Howdy boys, hope you liked this one! Just a little video, a small dude. Anyhow, if you liked it, maybe consider signing up for Nebula or my patreon!! I do a fun bonus video those places every month. here are the links to those things, hell yes. Patreon: www.patreon.com/bigjoel Nebula/Curiosity Strem: curiositystream.com/bigjoel
It ain’t gunna be anti capitalist cause it’s a Cinderella story that ends in assimilation into wealth. But why does a romcom have to suddenly change into being class conscious once there’s a singular Asian American one ya know?
Interesting analysis, I just don’t think it’s much worse than any other weath pr0n. And it’s a romcom where the two leads actually like each other and there’s no dubious consent or anything so it’s an upgrade from most of the genre which is why I sound like I’m defending it
Crazy that the film took the Idea "Wealth is the only way to overcome racism" and read it as an aspirational statement rather than the soul-destroyingly bleak notion it actually is.
They're trying to eliminate one particular form of inequality by replacing it with an even more insidious and harmful form of inequality. I guess whether or not this makes sense depends on whether your goal is obtaining justice for everyone, or just gaining an advantage for your own particular in-group.
I've always heard about this movie, but never knew anything about it. That opening scene is honestly pretty fascinating. The idea that the only way to overcome racism was to be richer than the racists. The opening scene seems to have something to say about how money is the only way to have true freedom and how it would make sense for these characters to be so obsessed with their own wealth because its the only thing separating them from the Asians who would have had to go get a hotel room in Chinatown. It's a shame that the film itself seems uninterested in exploring this idea any further.
Even then: that scene doesn't teach them to not be racist: it will just give them a stereotype like "Chinese are blood libel controllers" or some such nonsense.
I always saw the opening scene as emotional porn for Asians. For every Asian who's been denied service at a restaurant, or just had some random racism thrown towards them (especially during Covid/Sars) it seemed like a middle finger to the racists.
The opening scene is also weird to me because London 1995 wouldn’t have turned down an asian person. We just don’t have that many SEA/ chinese people to develop that kind of racism against, if that makes sense.
What will always be astonishing to me is how people heaped praises on this film and was talked about everywhere, hailed as this monumental achievement for the first all Asian cast in a mainstream Hollywood film since ' The Joy Luck Club' and then one month after it came out nobody talked about it again. I remember seeing it in film, laughing a few times but ultimately walked away thinking it was basically a Disney princess film for adults.
I kind of thought the same about Brokeback Mountain. It was this huge thing in 2005 and there was crazy controversy that it didn't win the Oscar for Best Picture because it was this huge leap forward for gay representation in mainstream Hollywood and lost to Crash, but nobody talks about Brokeback Mountain anymore.
I myself as well at the beginning thought the movie was going to be a "mastepiece", since it was praised all over the media, but once i started watching it, i realised there was really nothing captivating in the movie for me and stopped. I would like to see asians and people from all walks of life in tv and movies more, since in many cases it makes the movies more vibrant (different looking people are stimulating), i however don't like the idea of making a movie just for representation, cause that is not why i watch movies. Im biracial btw, just like logic.
All true, but I appreciated the “blink and you’ll miss it” commentary of having a shower scene, but via a curious role reversal for the female gaze instead: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-HeNws8MjMYA.html The other movie that threw something like that in? Tomb Raider with Angelina Jolie…
@@krombopulos_michael i have absolutely no idea what you're talking about because brokeback mountain has such an enduring cultural legacy, having been adapted and referenced quite thoroughly since its release in 2005. it has pretty much paved the way for better mainstream queer representation, if not having helped move the goal post. the same can be said for crazy rich asians. various different asian-american creators have said the success of the film has helped their own work get out of production hell, like for instance, the upcoming adaption of pachinko. moreover, it has only been after CRA that asian-american leads are finally being allowed to be leads in your run-of-the-mill rom-coms (which may not sound like much but is still a small win for representation). it may be a mid-tier movie, but it has marked a change in the way that hollywood views asian-americans.
One thing that the book goes into slightly more in depth is the fact that the Singapore upper class is kind of Americanized/Anglocized. They speak English and teach it to their kids before Chinese, they reject Buddhism in favor of Christianity and regard the former as a lower class religion, they send their kids to English and American schools. This is something that’s not uncommon in the upper classes of a lot of non-white countries, like Mexico for example. They reject everything about their own country and culture and aspire to everything American, everything European, everything white. Until they leave home and go to these countries, then they act like cultural embassadors.
@@aandwdabest those chinese letters (symbols?) are so tiny. It must be tough to read on screens in type. I also wonder about how chinese and other symbol based writing is done on a keyboard since there has to be way more symbols than letters in latin based languages.
You're right that they're anglicized but SG is not Americanized, if anything it's British-"ized". (I mean many/most Singaporeans regardless of wealth are anglicized to begin with nowadays. English is the main language there, much more so than other countries that were former British colonies yet much of the population still predominantly speak their native languages. Many Singaporean-Chinese people, especially younger generations, can't speak Mandarin fluently.) Just wanted to make that distinction since if any European culture was ingrained in Singaporean society it'd be British, not American.
It's almost as if the rich movie producers wanted to avoid talking about the problem on how money creates a social divide of elitism and classism, that the book originally had.
money doenst but people do. im not on the 'eat the rich' train cuz money is a tool like paper but PEOPLE use it to hurt and abuse eachother. like anything else. we shouldn't stop making knives cuz someone wants to be a hommicidal maniac
@@sharpaycutie2 i mean it must be a coincidence that all billionares and some millionares have had to exploit hunreds on thousands to get and keep the money they have, right?
I think that when you're a 'normal' person (i.e. not a millionaire) watching this movie, it's really difficult to notice that the plot and dialogue of the film are unconcerned with wealth because nearly every second of the film is filling your eyes with extremely expensive jewellery, clothes, cars, houses, parties, weddings, food etc. It's really overwhelming and means that while the CHARACTERS might not be thinking about money much, the VIEWER almost always is.
yes, I agree, you have to really dig away at it but that is hard to do, because it really feels a bit too focused on the material goods.. Honestly, I mildly chuckled at the funny bits and barely had much of a real feeling about much of the movie otherwise.
Not to compare myself to a millionaire, but I think only basically billionaires would be unfazed by the wealth shown in the film, given that the family in it are that wealthy.
@@9Randompeoplz I imagine that part of the issue here is that the word millionaire is quite broad. There's the millionaire that has maybe a bit over a million dollars as their total wealth, which, while rich, might not be completely removed from the perspective of the common person, and then there's the millionaire that has several hundred million dollars, to whom the wealth shown in this movie might not be that impressive.
As someone who read the novel, I was delighted when you mentioned Michael, he was a much more sympathetic and nuanced character than his movie counterpart 😭
@@strawberriesandcandyTogamicchi's comment in no way claims Michael's character was the most sympathetic character, just that his book character is more sympathetic than his movie counterpart. If Joel's explanation is credible, than yeah, Michael is more nuanced and a more sympathetic character in the book, and you don't need to flame on youtube 🔥
As a Malay Singaporean, the amount of praise this movie got for its 'representation' just rubbed me the wrong way. People are already confusing Singapore as a part of China and this movie chose to ONLY represent Chinese Singaporeans. Singapore literally prides itself for being a multiracial country and they couldn't have included one brown character in the whole movie? I wish people would stop throwing around the term 'Asian Representation' because its just so vague. Asia is such a huge continent rich with such diverse cultures and yet when people talk about 'Asian Representation', its almost always representation for East Asians only.
Preach!! I’m black, but I know that Hollywood/Creators cant portray every type of facet of a culture, or a nation (I mean thats how it is with Africa or African-American experiences and peoples within media… so much to explore), but it WOULD be nice to see the multifacetedness of ethnicity and skin color in some of these films that are supposed to represent a specific culture. I think Encanto did that the best with Colombia and showcasing the range of genetic variety that that place holds.. even though slightly, I think Beyonce did great with the visuals for Brown Skin Girl with having cameos of darker skinned/black asian women in the cast of people.. I think the Canadian series “Kim’s Convenience” did well as a stepping stone opening the door for the multicultural landscape of Canada with the foundation of a Canadian-Korean family.. I feel like with some parts of mainstream asian representation (whether that be in the united states or in those specific countries around Eurasia, East Asia, and South Asia) they are still battling colorism and anti-blackness (I mean the World is tbh… people act like racism (against black peoples and people of color) is just an American thing and it is definitely not)… Like for example, I understand the meaning of “Skin Brightening” and getting rid of blemishes, discoloration, and dark spots in places like Korea or Japan, but to advocate people to not get any sun? Or to act as if the skin color you were born with can’t be “bright” as well as darker skinned (like there are darker skinned humans with FLAWLESS skin) just… rubs me the wrong way? Maybe I don’t truly understand the culture around that, but I’ve heard how people who are darker skinned get teased, get told they need to take care of their skin/“brighten it”, just because of the natural tone they were born with and embraced through outside play as children… it makes no sense to me. So with all of that to say, I would love to see more multicultural and multiethnic representation within asian (of all types) and asian-American media eventually as well, ESPECIALLY when it’s specific to a specific place in the World.
