Adapted from Kevin Kwan's novel, "Crazy Rich Asians" has an all-Asian cast, which hasn't happened for a big motion picture since "The Joy Luck Club" in 1993. The movie stars Constance Wu ("Fresh Off the Boat") and is about a love story between an American professor and her boyfriend, who comes from an opulent family in Singapore. Although the cast has nearly all Asians, it hones in on the cultural aspects of east Asians (specifically Chinese and Singaporean) and does not include southeast Asians.
Some have been dubbing "Crazy Rich Asians" the "Black Panther" for Asians because of their diverse casts.
The trailer was recently released and will be in theaters on Aug. 17.
Opinion: I do not think "Crazy Rich Asians" will be the "Black Panther" for the Asian community. "Black Panther" had many historic and cultural nuances in the framing of a superhero movie. However, "Crazy Rich Asians" is lighthearted and may not appeal to as wide of an audience. At the same time, I believe it is important for major film studios to take risks on featuring predominantly non-white casts. Growing up, I did not see many Asian actors in American movies, and when I did, they often played token or stereotypical roles. I hope "Crazy Rich Asians" will do well in the box office, so film studios continue to produce movies with diverse casts and see that there is a market for such movies.
Questions:
What do you think the impact of "Crazy Rich Asians" will be?
Do you think it's important for movies to have diverse casts? Why?
What other cultures should be highlighted in a major motion picture?
Some have been dubbing "Crazy Rich Asians" the "Black Panther" for Asians because of their diverse casts.
The trailer was recently released and will be in theaters on Aug. 17.
Opinion: I do not think "Crazy Rich Asians" will be the "Black Panther" for the Asian community. "Black Panther" had many historic and cultural nuances in the framing of a superhero movie. However, "Crazy Rich Asians" is lighthearted and may not appeal to as wide of an audience. At the same time, I believe it is important for major film studios to take risks on featuring predominantly non-white casts. Growing up, I did not see many Asian actors in American movies, and when I did, they often played token or stereotypical roles. I hope "Crazy Rich Asians" will do well in the box office, so film studios continue to produce movies with diverse casts and see that there is a market for such movies.
Questions:
What do you think the impact of "Crazy Rich Asians" will be?
Do you think it's important for movies to have diverse casts? Why?
What other cultures should be highlighted in a major motion picture?
Sources:
7 comments:
I agree that "Crazy Rich Asians" will not be the "Black Panther" for the Asian community because it does not appeal to as wide of an audience, especially considering Marvel's huge fanbase. Regardless, I think that "Crazy Rich Asians" will have a significant impact in that it will ideally get the ball rolling for more diverse representation, specifically Asian representation, in the film industry. Although the movie itself may not garner as much attention as "Black Panther," the concept behind the making of the film might. I do think that it is important for movies to have diverse casts because movies are a significant part of American culture and hence should accurately represent its diversity. I think that this kind of representation is especially important for younger people, who look to things like movies and television for role models and characters to identify with.
Both Tori and Emma make good points about how the comparison to Black Panther isn't incredibly accurate. However, I do think that it's quite an improvement for the movie-making industry to switch to becoming somewhat more inclusive. I think that its a good start, and that in general, as an industry, there should just be more inclusivity overall. I don't think the entire cast has to be of a certain race, but there should be more diversity in the movies that come out, especially since movies tend to be quite relevant in society.
I think it's great that Hollywood is opening up more to minorities. However I think it's important to recognize that diverse doesn't mean an all Asian or African cast. The definition of diverse is: "showing a great deal of variety." So the cast of this movie is not technically diverse, however I think it is great that movies are casting different groups of people rather than just whitewashing like they have in the past.
Just to be clear, I have no problem with a movie starring all Asians. I just take issue with the use of the word diverse in this context.
Speaking as someone who's half-asian himself (Filipino) I have to applaud this effort for diversity and portrayal of asian people in positive roles. However, I also have to contend that there's gonna be some issues here.
A common genre of film in the seventies and eighties was the "blaxsploitation film." These were films like 'Shaft' and 'Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song,' wherein the action, mainly set in poor urban neighborhoods, relies heavily on shock-value characteristics to be provoking to a white audience-which only served to subtly exacerbate racial tensions and push on racial stereotypes of black people as dangerous criminals. This movie might have the same problem, but applied to Asian people-where the asian majority of the cast is portrayed positively (not easily indicating racism) but the entire movie is put through the lens of the white majority culture, so stereotypes are in full force.
What I mean is that I can see the stereotypes already, even before the release of the film. Let's look at the plot: an asian NYU professor travels with her boyfriend (also a professor at NYU) to Singapore, where she discovers that her boyfriend's family happens to be a prestigious new-money family that benefitted from the rise of Singapore as one of the four asian tigers. Positive stereotypes all-round, but still stereotypes. Ouch. Not exactly 'Black Panther' in terms of innovative storytelling for Asians. Warner Brothers has to be really careful in order to make sure this doesn't become a reinforcement of the very stereotypes that they were trying to overcome.
However, there is some hope. The director is asian, as are the vast majority of the cast (with no token white characters). In addition, a full half of the writing team (a writing team of two, but I'll take what I can get) as well as the writer of the source materiel is asian. In addition, all asian nationalities are represented in the creative team: Malays, Singaporeans, Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, and Filipinos. I have to see the film myself to make a proper judgement, but I think this is an overall positive step for Asians in media.
I have to say I was pretty intrigued and excited when I saw the trailer to this movie. I do agree with Ariana that this is a pretty big step in a positive direction along with Black Panther. While I don't think "Crazy Rich Asians" will appeal to such a large audience as Black Panther did just because of the plot and company difference between the two, I think it is a good start to inclusivity. In the near future, I hope that films could combine these cultures into their films rather than just solely focusing on one culture per film. With all this being said, I am pretty stocked to watch "Crazy Rich Asians" when it come out.
I agree with Emma as well because this movie "Crazy Rich Asians" is directed towards a more specific group while "Black Panther" is more for everyone. I think a huge improvement is displaying different cultures, which makes it more inclusive. Hopefully, they will combine these cultures as Julia said. It is very important to have a diversified cast. The more diverse, the better the movie can potentially be
Like everyone above, I agree this is a great step forward for Hollywood. However, I'm finding it hard to get past the title and plot of the movie. The title itself, seems to be stereotypical, and rude. Referring to asians as "crazy" and "rich" doesn't exactly have a positive implication. I know this movie is adapted from a book, but I think it's unfortunate that the title seems so derogatory. Unlike the black panther, where the movie was extremely respectful and also interesting, I worry this movie will be less so. Also, the plot seems so stereotypically rom-com that I feel this movie will appeal to a much smaller group as opposed to Black Panther. However, I am curious and excited like others that Asians are going to be fully represented in a movie, which is unfortunately a rare occasion.
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