Crazy Rich Asians

When I first watched Crazy Rich Asians at the Bow Tie Cinema in New Haven, the movie theater was packed with mostly Asian American students, many of whom were moved to tears by the film. For these audience members, seeing Asian and Asian American actors perform roles beyond Hollywood’s standard caricatures of computer nerds and threatening foreigners was a precious cause for celebration.

Crazy Rich Asians follows the story of Chinese-American economics professor Rachel Chu (played by Constance Wu) as she travels with her long-time boyfriend to a lavish wedding in Singapore. After meeting her boyfriend’s extravagant, yet traditional family and his equally posh friends, Rachel watches her romantic vacation transform into a confusing twilight zone of jealous friends and strict mothers. While the plot leaves much to be desired, dazzling visuals and a lively soundtrack keep the audience engaged. Meanwhile, the movie itself opens an interesting conversation about Asian representation in entertainment.

Crazy Rich Asians touted a historic majority Asian and Asian American cast; the last blockbuster movie with such a strong Asian presence was the 1993 film adaptation of Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club. After Hollywood’s extended history of characters wearing yellowface and a perpetual cinematic shuffle of flat Asian side characters, the record-setting box office success of Crazy Rich Asians felt long overdue.

But warnings from some Asian American activist circles left me with some hesitation about the film. In many ways, Crazy Rich Asians upholds the model minority myth, from the tiger parent stereotype embodied in an overbearing mother-in-law, to a title that obscures the reality of poverty in Asian American communities. Is a movie centered around the ultra-wealthy lifestyles of a privileged, Westernized slice of the Asian community really “The” Asian movie — with a capital T?

Although headlines suggested otherwise, Asian American representation has actually made many strides in the decades since The Joy Luck Club. Asian American casts have been featured in everything from the 2002 film Better Luck Tomorrow to the more recent sitcom Fresh Off the Boat (which incidentally helped launch the career of Crazy Rich Asians star Constance Wu). For myself, an avid fan of soppy rom-coms from China, Korea, and Bollywood, I had already seen several other love stories featuring casts that looked like me. Although certainly progressive in its representation of Asians and Asian Americans by Hollywood standards, Crazy Rich Asians is far from unprecedented.

After the credits rolled, I was elated about the movie for all the same reasons as my friends, but I felt nowhere close to crying. Crazy Rich Asians is not The Asian Film, and it shouldn’t be. Building on a long history of Asian Americans fighting for authentic representation on screen, Crazy Rich Asians is a step towards creating spaces by and for Asians and Asian Americans — but it’s not enough. To achieve true progress, we must continue to demand more opportunities to showcase the immense wealth of Asian American talent that Crazy Rich Asians has only begun to shine light on.