I often cite the time Coco won some award (I think it was the Animated Feature Oscar but could be wrong) and the director was like "Finally, Mexicans have a movie that represents them". I don't have a personal connection to Latin America, but I was so mad because the way he said was to completely erase any domestic entertainment industry in Mexico or Latin America. If it's not made in the USA, it doesn't exist apparently. The CRA hype was kinda similar. I believe a lot of people in the Asian diaspora in the US and other countries in the Anglosphere were understandably delighted, but little attention, as usual, was given to the opinions of anyone outside of North America.
lol, the movie version makes one thing really fucking funny: "We're obsessive about our Chinese cultural identity and heritage... so let's name our daughter Astrid, a Scandinavian name." X'D
@@midnighteevee4246 Astrid was one of the Singaporean characters, not the Asian-American main. That aside it’s clear the rich Singaporeans were pretty Anglicized, so making East-West “cultural conflict” a main theme of the film was pretty bizarre.
@@marchforjune anglicised are cringe sure, but the sjw "I hate those bigoted racists appropriating muh culture" are even more cringe because they just come off as fragile and pathetic
@@marchforjune Yeah this Family's money is so old that their culture IS upper class they are basically expat globe trotters with no nationality at all. This movie is a bunch of people with Posh English accents telling an American woman she isn't Chinese enough, a woman who has probably actually struggled at certain times in America because of her Chinese Heritage.
@@big_slurp4603 Bro, i think it was pretty important to tell her she could get mistreated, instead of throwing her into that situation unprepared. She literally thought his family was middle class, not mutli billionaries and by the way others treated her, he shouldve given her a warning.
I absolutely hated this movie and as a Chinese immigrant, I hated how I kept being told "this is the representation we're looking for". Soap opera-esque plot and rich Chinese Singaporean people don't represent any sort of immigrant experience. And even the scenes in NY were for a very specific set of the diaspora. As it turns out, in order for representation to be successful, you actually have to figure out what you're representing first lol.
A lot of people here in singapore don't like that movie either. Basically what Joel said pretty much sums up the general distaste but slightly different. Mostly being how the initial setup of the scene at the hotel foreshadowed some kind of social tension related to racism but was later completely lost. The way the movie presented singapore was through a very myopic gaze of rich chinese singaporeans, you don't really get to see other races in the movie nor have any form of juxtaposition between the social classes here because in the end, as Joel explained, it's ultimately not about class either. Feels like this movie could have taken place anywhere else in the world and it wouldn't have mattered much.
Is there some rule that we are only allowed to make movies about a specific type of Asian person? Its cool if you didn't like the movie but the fact that it didn't reflect your personal expirence isn't a flaw. They made the movie because the book series was already incredibly popular.
Attempting a good faith interpretation, maybe some people enjoyed this representation because the protagonists are "powerful" in a way that is uncommon in western media?
Your video is spot on. As someone who is from both Singapore (where the movie is based from) and Malaysia (where majority locations of the movie were filmed), I can attest that most people from Malaysia and Singapore were very critical of the movie as the question of social class, racial identity and wealth were never really explored. Rachel's so-called "Asian Americanness" is really just about nothing, in fact, being an American and an NYU professor would make her an even more desirable candidate for marriage. That's because Singapore upper class society are very obsessed with post-colonial social markers such as speaking "proper" English language, "meritocracy" and ivy league degrees. In Singapore, you can judge a person's social class just by their English language accent (they would avoid speaking Singapore English "Singlish" at all cost), and which school they went to (god forbid if Rachel went to community college and worked as a low-waged school teacher).
I agree the film overall seems to both appeal to a centrally Chinese audience while catering to a western American audience at the same time. It appears to have a anti super capitalism tirade against the super rich appealing to a Chinese "audience" (really the Chinese government) with portraying Michael's family as not seeing his fiance as "good enough". Did the family want Michael to marry another ultra rich straight from China girl like European nobels in the medieval Era marrying each other off?? This seems to create an image of Michael's family as a image of everything "bad with capitalism" which would make the Chinese "audience" say "Yay down with those dirty capitalists" But also at the same time present them showing off their wealth to make a American audience say "good for them to show their success and not be shown as..... Poor?? Like Asians have in other media"?? Do Americans believe that ALL minorities have been shown as unsuccessful?? And only as underprivileged criminals or lazy as other minority groups have in the past?. The film simply is trying to please everyone and becomes somewhat poor at doing so. By both criticizing wealth and praising it and believing that this is "positive representation" for the groups shown.
@@PHOENIXGUNDAM yeah. The film is does not understand the complex relationship between China and its neighbouring countries. To conflate Singapore as mini China just because its population is majority Chinese is just atrocious. No wonder the film has no problem at erasing minorities and creating a "Chinese vs Asian American" identity conflict out of thin air. Most Singaporean Chinese (and diasporic Chinese from Southeast Asia) do not share the same cultural identity as Chinese mainlanders. In fact, to assume Asian Americans would "struggle" to fit into Singapore upper society by not being "Chinese enough" is laughable. It might work in "The Farewell" where the focus is about identity and sense of belonging. Singapore prides itself for its multiculturalism, a lot of the "Chinese culture" in Singapore are very much a uniquely Singapore culture that even Chinese mainlanders feel foreign. I think the film would improve 1000x if it sticks to social class and wealth gap as the main critique/plot instead of race. I would reimagine Rachel's story as a mix of "Coming to America", "Maid in Manhattan" and "Monster in Law".
@@PHOENIXGUNDAM Singapore is not the People's Republic of China. Singapore is not a communist nation. It is in fact very capitalist (albeit state "managed"). There is no special reason to appeal to an anti-capitalist section of society because generally the people of Singapore aren't anti-capitalist.
I would argue that the focus on Asianess is an attempt to translate a sort of vibe about the book that ultimately falls short. The books are targeted at diaspora Asians and it shows. The books do not stop to explain certain aspects of culture, rather he footnotes it (the footnotes are also a comedic tool but that's aside.) Meanwhile, the movie stops dead to have the mother explain that red is a lucky color to Rachel, a fully grown ABC woman, for the sake of the non Chinese audience. Because the movie is built to be much more accommodating to non Asians, it must find another way to replicate this feeling of a "focus on Asianess" that the book gets from just... being written for Asians. Thus, the conflict surrounding "how to be Asian" (which is minor in the book) becomes central in the film, and they shy away from wealth as a main plot point. The film imagines it can replicate the way the book speaks to Asians by centering Asianess as a theme while never touching any topics or ideas that can't be quickly and palatably explained to a non Asian audience.
@@user-ny1wo1vp9r true, but the book is about diaspora Chinese. Red is a lucky color for the Chinese. She should know this. I would also note that the book contains a lot of things, from food to cultural jokes, that are much more universally known amongst all east Asians that also go unacknowledged in the film
As a Singaporean who’s Malay, I’m so glad you started this conversation again. I was honestly really disappointed with how it portrayed Singapore, it was almost was fiction in my eyes. Singapore is a country that takes pride in being a multinational, cultural and racial country and I hated that the only ‘actual’ scene that involved other races was painted in a negative light. In fact, this movie has actually been a topic in my class and we’ve discussed how it although the film took place in Singapore, it looked foreign. Overall wished they could give better representation because I would have loved to see my race being represented in Hollywood for once.
Its just rich singaporean chinese segregrating themselves from and looking down on others not like them: malays, indians and poor chinese. On the other hand, they have a fetish for anything european, basically an inferiority complex.
