Reflection on Crazy Rich Asians: Exploring Various Forms of Tension Within the Film
Him, a white boy, Christopher, and I, an Asian-American girl, Ying, settled into our seats cheerily with a buttered-up tub of popcorn in hand. Once the opening music began playing in a choppy, familiar Mandarin Chinese, I knew I was witnessing a movement. I nudged Chris’ shoulder and let out a smirk, as if to communicate the words: “My time is here, watch for it.”
And he nodded knowingly, burrowing his brows at the unfamiliar language and the black-haired, black-eyed characters. I thought of my struggles with self-acceptance and assimilation. I thought of the enigma behind how to properly represent people by first catching their attention with the colors of the film. I thought of every other Asian American who may or may not have tears run down their faces right now. I sent out a prayer to them, I said I’ve got you, I heard you, I understood you, and I am here with you, feeling just as exhilarated and anticipatory.
The main actress Constance Wu, a Chinese-American raised in the American south like me, mentioned that CRA is her first mainstream film, a project toward which she waited ten years of tables for. In the film, she plays Rachel Chu, a feisty, witty, intelligent child of an immigrant, and the youngest professor in the Economics Department at NYU. Seeing her typical Chinese American features and mannerisms made my heart leap in a way I could not quite understand, mostly because I was not able to witness someone as powerful as her in a mainstream movie theater before. Not once. I tried to grasp the amount of excitement in the form of words, the pride and joy I was feeling that moment, but I came up empty.
The film began in a game of MaJong in the center of a lecture hall, which had rules that embodied Game Theory, the class that Rachel Chu teaches. This game was reintroduced later in the film when Rachel challenged her soon-to-be mother-in-law on a silent, hostile duel. Cleverly, these two games of MaJong took place in two different cultural settings: one American, and one Chinese-Singaporean. One took place in a quiet venue full of concentrated pupils, and one took place in semi open air filled with the banters of the pedestrians.
These two very different games of MaJong had the same level of tension, a tension that is embodied throughout the film in various forms.
Tension №1: It was not difficult to observe: the small but cozy family of Rachel Chu were your hustlin’ Chinese Americans, working class, single-parent, and gritty type; and the enormous clan of the Young empire were your gated castles, old-money, pristine, regal, and extravagant type. These two planes of existence are realistically very difficult to come close, let along merge.
That all changed when the “prince charming” Nick Young studied in America as an international student, where he did not say much about his identity or his wealth. We see them talking in a bar just like any other grass-root young people, stripped of any extraneous factors. We saw them as who we are: Young Asian Professionals (YAP) who enjoys sports, tasty alcoholic beverages, rom-coms (especially after To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before), and texting in group-chats.
Tension №2: Between the elderly and the young, we observed many differences not only between Rachel and her mother, but also within the Young family as well.
We hear the difference in their accents in the clothing store when Rachel’s mother persuades Rachel to purchase a fancier dress, and the lack of understanding of traditional Chinese culture by Rachel. We observe the utter amount of respect paid to one single grandmother in the Young household by every other younger person as if she was an empress, and how much power her words contain. To a Chinese-American audience, this type of representation is a form of cultural awakening, because I bet a lot of us are still puzzled when it comes to the generational differences in Asian culture.
Tension №3: The difference in beauty and aesthetic standards between international Asians (including British, Singaporean, mainland Chinese…..) and a typical Chinese American. Starting from when the well-dressed, fancy, and chirpy international women stalked Lucy’s social media profiled, comments were made about her “untidy” and “Americanized” appearance. Her skin was too tan, her smile was too large, and she just seemed foreign to them. This dispute in beauty standard snowballed into various levels of hatred from the international women that escalated into direct action. (Hint: when words are written in lipstick on a piece of glass, it’s usually a Mean Girls moment. )
This difference in standards may not be fully understood by someone who isn’t Chinese or someone who isn’t familiar with it, but it is certainly prevalent and alive. Although the name of the film is “CRA,” the depiction does not stray crazy far from reality.
…
When Chris and I finished the movie, he had a look of amazement and puzzlement on his face all at once. I asked what’s wrong, and he told me that he has never seen a film like this before. I took a deep breath, and said to him: “Me too, and I will see it again soon.”
There are simply too many layers on what it means to be an Asian, and this film covers a lot of them that I did not even know existed before. To me, CRA is not only a film, but a movement, a step closer to better representation for people of color, and a realistic depiction of what it means to be a crazy rich, crazy not-rich, and crazy normal Asian not only in the United States, but all around the world.
