Stories
Become aware of Cultural Appropriation & Stereotypes,
mind your actions,
words hurt too.
Protect YOURSELF from being hurt.
Avoid biased thoughts, so OTHERS won't get hurt either!
Do you agree with the Asian culture and characters portrayed in the film Crazy Rich Asians?
HERE ARE SOME CRITIQUES FOR THE FILM:
Claiming to tell Asian stories with Asian actors, the movie triggered huge discussions among Asian audiences. Compared to non-Asian audiences who are more focused on the story and the impression of the film, Asian audiences are more concerned about the movie’s cultural representations and future influence.
One stereotype from “Crazy Rich Asians” is that all Asians are rich. One can find actual examples of rich Asian Americans. U.S. immigration policies since 1965 have selected educated and professional immigrants. But many Asian immigrants have come to the U.S. as refugees, with few resources. Images of riches mask the fact that the gap between the richest and poorest Asians is the largest of any U.S. ethnic group.
A film review said: "this movie is not representative because it does not show enough diversity. I can’t stress enough that this movie is about rich Asians and not poor average Joes. it is also not a documentary about Asians." (Angelix, Reddit)
Another stereotype from “Crazy Rich Asians” is that all Asians are East Asians. Despite the all-Asian cast, the movie seldom features Malay- or Indian-Singaporeans and other 29 different Asian ethnic minorities.
However, there are some that believed the film marks the progress of Asian actors/actresses transitioning from the traditional western-portrayed "emasculated, broken-English, butt-of-all-jokes" Asian to “And I think a lot of Asian-Americans, to now "the leading man, the beautiful leading actress. And have their stories told the way it is, and in a contemporary way.”
Asian-American Constance Wu, who plays lead character Rachel Chu, pointed out the key issue of culture misrepresentation (not just Asian, but also other non-traditional caucasian societies) in western films and Hollywood movies: “There are misconceptions about any population that don’t have narrative plenitude. Because stories are how we understand each other and each other’s lives. So if you have narrative scarcity, you don’t have any stories, you don’t have any media. You‘re going to make judgements based on the very limited amount that you have.”
What About Some Real Cases?
Hollywood and Racial Stereotypes
By Kira Schacht
February 21, 2019
Hollywood history provides many examples of racist caricatures. Black and Asian people have been repeated targets. Take the 1961 Audrey Hepburn movie Breakfast at Tiffany's and the bucktoothed Mr. Yunioshi, whose stereotypical "Engrish" accent was intended to mock Japanese people. He is notorious, and there are so many more examples.
Asian characters in the early days of Hollywood mostly appeared in the form of racist cliches — either as mysterious, menacing villains or as laughable caricatures such as Mr. Yunioshi. In addition to everything else, that character is played by the entirely white American actor Mickey Rooney, thus making it an example of yellowface: a non-Asian person impersonating an Asian person.
This practice used to be quite common in Hollywood. Production teams were reluctant to hire minority actors of any kind, instead often opting to use white actors in their place.