Yeah. As a Singaporean I don't even understand the appeal of this movie... But, I hope it's success would make it possible for real Singaporean and Malaysian stories to have a more international reach so people can learn about what Singapore really is. This video makes a good arguement that an honest adaptation of the book might have been a step in the right direction. Maybe in 10 to 15 years we'll have a remake that's willing to explore the social commentary in the book.
I'm Malaysian and I was really excited to see this movie knowing it was set it Singapore and shot in Malaysia, and like you said, I was really let down. both Malaysia and Singapore are so ethnically diverse, it's actually insane that they only included other ethnicities besides Chinese in scenes where they were servants or background characters
For a movie that throws a middle class person unexpectedly into a hyper-rich environment, I was waiting the whole time for it to have anything to say about class disparity or culture shock or the mind-rot of wealth, but no it turns out the main conflict was "his mom doesn't like me ☹️"
I still find the first scene of Crazy Rich Asians utterly bizarre. The idea that, in 1995, a luxury London hotel would turn away a rich Singaporean is laughable. That's not to say that there's no racism against East Asians in Britain, but luxury London hotels have had 'crazy-rich Asian' guests for over a century. By the '90s central London was already known as a playground for millionaires from all around the world. I think the scene in the film points to an element of intersectionality that wealthy people are sometimes reluctant to address: that being rich often limits the prejudice and oppression with which you are faced.
Yes!! Thank you!! That whole scene I was just thinking how asinine and unbelievable that scene was. Such a basic, unrealistic interpretation of how racism in those hyperwealthy pockets of society truly manifests itself.
My personal theory is that, Holywood being Hollywood, any time they need to point out something nasty about the West, they decide to blame non American westerners. France is their favorite scapegoat (they never forgot them for leaving NATO, opposing Iraq and having an independent foreign policy). But Britain is often portrayed as that posh, uptight and classist society. Which it kinda is in some aspects, but not really more than the US. So, while America is a complete mess of racial tensions and long lasting discrimination that is still fully alive, they can't say that, since the US is the land of the free, the land of opportunities, yada yada.
I think they were just trying to show a "don't judge a book by it's cover" moment with a hint of racial tension because the mother had an accent and she literally looked a mess after being soaked in the rain. Concierges of luxury hotels can be highly judgemental of appearances and casual racism was normalized in the time frame, hence him trying to kick her out of the lobby signifies the desire of keeping the riff raff/plebians away from their high-end clientele.
@@parkerisles7256 Yes! I don't know how people completely neglect that fact that the kid is throwing mud on the floor of this ridiculously luxuriant hotel, and would be tracking mud into a really nice suite. (edit, realized BigJoel didn't include that in this video). Racism at the end is, for the concierge, a useful tool to get the poor to know their place.
The point was that the London hotel owners did not realize they were wealthy. Or at least did not put two and two together. The Youngs are all soaked in the film, but the book goes out of its way to describe the muddy mess the kids are making. That coupled with it being the middle of the night just creates an atmosphere where the staff are going to be at their absolute worst. And you get some very rude and racist interactions. That being said, the whole book this is loosely based on the author's experience or experiences of his friends/family and I this scene might have been recreated from a story that happened in his childhood (80's) or earlier. One of the premises of the book is that the west in general still thinks of Asia as a collection of third-world countries and thinks of Asians as poor, dirty immigrants. And the titles of the books--Crazy Rich Asians, China Rich Girlfriend, Rich People Problems--are all part of that premise. It's like, "Hey, Asians are rich people too!" And you get sucked into the glamor and the drama and then you're confronted with the ugly side of wealth and racism within this small subsect of rich Chinese elites living in Singapore. The point of this scene in the books was not to set up a conflict between the Young family and white racists, but instead show the wealth and pettiness of the Youngs. They expect every conflict they are ever met with to dissolve this easily and in their favor. Either with money or the simple prestige of their name.
You know it’s so funny, I went through the *entire* movie assuming the bit was that Eleanor was using Rachel’s “American-ness” at least partially as cover for classism
The problem is that the movie was altered from the book form so it wouldn't offend any white people. Having it actually be about race would trigger the smooth brains, so they made it about being American so the flag-wavin' idiots could root for the 'Murican hero while the actual person with a real connection to Asian culture is seen as the bad guy for wanting to preserve it. It is white American propaganda. Wanting to stick to your Chinese roots is bad, but wanting to be a loud and proud American is cheered on. It's actually sort of tiring how so many stories are ruined because Hollywood is afraid of offending the lowest common denominator. Then again, only stupid people are still giving Hollywood their money these days since the rest of us know it has just been one big pedo brothel for the elites for over a century.
@@cl5470 ok this is such an idiotic take. The kind of white people you’re talking about would not be feeling patriotic just because the MC is american born. Im not saying these types are automatically racist but there are just not that many patriotic types in the US who are also truly color blind. I have read the original books numerous times and the author, who is asian, made Evelyn’s main problem with Rachel her American-ness, which was then bolstered because she came from a poor, single parent house hold. This is something the movie does address, even if it doesn’t dive as deeply into it. The majority of the movie is just a simplified version of what occurred in the book. So if you have a problem with it, you have a problem with the author. Twisting it into blaming white people is just idiotic.
As someone who enjoyed the book, the movie really bothered me because it felt incredibly vapid. I remember thinking that it felt as though they had taken a story about classism and absurd wealth and turned it into a Disney movie romance. I also read many of the reviews at the time and it noteworthy that nearly all of the positive critical reviews that I read were by critics who had not read the book. It was mostly praised for being a funny rom-com with an Asian cast, for the acting, and for the costumes. All of these things deserve praise, but none of these critics know what makes the book good, and therefore they can't know why the movie fell flat for many fans of the book. It felt like reading food critics reviewing a dish based off of a picture of it, highlighting the recipe, how well plated it was, how kind the chef was over the phone. And I'm sitting here, having tasted the dish, astounded by the fact that none of these people have even tasted it, and yet all of them are reviewing it.
Comparing nearly any film to a book is an exercise in futility. I took a class in CC that did just that. The best case scenario was a short story turned into a long film: Brokeback Mountain. The next closest I've seen are the first 2 seasons of Game of Thrones.
They really just wanted to make a rom com but with a s i a n s. Just why associate it with the book though if you’re going to go ahead and ignore all of the main themes 🙄
@@greenamigo4553 That's stupid tbh. The focus was in them being crazy rich as if we didn't know that there are billionaires in Asia smh. It looked like "See ignorant muricans, we're not just immigrants living in Chinatown, we're also as rich as your people and even richer." Like what was the point of all this?
When I watched this movie, I thought of it as eye candy. It doesn't really have character arcs; you just watch it for the pretty people, the beautiful scenery, and the over the top opulence of everything. I think that kind of thing still has value. It's just a relaxing, cinderella power-fantasy featuring a mostly asian cast. Then again, maybe I'm just biased cause I have a crush on Michelle Yeoh.
I liked that a lot. I mean, Asian men in western media had been delegated as ugly ass nerds. It was time a western produced movie finally showed Asian men as the man candy they truly are as well!!!!
It is MEANT to be eye candy, not some PhD dissertation on class, race and capitalism. I don't see people overly dissecting silly romcoms with white leads and a white cast.
@@backto-il9neType "2000s romcom analysis" in your RU-vid browser and see how wrong this statement is. Media analysis and media literacy have always been around. Heck, these are things taught in college classes long before movies can be downloaded online. Try widening the types of media you consume and you'll see how much of "It's never been done before!" has, in fact, actually been done before.
The scene I hated most from this movie is Astrid's introduction. Nick: "Astrid has the biggest heart of any of my cousins" Movie: shows Astrid stopping by a little girl and complimenting her stuffed bear then immediately dropping $1.2mil on earrings Ah yes, because everyone knows it takes such a big heart to compliment stuffed bears. When I first saw the scene I thought she was going to at least buy the bear for the little girl or something but no. Nick's voiceover earlier in the scene gives a much better example of Astrid's "big heart" - she's started multiple charities. It'd be a different story if we were supposed to find the scene ironic, (ie. Ooh, I see, "biggest heart of *all my cousins*" - even the most benevolent of Nick's relatives aren't terribly altruistic), but it's played straight. It just really irks me to find that the movie expects me to ooh and ahh over someone that's not actually doing anything worthy of admiration.
Yeah when i read the book i felt like the author was really trying to justify ultra wealth and capitalism through characters like Astrid. Like he has a very dickins approach to it; like being extremely wealthy is ok as long as you are a good person.
