalakal
How anyone can think Asian actors are not expressive having seen Jackie Chan is beyond me.
I do hope Hollywood doesn’t slip back, there is so much Asian talent available.
Perhaps the UK may give a hopeful example.
In the 60s and 70s it seemed there was only 1 black actor – Don Warrington – who got anything other than minor parts, 2 Indian actors – Madhur & Saaed Jaffrey – ditto, and one all purpose south east asian actor – Bert Kwouk* who played Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese characters etc etc as required by casting
All were and are excellent actors but I’m glad to say the situation is totally transformed these days. I hope the same happens to Hollywood
*Bert had a remarkable life, he was born in Lancashire when he’s parents were touring Europe, grew up in Shanghai, when Mao came to power they went to the US where he went to university. He then moved to England and took up acting. He was most famous as Cato in the Pink Panther movies. He was in dozens of films and TV shows including Empire of the Sun, Rollerball, Dr Who, The Avengers and one I somehow never got to see I bought a Vampire Motorcycle
raven
@kalakal: That Cato shit was racist as hell. . .not that In knew it at the time.
Sister Golden Bear
@kalakal: American actors like Harold Lloyd are so expressive. /s
(I love me some Harold Lloyd.)
columbusqueen
@Sister Golden Bear: You mean Turning Red?
randy khan
We don’t get out to the movies once, but we saw Michelle Yeoh in Crazy Rich Asians, and she was awfully good (as was the movie). I actually was a bit surprised to find out about her history in martial arts movies.
YY_Sima Qian
@gwangung: While I have enjoyed Crazy Rich Asians, Shang Chi & Black Panther, looking back I can’t help but cringe at the some of the almost subconscious [self-]Orientalization & [self-]Exotification of POCs & the cultures they are supposed to represent. It is always very striking to see the difference between movies directed/written by East Asians in East Asian countries, versus those by Americans of East Asian descent.
I am very glad that the Academy is finally recognizing Asians & Asian Americans. Acceptance speeches by Michelle Yeoh & Ke Huy Quan brought tears to my eyes. Nevertheless, some of the reactions I see on social media feel like POCs desperately seeking affirmation from approval by White America, similar to how Global South countries used to seek affirmation from approval by the West (less so these days). Neither are healthy.
Of course, the goal is to transform traditional strongholds of “White America” (such as the Academy) into institutions that are representative of all of America, & every step along the long journey should be encouraged.
YY_Sima Qian
@Emma: A lot of the negative comments from Mainland China is not actually driven by pro-CCP sentiment or even Chinese chauvinism, but Northern Chinese chauvinism or anti-Southern Chinese chauvinism. Members of the Chinese Diaspora get caught up in the dynamic because the overwhelming majority trace their roots to the southern provinces of Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian & Hainan. Of course, one can find nativist chauvinism in every part of China & the Chinese Diaspora. People from different parts of Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan & ethnic Chinese in SE Asia can all hold views about thwart own superiority & bigoted views about each other.
Having said all that, casting actors whose accents mismatch their roles are problematic. I love Chow Yum-Fat & Michelle Yeoh as actors, but I found their Cantonese accents distracting the 1st time I saw Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Based on the source material, characters they played are from the Lower Yangtze region. The shooting locations, the customs design & the set design were all associated w/ the Lower Yangtze. So hearing Cantonese accent broke the suspension of disbelief for myself & a lot of Chinese viewers.
Imagine a movie about a family of London East Enders, & casting actors that can only speak in the Southern US drawl, & how London or British viewers would react to that.
kalakal
@YY_Sima Qian:
For many years (and still often the case ) English TV shows & films were incapable of doing Northern English regional accents. If it was set anywhere more than about 100 miles north of London there was an odd ‘generic northern accent’ . To someone from, say Yorkshire watching a series set in Leeds, the accents came over as convincing as if they’d been done in a US Southern drawl
ETA I remember enjoying Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon a lot. Of course my ability to discern Chinese regional accents is zero
YY_Sima Qian
@kalakal: The accent were less distracting for me on subsequent viewings of CTHD.