It's a shame because I think one could write a very interesting story about the complexities how trying to be a good person when you have that level of wealth is inherently more difficult because you're isolated from regular people.
As a black woman who dated a white guy that was adopted by an Asian tiger mom, The feelings of “you’ll never be enough for my son” was very relatable. I enjoyed the movie a lot more because of this. But I didn’t enjoy remembering how racist his mom was 😂 I mean, with how much of an emphasis there was on fashion, imo this movie was clearly just woman porn about opulence and getting the mother-in-law’s/family approval. Idk if Asian people would consider this to be a good film to represent them since class and nationality are the focus of it. But I did enjoy watching a film with more Asians in it.
A fair few family members talked bout watching this film, but I don’t recall anyone being that enthusiastic about the film or thinking it was a must-watch. It’s specifically because the film looked so out of touch with classism and nationality that I knew this film wouldn’t be for me XP Sorry you had bad experiences of racism/disapproval from that mom though
@@s0Shi Oh thanks 😊 but I mean it happened in hs at 14 and I’m 26 now so I don’t care anymore lol. But it was bizarre she let it be known it was a race thing by literally spraying Lysol on everything right after I touched or sat on anything in her house…she kinda just assumed black people are dirty for some reason. [until one day I touched every surface I could/flopped around on every couch and just stared at her like 👀 what now? How does one Lysol an entire house? After that she stopped spraying stuff at least lol]
@@Itcouldbebunnies I think I remember watching the trailer for this a few years ago and thinking it would be good. I appreciate the recommendation because I forgot the movie existed tbh lol
I'm in a similar boat. half jewish gal with a half asian husband. his grandparents pray I lose weight every time there's a family call and bother his mom to tell me to lose weight. I don't think the boy stink in here get's that somethings can be fun and meaningful even if it was saying something different than what it was marketed as saying. and that it might not even be talking to the diaspora of asians all over the globe. imo it's for mixed race people or people in mixed race relationships.
I liked the fact that it was a nothing movie about Asian people because hey, how often do we get a movie with so many Asian people that isn’t about how cool martial arts are or the plight of Asian people in 18XX/19XX America dealing with that historical oppression? But then I read the book. And I realized JUST HOW MUCH I was missing out on by watching the movie. And I realized we were missing out on a whole other flavor as well as a biting witty comedy (partially through the footnotes, partially through the retaliations and reactions against all those missing book elements) and honestly found the movie to be lesser after the fact because of it. But hey, it got me to read the book I didn’t know existed before that!
I think this video and this comments section goes to show how important it is to have a larger selection of media from all different genres that includes people from diverse demographics. People here are being very (understandably and justifiably) critical of the movie and how it's being praised for its "Asian representation," when it isn't an accurate representation of most Asian-American and Singaporean experiences. And the fact that the screenplay was based off of what seems to be a much better book with a more nuanced exploration of the themes that were only touched on the surface in the movie is only exaggerating the disparity between what we have and what could have been. The way I looked at the movie (and I haven't seen it, so this may affect my interpretation of it) is the same way I look at all those feel-good Hallmark movies. Beautiful people in beautiful places falling in love and doing beautiful, lavish and extraordinary things. It's an indulgence of the fantasy to live that rich and luxurious lifestyle. That's definitely the vibe I was getting from the commercials and previews I saw. And I definitely think the criticism it received would be less if that's all that was expected of it, but because of the lack of high-budget American films with poc casts, I think a lot of people were projecting onto it their hopes for something more.
The frustrating problem I have with the film is I do want it to be a nothing movie where asian people see themselves represented in a fun way. But the subliminal messaging of capitalism good and the racist scene towards a person of my identity make me upset. So glad there’s AA stories being mainstream now.
I would have preferred characters like Astrid to not have been praised as “someone with a big heart”. Yes, she is arguably more humble and polite than her peers. However (according to the books),the fact that she dumped her billionaire ex boyfriend because he was not good enough for her family, was completely oblivious to her family’s mistreatment towards Micheal, continued to fund her lavish lifestyle from her family trust fund but complained about not wanting to be chained by the rules of her family and finally professed that she hadn’t taken a vacation in such a long time while running away to her hideout goes to show that she is every bit as shallow and selfish as the antagonists in the franchise. Flattering a super privileged person for doing the bare minimum in terms of human decency just shows how stuck up the creator of the story might actually be. Having unlikeable characters is ok (and frankly is to be expected, given the context of this story) as long as they are not whitewashed as saints.
I really enjoyed the books and I couldn't stand Astrid! Never mind that she has moments of being good-hearted, she could obviously afford them. Everything was literally handed to her, and I can't remember her ever questioning any of it. It's easy to be a nice person if you're insanely wealthy, young and beautiful.
Honestly, I know a lot of folks who found this movie to be "empowering" or whatever and I won't take that away from them. But my experience as an asian immigrant was we were dirt poor, I didn't have dental or health insurance for over 12 years. My dad who had a PHD had to work for just 2k a month to get us sponsored for a greencard without benefits. Our whole savings went to attorneys fees. You live your whole life in fear hoping you never ever have to go to the hospital or basically ruin your whole life before it even begins. Now I have insurance through my employer, but I have tens of thousands of dollars in student loans and no I do not make it make it rain because I don't have the "typical asian job". So I guess to me, I never even saw the movie because the very idea of this speaking to me on some level is very laughable at the best, and on the surface to call this some kind of a progressive movie undercuts a lot of legitimate challenges I've had to overcome like the racist american midwest or mental health. Just feels bad man. Great video.
The weird thing is, my parents found it empowering. My father and mother who both earned PhDs in their respective fields had to work at a minimum wage jobs to support me and my siblings. My dad always laughs about how he was a well paid lecturer (for my country) who taught about agriculture that now pulls weeds for a living. As I go into college, I dread the amount of debt my career choice will put me in, but I hope for the best.
@@tamiwu0346 no wonder why the British high sought after using Chinese coolies during the golden era of their empire, you are cheap, never complains and easily held to the collar because spiritually, you Chinese are a servile race
>racist american midwest Buddy, if somebody in the midwest is acting genuinely hostile towards you, it's because you're an exceptionally unpleasant person. I grew up there and had many asian friends and classmates, none of whom experienced legitimate discrimination or had any real complaints. All of them were successful and found communities there. I later married an asian woman I met elsewhere and we moved back to the midwest, where she was welcomed with more open arms and positivity than anywhere she had lived previously. Including Asia. There's no problem with the midwest, you're probably just as whiny and insufferable in person as you are on the internet.
@@yanickotto7756 Whenever I read how its like to live in the USA I thank god everyday that I was born in the so called “dirty, communist and third world” Balkan region, at least I get free health care, ambulance and university education.
thank you for bringing up how annoying the astrid plotline of "rich girlboss realizes she should embrace her wealth and not be embarassed about being a billionaire in front of her broke boyfriend, because said boyfriend is bad" was.
another thing that killed me was they are talking about a sequel when...the movie completely takes a different direction than the books, especially with astrid and michael's story. good luck to them but the "opulence porn" (as one commenter so eloquently put it) is clearly their main focus without interrogating the hierarchy displayed. michael was so interesting! he's wealthy on his own but is mistreated because it isn't AS wealthy as them. his b-plot story kept me riveted and i was sad to see him reduced from a multi-faceted shadow in the face of this dynasty to a loser cheater.
I never watched the movie or read the book but now i really, really do! The idea of Michael feeling so disconnected from a family despite being rich is SO interesting to me and i feel like it further proves how reluctant the family will be to accepting a middle class woman. Its wild that the movie chose to just ignore that part. Its really, really interesting to me! Its a plot line that i havent really seen before
@@emmaesta9444 yes!! thats exactly why they juxtapose those stories. pretty much everyone's story about marrying into the young family, even nick's mother, is about not being accepted into this money empire for the rest of their relationship with said family. PLUS the books are really digestible so they obviously rewrote the plot because money makes the writers uncomfortable.
Not just the Michael sub-plot was missed from the movie, given how the movie focused so much on the Nick/Rachel plot because the books, their story is just a sub-plot. In the books, the Astrid/Michael sub-plot is just *AS* important as Rachel/Nick. In fact, the books center almost as much around Astrid and the other two cousins (Eddie and Alistair) as well as the moms (Eleanor and Kerry).
I remember Astrid's B-plot seeming so odd and out of place to me and now I understand why. That's crazy man. And Nick is just such an uninspiring leading man--your family is rich beyond belief, yet you don't warn your hoped-for fiancée in advance anytime in your year of dating Not even as you're planning the big meet-the-family trip? Your analysis helps clarify why this movie, even aside from those bizarre choices, just feels off: the producers wanted to make a fun romcom that's also ~about issues~ while precluding any awkward moments with the superrich at awards shows.
I'm a South Korean who watched the movie with a friend because it was all the buzz in the US media. Left the theater scratching our heads, mystified why it was such a big deal. (the strongest reaction it got out of us was YEAH THAT'S WHY WE GOTTA EAT THE RICH) More jobs and roles for (East) Asian-Americans in Hollywood, I guess...? But even in that respect, John Cho's Search was way more fun. I guess other Koreans agreed too, because Crazy Rich Asians bombed at the local box office. (it probably didn't help that we're so used to soap operas that the bar is set quite high!) My guess is that some rich (East) Asian Americans in Hollywood wanted to promote it as this big (East) Asian American Pride thing, which in itself is fine, I mean just look at how Marvel or Oscar bait movie production companies build hype over all sorts of mediocre movies. Personally I recommend White Tiger if you're looking for a much better Asian book-to-film adaptation, though it didn't get as much hype.
Wow! A South Korean not culturally connecting to an American movie. WOW!!! SO SHOCKING !!!! This has NEVER happeend before. WOW !!! I am shocked by this revelation because Americans always "get" all the top South Korean movies. ALWAYS. Wow! You just blew my mind. WOOOWWWW !!! 🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡
Anybody with $1B+, I instinctively view as evil. It’s wealth most definitely born from exploitation, and have no idea why anyone glorifies these types of people.
Yeah these “crazy rich Asians” obviously benefit from their own people working themselves to death while living in poverty and I’m supposed to feel something for them being discriminated for 10 seconds because they got caught in the rain? 😂
I agree. My Chinese bf and I talked extensively about how a lot of Chinese people who are filthy rich colonized places like malasia and the Philippines. I actually know someone who’s father had been apart of colonizing the Philippines. It’s disgusting and I agree anyone with 1B+ is disgusting and has no morals.
A lot of middle and upper-middle class people still choose to view the world through the rose-colored glasses of meritocracy, actively ignoring factors such as inheritance and the health of the economy. That's why you get these Musk and Bezos stans, because they view people like them as having some sort of deep-seated work ethic and drive that nobody else possesses, not passed-down wealth. It's a narrow view of the world and class that people still accept as fact because of their own catalyzed successes they like to attribute to their own character and not any external influences. It's frustrating.
Taken with the press around the film being "groundbreaking in its representation" I interpreted the first scene as being a meta-commentary about the creation of the film itself. The only reason they were allowed to make a big budget English-language film about Asians, starring Asians, filmed in Asia, was because the purchasing power of Asians has become too large for the ostensibly racist film industry to ignore. Eventually the myriad of excuses about relatability and timing fail in the face of sheer wealth. So it's less apologetics for Nick's mom as you suspected, and more apologetics for the film-makers' turning the book into a 2-hour ad for Singaporean tourism and jewelry.
>was because the purchasing power of Asians has become too large for the ostensibly racist film industry Are you saying the American film industry is racist?
I remember when this movie came out and it was popular. I've just never been into movies about people who think they are entitled because of how much cash they have. And for some reason they pass it off as it's okay because they have two characters that are in love and one of them isn't rich. It still does promote a division between the average person and the wealthy in a "We are better because of our money" kind of way.
When I first saw this movie I felt like something was so off about it but I couldn't quite put my finger on it, and now I get it. It was so empty, and the themes that I was anticipating to be explored were left hanging... I also hated the way they romanticised money, and how wealth was an easy solution to racism. That leaves the question: What about the asians that can't buy entire hotels? It's such a shallow and empty answer to discrimination, that if you have enough money you can get revenge on white people who DARE think you're a lowly person of color. No, you're not inferior to white people because... You have money. And as you mentioned, the ''girl boss'' moments might just be the worst. As a feminist, there isn't a more superficial interpretation of women's rights than ''money makes women powerful'', suggesting we should all be playing along with patriarchal, capitalist ideals in order to be equal to men. I don't WANT to exploit workers and hoard resources to be seen as an equal.
What was crazy to me is how there was cero conflict between nick and rachel after nick lied to her about who he was and who his family was, and he just threw her into this crazy situations with ultra rich judgmental people without even warning her. When Rachel goes to her friend´s house and the friend explains to her who Nick is and who his family is, and she kindly lends her a dress because she will be ridiculized if she shows up in her normal outfit, and when Rachel arrives to the party she is just like "wow this house is really big and nick is hot lol" 😭
i do love this movie for it’s cheesy romance that always makes me cry, but you did bring up some great points. the book does seem to be more multifaceted, and it sucks that they had to erase somethings from the movie to make it more palatable.
I feel the same way. I grew up in a heavily Asian immigrant neighborhood. A lot of us came out to see this movie. We brought our parents and grandparents to see this movie because “oh shit a movie where they look like us that isn’t about martial arts or the war”. It wasn’t perfect and had a lot of issues. But I won’t forget how nice it was to be in the theater with several generations that day.
The Michael story hit me sideways with how uncharacteristic it felt. An emotional gut punch that I felt in my proletariat stomach. It gave a sense that no matter how hard anyone works, from the bottom up, they will always feel less than those that were born privileged, that they will always have a moral failing . Astrid liked him because he was so headstrong and confident, so confident that money wouldn’t matter to him anyway.
Same here! Honestly, I would recommend reading through the books just to see how many layers and nuance that the adaptation misses out. For example, Michael was a much more sympathetic and nuanced character than his movie counterpart. Which isn't to say that he was a saint but in the first book, he was quite sympathetic and the nuances of his character conflict mirrored Rachel's, acting as a Foil. Michael in the first book was alright but in the later books, they jumped the shark with him and made him utterly unsympathetic, which is a shame. The movie made it more black and white. But Astrid never supported her husband when her family was treated him like an electrician who was just here to fix their Wi-Fi problems. In the books, Astrid’s brothers give Michael a meeting on how much Astrid is making, and how he will never be able to provide for her. They shamed and discredit his masculinity all the time. He was really treated poorly by Astrid's family and that’s why he faked the cheating in the books. But then yes, in the second book they demonize entirely his character and you no longer like him. But I felt bad for him in the first book. He was crushed by the elitism of Astrid family. And he represented a potential what-if parallel of what could happen to Rachel if she decided to marry Nick Young. That she could perhaps end up with the same fate as Michael, always feeling ostracized and like they're never good enough. I was so freaking confused watching the movie because I liked him in the introduction scene and could completely see where he was coming from. I thought they were going to go somewhere with it and then they randomly made him cartoonishly evil and sexist, as if his issue with her wealth stems from toxic masculinity and not literally from the wealth itself which alienated him from his wife and her family, making him feel less like Astrid's husband and more like a glorified hired help or a pet. Michael was so interesting! He's wealthy on his own but is mistreated because it isn't AS wealthy as them. He is the new money to the Youngs' old money. His B-plot story kept me riveted and I was sad to see him reduced from a multi-faceted shadow in the face of this dynasty to a loser cheater. The idea of Michael feeling so disconnected from a family despite being rich is so interesting to me and I feel like it further proves how reluctant the Young family will be to accepting a middle class woman like Rachel. It's wild that the movie chose to just ignore that part. It's really, really interesting to me because it's a plot line that I haven't really seen before. That's exactly why in the books, the Michael/Astrid sub-plot was juxtaposed with the Nick/Rachel subplot. Not only were the nuances of the Michael subplot missing in the movie but it also focused so much on the Nick/Rachel plot because the books, their story is just a sub-plot. In the books, the Astrid/Michael sub-plot is just AS important as Rachel/Nick. In fact, the books center almost as much around Astrid and the other two cousins (Eddie and Alistair) as well as the moms (Eleanor and Kerry). Anyways, sorry for going off on such a tangent about the botched adaption of Michael's character arc in the movies. It was just something I really had to get off my chest, especially since I finished the books a while ago.
@@ajiththomas2465 I wouldn’t call purposely hurting your wife so that she’ll leave you and save face counts as being sympathetic. That’s a cruel thing to do to her.