Sister Golden Bear
@columbusqueen: Yes. Turning Red. It’s been a long day.
planet eddie
@Sister Golden Bear: I love Rachel! I worked with her on a workshop at the Seattle Rep! How fun.
gwangung
@YY_Sima Qian: This thread is more than a tiny bit dead, but I did want to talk about the self-exotification trend in BIPOC led elements in mainstream arts. In a way, I think it as a reaction to the cultural genocide the larger culture practices (as we see in the treatment of indigenous people and children). The wider culture has unapologetically tried to stamp out identical members for society, and that means wiping out differences in culture; the melting pot was never an accurate metaphor. The larger culture has controlled who is considered the norm and who is considered a variant that needs to be remolded back to the norm. It’s a trait of all societies, of course, but American society has amped it up because of so many cultures it has tried to control.
And the natural response of those marginalized groups is to hold right to those cultural norms and values, and try to reinvent them as advantages in competition with the wider society. What emerges is a slight caricature as defining features are boldly emphasized…and, of course, some actual real knowledge has been erased. In the case of African Americans, this erasure has been almost total. Native erasure has been extensive. It’s a defensive move to reclaim and refurbish themselves because they are a minority culture in a wider society—of course Asian American self portraits are going to be different from Asian Asians…the mere fact of being the norm is going to change the attitude in creation.
Whether or not this will continue is an interesting question. I see in Asian American works a repeated cycle of identity->family->generation class->farce/comedy that seems similar to me in each of the major Asian American subgroups, moving Chinese/Japanese to Korean to SE Asian. There’s a movement of artists that is trying to transcend the old models of art, but there’s the ongoing problem of the wider culture shoving their minority status in their faces….
sab
@YY_Sima Qian: Interesting comment. I loved Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, but I speak about six words of Mandarin. My sister, who is fluent in Mandarin, absolutely hated the movie.
YY_Sima Qian
@gwangung: That is a great comment! Really appreciate it!
Having moved from China to the US in 1990 at a young age, I can certainly identify w/ the Asian American immigrant experience, because I lived it. However, having now lived & worked mostly in China since 2007, married a Mainland Chinese & raising a family here, I now feel a somewhat unmoored from the Asian American experience, as well. I can identify strongly w/ both Chinese & American experiences (& certainly the Asian American immigrant subset), & yet feel removed from all three as well
My reactions to these movies might have been quite different had I stayed in the US all this time.
YY_Sima Qian
@gwangung: To be more specific about where I was coming from: I always got the sense from watching Crazy Rich Asians, Shang Chi & Black Panther, that though these works were presented (&/or marketed) as “provocative”, “subversive” & “unapologetic” in representing POVs of POCs, the overall products still contain a faint undercurrent of yearning for acceptance & aiming to please. Perhaps I was projecting, but the undercurrent were just detectable enough to make me slightly ill-at-ease when viewing. Having lived the minority immigrant experience, I can empathize & sympathize with the yearn for acceptance, the aim to please, & the drive to assimilate, but I now look back to these youthful urges w/ embarrassment.
This burden/baggage is absent when watching products of East Asian cinema, so I can enjoy them for them own merits.
sab
I have only seen a glimpse of EEAAO for about ten minutes. Tuned in on cable briefly. I approached it with scepticism, and was instead howling with laughter immediately. So I shut it off so that I could watch it when I had time and attention to appreciate it. Looks like I will be in the love this movie camp.
sab
Just the he/ she joke with the gay daughter was hilarious. Been there done that in my family. Warning I don’t know any Chinese except what my sister has told me.
Chinese doesn’t have gendered pronouns. So no he or she. English does have them. So Chinese learning Englush tend to relate the more complicated sound to men. So men are “she” and women are “he”. Completely backwards, but also understandable in their misogynistic culture.
sab
@sab: This has caused huge problems in my family over the past thirty years. People are idiots. What can you say other than that.
sab
@sab: We have a trans niece and several gay kids. This stuff is real to us.
YY_Sima Qian
@sab: Traditionally the Chinese character “他“ refers to both “he” & “she”. On Mainland China, they added the Simplified character “她” to refer to “she”, to differentiate. The left half of the new character is the Chinese character for “woman” (“女”). However, both characters still have the same pronunciation in Mandarin.
Having learned Simplified characters on the Mainland, the 1st time I saw Taiwanese TV broadcast captions use “他“ to refer to a female person, I thought they were repeating the same typo over & over.
Matt McIrvin
@CliosFanBoy: Kind of like the way that Speedy Gonzales is an embarrassing stereotype, but they loved him in Mexico anyway, in part because he not only won every time, he was selflessly heroic in a way that was rare for Looney Tunes characters.