And part of the tragedy was that his confidence was so constantly eroded by everyone in her family that it became this gulf in the marriage rather than what drew her to him!
People don’t realize that this isn’t really a caricature or satirization of the ultra wealthy in China/Southeast Asia. This is accurate to how they act down to the very last detail. I know someone who lives exactly like this, talks like them, does every mannerism they do. If you don’t understand that, I can see how this movie is “eh” but this is truly showing you another world of how some people actually live. It is crazy. Also makes the movie funnier. I never lived like this, but my neighbor came from old wealth from China, and his family owned neighborhoods, universities, schools, malls, and just general land all over Asia. he lived in my middle class neighborhood(that he owned) because he wanted a simpler life, but he still came from that family and culture, and he was basically the real life characters from the movie. all the ultra rich he knew were Chinese origin, so when dealing with that level of wealth, it is true that most of them are Chinese origin. I lived a more middle class life, so in my life, Southeast Asia was far more diverse and there were people from all backgrounds, but at his social class and wealth level, they are mostly Chinese.
E X A C T L Y but I do agree with his point of the movie not focusing enough on the actual money side and the strife this can cause in a relationship like the one in the movie. It's like trying to highlight the beauty of a rare gem in a film but only using a wide lens.
I remember having the distinct feeling that specifically the ending to this film felt very unAsian to me. As someone who has an Asian mother my experience has shown that she and the matriarchal side of the family absolutely do not give a shit about the idea that your child might resent you. That's what being a mother is, putting aside any negative feelings you might personally have about your child's reaction and doing what is best. You protect them even from themselves. I remember having conversations with my Western friends about this and they were appalled about the idea that a mother would put her opinion over that of her adult child. Maybe that is why they changed the film when they made it for the Western audience.
Yeap, in real life the mahjong scene will never work, Rachel's tactic of trying to get the mom feel guilty/remorse would fall apart, instead Eleanor would have given Rachel the last laugh and tell Rachel that her son deserves better.
I can't believe how thoroughly the source material was dismantled in order to just ignore class struggle to boil it down to cultural identity. And even then, when I'm looking for representation in general I don't want a movie of the whole cast being of my identity, it's still segregated from the majority. It still feel isolating to see media of people ONLY like me, that the only way its palatable to a mainstream is when its sliced off from them I think of the game Deathloop, and the game aside, it has two Black leads. They retain their identities, but nothing in the game was about that, and that's what I think of when having a strong representational cast Not only that IIRC correctly there was like a lot of just lumping in Asian representation with the movie, when people who fall under the Asian umbrella make up a MASSIVE part of the global population and this movie in particular featured Singaporeans, which is its own distinct culture. It kind of seemed to me to just further the misconception of who Asians are and that it includes hundreds of backgrounds and cultures
It reminds me of what people called 'colored films' or 'race films' back in the 20s. to comply with racial segregation laws in the south, they were screened exclusively for black people in black theaters, and in the north, they were screened predominantly in black neighborhoods. Many of them, perhaps intentionally, obfuscated race relations and tensions (in contrast to the current movement in hollywood) and focused on improvement of the black race, and tensions between educated and uneducated black people. They did they own historical revisionism (like not depicting crime or ghettos) but it was more out of emancipation (and imagining something different for black people) than anything else. To think, these films were more nuanced and progressive than movies with a predominantly non-white cast made today, despite the fact that they also consisted entirely of one race (no white people or other races, just black people).
I get what you're saying about media in which non white people can just be, without any nod whatsoever to their non white identity, but (and forgive me if I'm wrong) are you saying that that's the best way to things?. Because if it is, that way categorically isn't the way to go. It's just *one way to do things,* that deserves its own piece of the media landscape pie (one that's often ignored). But if that was the way it was done *perpetually,* then any non white inclusion in any of those media spaces would be relatively pointless, the characters would *always* be reduced to window dressing in that scenario irrespective of story context. I'm sure one of the first opinions you'd encounter is - "why does it matter that X person of X non white group is here, if the story is the same with a white family, and a white character, then they're just shoehorning them in for diversity points. Only the story should matter" - And we get a different version of this already just for being around, and having even a smidge of our background on display. Especially if it even remotely references any, and I mean any, like the slightest sub atomic fucking particle of even the lightest of the problems we deal with in society, just instantaneous backlash. Also, apart from the main point I made, in this kind of scenario, nothing this kind of character would say or do, or any piece of their respective upbringing would be in anyway unique to their racial and ethnic background, and it would just be completely strange, like twilight zone strange. It'd be you watching someone with your features from the exact same background but with non of the cultural backdrop that would inform how they might speak, the food they eat, the hobbies they might have, the way they might interact with someone like them, shit, even the stuff they might find funny or offensive.
I feel like with movies like this and Black Panther where the big selling point is "complete POC cast! Representation!" the biggest hurdle they're trying to overcome is selling to white audiences as well for fear of it flopping being seen as POC led movies not selling. So we have to sell fantastical concepts and reach across the aisle to white audiences rather than just letting the movies be authentic depictions of POC life and culture. So Black Panther doesn't take place in a real country, it takes place in a high tech fantastical melting pot country and the main character is a Superhero cross between Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor (and in depth analysis of the effect of colonialism on the African continent is quickly grazed over as a footnote)! And Crazy Rich Asians is a Cinderella story starring an American in a fish out of water situation with plenty of money and fashion porn that everyone can aspire (and the idea of Chinese colonialism and the implications of being mind meltingly rich are grazed over as a footnote)!
Fucking THANK YOU. 👌 I've watched Black Panther and while there were parts of it which were enjoyable, it did feel a bit shallow. You've done a great job of explaining why that is.
Hmm, but then what about Luke Cage? I've not watched it myself, but I know the show is set in Harlem and it doesn't shy away from the blaxploitation aspect of Luke's story.
@@sorasorisora Luke Cage is a curious situation. [SPOILERS] The shows themes mostly revolve around the ways social responsibility works in the black community. Luke Cage physically fights for safety of Harlem and its citizens, Mama Mabel and Cottonmouth use criminal enterprise to bring a sort of illusion of financial and cultural prosperity in the form of Harlem's Paradise, Mariah uses political power and corruption (plus some of Cottonmouth's ill gotten gains) to benefit Harlem. These characters represent the overarching philosophies to "save" the black community from the and each believes that their method is the right way to give back, so to speak. We also see the psychologies of these characters and what makes them tick, both as individuals with their own arcs and as representations of larger archetypes. There is also some minor things like racism towards non-blacks (asians in particular), the role of policing in Harlem, and some other stuff I cant remember. The biggest fault of Luke Cage is that it seems to really lean into these themes at first but slowly loses the potency as it devolves further into crime drama and superhero antics. By the end of the second season we've all but forgotten about the big ideas it seemingly wants to address in lieu of hero team ups and suepervillain powers.
@@GoFidoGo So it sounds like the writers get complacent (not sure if that's the right word for it) and decides to go back to what's comfortable as a comic book adaptation. There was an attempt at least, and now I really want to watch the whole show.
One issue I have with this movie is that it was promoted as this defining moment for the Asian community and then of course that scene in the beginning where money is used to cure racism. But one thing about Singapore is that there are darker skinned Asian people there. Yet the only time you see them in this film is as security guards or servants. So, the defining moment was clearly meant for only certain kinds of Asian people. Which kind of flies in the face of all the self righteousness that the filmmakers were going for when they promoted this movie.
Sure, but that doesn't mean it's not worth criticizing. Plenty of "typical rom coms" have issues with racism and classism, and that warrants criticism. Crazy rich Asians has both of these issues.
I remember liking this when it first came out. I was excited for the asian representation and thought it was a fun movie. So I went to rewatch it the other day and I couldn't even finish it. It just felt so hollow, and I didn't like how it never addressed the wealth aspect. This video essay really echoed a lot of my thoughts. Glad I'm not the only one
I think once you get past the pleasing visuals and talented cast, you see there’s not much below the surface. I’ve felt the same way about most MCU films. Though those don’t even look very good.
I was distracted as well since it felt like an hour and something long commercial for luxury clothes, cars, jewellery, food... With not much substance underneath all those flashy images.
It has something to say about culture, but it chooses the wrong setting and muddies its own waters by being excessive and opulent. How the hell are working class Asians supposed to see representation in this?
As always Hollywood loves to individualise systemic problems. "Oh that one white dude is racist? Well, we got rid of him and it's a happy ending." "You're barely surviving paycheck to paycheck? Just indulge in fantasy of being disgustingly rich like your actual boss of boss of boss *10 who you'll never see, but break your back for."
The opening scene was about how Michelle Yeoh's character had always faced disrespect and here in this scene also racism. It sets the stage for how she's used her power to control her world so her family don't ever have to put up with that sort of disrespect. Ultimately, she so completely controls her world that she ends up being over-bearing and dis-respectful to others, not allowing people to live their own lives. I took the opening scene to show that her pure drive was the thing that used to keep her family safe but unless she changed her ways it would ultimately be the thing that drove them all away. That's what it said to me, anyway. It played into the fact Eleanor's mother was also very hard and strict and maybe this guardedness protected the family but in turn also cause a lot of grief.
There's also some nice parallels between that scene and the scene where Eleanor tells Rachel she "will never be enough." The people who "belong" in each scene (the hotel workers at the beginning, and Eleanor later on) wear clothes that match the decor of their environment, showing that they "belong" and everyone else "does not belong". It shows that the disrespect and dismissiveness that Eleanor faced at the beginning as being the "other", is the same way she treats everyone outside the family. In the same way that Eleanor is the disruptive force at the beginning, Rachel is the dismissive force when she gets involved with Nick.
sure, but the introduction of racism is still very odd. it feels like the movie is about to say something about the tensions between racism and money, because they've explicitly introduced this interesting dynamic, but then nothing happens. it gives the unintentional vibe that they solved racism.
@bayleev7494 I don't know about the book, but I never felt the film was about racism. If it was about racism, the story would be Eleanor's or Rachel's experience in the US, not Rachel's experience in Singapore. I don't understand why this review and so many comments misunderstand the point of the first scene. Like OP says, it's to explain Eleanor's character. OP explains it better than me, but I would add that choosing specifically a racist scene (instead of showing her family turned down at a luxury Singaporean hotel for example) shows her strong value of her asian identity. Throughout the film she is proud of her "pure" asian identity and eastern cultural values, not accepting Rachel's westernized identity. Exactly like the other commenter @vuvuxelloss says... it's about the sense of "other". Eleanor was viewed as "other", and she also views Rachel (and the dumb racist foreign hotel staff) as "other". The scene flips the idea of "foreign" by giving Eleanor the upperhand in the end.... because in Crazy Rich Asians, the "rich asians" are not the minority, RACHEL is the minority. Giving Eleanor the upperhand is a satisfying moment but that's not the full point - it actually serves a narrative purpose. I think the film is far from perfect and there's a lot to critique, but this review pokes holes in the wrong places
This is actually so helpful for framing why John M. Chu’s adaptation of In the Heights was disappointing too. Both crazy rich Asians and in the heights were centered around wealth (excess vs a lack of it) and yet both felt so incomplete
I feel the movie gets torn between Rachel being an outsider for her Americanness and her wealth. It's still clear that she's "not like them" in many ways related to money. Let's not forget the secondary antagonist(s), Nick's ex and other girls, accuse Rachel of being a gold digger. The movie represents to me a breakthrough of Asian representation in Western media (with the caveat of it being really specific). I was excited for it at the time. It may have just been coincidental; maybe there was already a wave happening and this just happened to be the first... I don't know, would Shang-Chi have happened without this movie? I hope so.
I think the problem is her being accused of being a gold digger is the most superficial way you can talk about wealth imaginable. The conflict isn’t solved by the antagonists being forced to realize that their perception of wealth being the primary gauge of a person’s value is fucked up, or any other conversation about the nature of money and the power they have as the ruling class, instead the resolution is “she’s not actually a gold digger, hurray!” At its most cynical interpretation, this is the family just learning to be content with the fact that she’s just one of the “good poors.” This is the equivalent of an individual black and white guy learning to be good friends in _the Green Book,_ it doesn’t say anything, and given the fact that the source material had a lot to say, that’s pretty damning. If this movie did lead to greater Asian, or specifically Chinese, representation in Hollywood, then great, fantastic, but I think the evidence shows that this was purely because a film with a bunch of Asians in it made a lot of money, and not because of any sort of achievement of what the film was trying to say.
We shouldn't just be talking about the joy luck club, but about the incredible success of films like crouching tiger hidden dragon, of Jackie Chan and Jet Li and the juggernaut which was Hong Kong cinema. Of Rush Hour, a comedy with two stars neither of them white. Even, when we're talking asian representation, of Slumdog Millionaire (though that film has its problems) and Life of Pi and even better, crossover bollywood hits because lets not forget Indians are Asian. Honestly, while it was contained to genre films, there used to be MORE asian representation in the past. MORE asian led films. The lack of them these days is a recent phenomena, only being redressed now because there is money to be made in China, basically the whole premise of that opening scene but in the whole movie industry. So yes Shang Chi would have been made, its a return to classic action cinema in a long tradition.
@@visassess8607 it really is just giving Ethnically Chinese people a chance to flex our culture like... Please, South-East Asian indigenous peoples hate us enough already, we really don't want to be seen as hogging the spotlight from them right now Hollywood.
She didn’t buy the hotel with the phone call, she called the owner because he was already giving it to her as a gift. That’s why they’d gone all that way.
What’s sad is the origins of Arthur was he originally looked more like a real aardvark, and his first book was about him not liking his nose because it was too big, and eventually he gained self acceptance and love himself for who he is, big nose and all. And then over time in future depictions his nose got continuously smaller. So much for self acceptance.
My understanding of the book series was that it wasn't just about money, but social status and how tacky or refined people were. Those with "new money" and those whose goal was to flaunt their riches were humiliated or ended up losing their status throughout the story. And there's a big reveal that the grandmother who lives in a palatial house with servants and finery was actually pretty broke. It was complicated, but basically her family thought they'd be getting huge inheritances and then got nothing. The "classy" wealthy family members mourned her death while the "trashy" ones lost their minds over the imaginary inheritance.
I do completely agree that the movie as a whole was lacking in telling a coherent/consistent message. But the theme of feeling Asian enough (or any other ethnicity honestly) can actually be a really meaningful theme within immigrant communities and should not be reduced to a nonexistent problem. Often times the reality for POC immigrants (at least in America) is that they are stuck between two cultures, sometimes existing in a third culture entirely that is othered by both of the former. It’s a really emotionally taxing and mentally distressing experience to not have the means to connect to the people (family, in-laws, friends) that you generally should feel connected to. This can be especially distressing if this is layered with struggles with class, poverty, etc. Just wanted to make note that it’s something you should be more cognizant / sensitive about in the future.
He kinda mentioned that though. He's saying that those things lose a lot of their weight when the characters are shown to be able to ignore a lot of problems through money.
That might work in movie like "The Farewell" because the protagonist's sense of identity is stuck between her home country (US) and her parents' native country (China). But in Crazy Rich Asian, Rachel has ZERO relationship with Singapore and her parents' native country is also NOT Singapore. In fact, it is a disgrace for Hollywood for conflating every Asian country with a sizeable Chinese population as "mini China", it's demeaning to the local population who have such a complicated social & political relationship with China. It is like assuming every white european immigrant are the same, then to expect an Italian American to have an identity & cultural conflict with a rich Dutch family for not being "white enough". Or to assume a Cuban American to come to Argentina with her rich Argentinian bf and be told by the mother in law she is not "Latina enough", as if the whole of South America is just one giant monolith cultural and political identity.
@@coffeemug3009 Calm your tits. Literally every demographic and subculture within the US hasn't been repressed in a 100% accurate manner. Asian-Americans aren't special in this regard.
but that's also literally tru for any immigrant in any country especailly those from and to countries with very distinct cultures from each other. It has not so much to do with race and as such as with culture.
As a prolific reader of romance novels it was really obvious how the movie veered from the original novel without even reading it. Every trope was set up to end in a satisfying cliché but then took a left turn, it just felt confusing
Dude you blew my mind about the differences with the book. I had no idea, but it makes a lot more sense why the book was so popular now. I didn't exactly get it after seeing the movie.
It was hard to feel anything for pretty much all of these characters. Like you said, money overpowers racism. If you're rich, nobody cares what color you are, how you look, etc. It's just not really possible to make a feel good movie centered around racism with a bunch of filfthy rich extremely powerful people. Rich POC don't experience racism in any way when compared to average POC.
Saw this movie maybe half a year or a year after it was released. It was fairly entertaining as a light romantic comedy. The praise for representation is really just the general idea of having a mainstream Hollywood movie that featured all leads and pretty much mostly an all asian cast. Only on a simple surface level. Nothing deeper beyond that. We could dig deeper about the casting and ethnicities which is fair, but by American standards it was practically a "huh, you have a big budget American film that centers around asians. That can exist?" kind of moment. That just doesn't happen even semi-regularily. It would be similar if you had the exact same movie and plot but instead it focused on some super rich group of middle eastern people and the cast featured nearly all people of middle eastern descent. Again, that's just far from Hollywood norms. It's absolutely valid to point out the shortcomings of Crazy Rich Asians whether it be from an artistic point of view or even the quality of representation. The film doesn't have to be hailed as a savior and that it must be loved. Not at all. Heck I'd rather point to The Farewell which came out I think the following year and is a film I would recommend every time over Crazy Rich Asians when it comes to American movies with an all asian leading cast. However the difference is that Crazy Rich Asians is likely possibly the only American movie people in the western world saw where they actually have to deal with an all asian cast. It's kind of sad, but that's why the film is somewhat important. Sure I'd rather CRA was just some regular old mainstream American movie that's a dime a dozen mostly/all asian cast. Well, it's not. It's a rarity.
it also really bugs me that most of our protagonists have british or american accents (except for whatever awkwafinas "accent" is) whereas the characters we're supposed to villainize have Singaporean accents
If you read the book, it explains why they have British accents. For example, both Nick and Eleanor have British accents because they did the bulk of their education in the UK. The movie does not show it, but Nick was also a professor at NYU: he was a history professor, and that is how he met Rached. He studied at Oxford. I highly wished the film had included the dad (Phillip Young) as well. The book described his accent as (IMO) the coolest of them all: a mix between Chinese accent, Australian accent and British accent.
I absolutely hated this movie. The most shallow, groveling display I've ever seen. The girl had to win the rich mom's approval in the end instead of the mother not being a total douche bag. The girl had to completely conform and fight for the man that couldn't even stand up to his own mother. Pathetic.
I was honestly very nervous when I saw the title because while Crazy Rich Asians is by no means the pinnacle of filmmaking, it means a lot symbolically in an age with rampant sinophobia, especially as a Chinese person myself. Fortunately I didn’t find any here and I appreciate this perspective!
I agree there wasn't enough about actual class struggle; however, the not being Asian enough for other Asians is a HUGE issue that many Asian-Americans face. White people are not the only people that can be racist. There is such a thing as internalized racism. This is about what I expected from a white person analyzing the movie.
THANK YOU. I felt like I was going crazy seeing all these comments praising him, and I kind of feel like it’s obvious that this is the wrong person to analyze this movie. This is a romcom about being ASIAN AMERICAN and what it’s like to feel like you’re losing touch with your roots. It’s frustrating how quickly he dismissed the importance of that. Also, it shows a bunch of Asian cultural details that are only significant to people who recognize them. It was the first movie with an all Asian cast in a mainstream movie since 1993 and we’re going to pretend like that doesn’t mean anything?
This is not an issue to Singapore. Because Singapore is also made of many immigrants, it doesn't have the same cultural baggage as majority ethnic countries. They straight up don't know the culture of Singapore and flattened it to represent all of East Asia, when Singapore is the BIGGEST exception to "getting back to your roots" type of stories.
@@shannilam9382 Sure, but there's a movie that does the theme way better that also stars Awkwafina. She’s in this movie, right? Anyways, it's called The Farewell.
There is part of this video I really agree with, and part of it I really disagree with. What I agree with: Eliminating the twist in Astrid's relationship was a loss, and you are right that they dropped the book's most important subject. The endings - one of Rachel ultimately rejecting the family in the book, with Nick joining in - and the one in the movie of them having a massive party could not have been more opposite. I agree What I disagree with: That this movie was about nothing because it depicted racism between Asians. Just because racism is a subject does not mean it has to be about the evils of white people. You can have similar conflicts in an Asian family if you are Chinese and dating a Japanese woman, or a non-Asian woman...I think this is a fascinating and relatable movie topic
As an Asian immigrant, this is my favorite movie… to dunk on. I despise how the movie is touted/touted itself as important representation, when it contained no meaningful representation for queer, brown, poor and any other marginalized Asians groups. It appeals to dominant sensibilities and contributes even more to this common stereotype in the US of Asians as White-upperclass-adjacent monolith. It does not have any meaningful satire of the rich Asian, and any attempt is lost within the movie's gaudy visuals and sacral plots. It reminds me of how “Antiwar movies" like Full Metal Jacket fails in its anti war message by also allowing U.S audience to indulge in a power fantasy. There are soooo many other Asian/Asian American indie films which are more important, and If people really wanted to support good Asian representation, they should go see those instead of paying for a Hollywood product.
Everyone wants representation from hollywood when they need to realize hollywood can never represent them. Except maybe if they're preposterously rich. That they're ignoring filmmakers and writers who already are representing them and their experiences.
@@MrAdamo Lingua Franca by Isabel Sandoval and Tales of the Waria are two amazing film. The latter is free on Kanopy if you have an U.S library card. Thưa Mẹ Con Đi (Goodbye Mother) and Apart, Together are good. ones too. That said, most films aren't going to be feature length since they don't have the budget. I would check out Asian film fests like CAAMfest. Many are moving toward online screenings these days. You can also look up the short films on their lists; sometimes the filmmakers post them online. It takes some work, but unfortunately that's the only way to find them without marketing money.
It’s weird to me that one could make a movie about insanely wealthy people and not have it be about classism. Or where class intersects with race for these people. Instead it’s just Chinese-American girl you are too American for us.
I think the primary problem with the movie is a lack of class consciousness without it you can't really engage with the themes of the book and end up creating another story with the venir of the book that lacks the substance that was there originally
Facts! I had no idea that the original book was about Classism. Love the movie especially because it is a Disney fairytale for most Chinese Asian-Americans/Asians, which is great, but to take out the whole issue of class? Is just bizarre? Especially considering that Singapore is multi-ethnic, multicultural, and multiracial?
@@micahcook2408 same!! I hate how they took the class aspect out tbh cuz makes the movie shallow in the end, its awesome that it’s like a fairy tale movie but it had so much potential to be more
Literally never heard a single bad thing about this movie until this comment section, where it is now the worst film to exist ! It's crazy how quickly people's opinions change as soon as their favourite RU-vidr criticising it
I think comments about the movie being an adult Disney film and the lack of a "full" asian racial representation definitely have merit: However this movie was still incredibly on point with how well it captures the social, cultural, and familial dynamics of asian/chinese/singaporean life. This probably doesn't resonate as deeply with ppl who didn't grow up with it but for many of my friends and I we were gobsmacked to see these iconic experiences actually discussed on the big screen. The toxic family dynamics, the success/career/academic hyperfixation, so many things that are part and parcel of "asian life" (not speaking for everyone ofc) captured beautifully and actually being shown in western cinema was truly amazing.
I’ve thought about the opening scene too but found it very efficient for establishing the moral universe of the movie. It’s a transparently unrealistic fairytale scenario used to establish the standard going forward that we must accept money and privilege as morally neutral. This isn’t real racism it’s a made-up fairytale idea of racism. Like the idea of a posh london hotel having a problem with rich Asian guests like this is openly fantastical right? ‘Reject Asian customers’ is not part of a successful business plan for posh london hotels. This is a simple fable used to instruct us in the values we should be holding for the space of the movie. It teaches us what concerns we can park at the door, and that the morality of wealth and its accompany privilege can stay right here with the wet umbrellas. Actually its quite like that but in The Lion King where Mufasa tells Simba about the circle of life. The bit that’s there to say ‘stop worrying about this family’s consumption of others’. And it doesn’t matter that everyone can see through the justification/manoeuvring offered in real terms. That we know the antelopes would have a different view on how faut thus circle of life business is, and that the hotel scenario is cartoon racism answered with essentially a non-sequitur. But we don’t need to believe on the moral more broadly for is to understand to proceed according to the values of espouses. We know we’re in a fairy tale and in fairy tales you f do nit apply one-on-one values from real life. As long as the movie teaches you what the jn-universe values are you’re golden.
Speaking as an American who used to live in Singapore, I had a few thoughts about this movie (not having read the book). I don't mean to offend anyone but here are my observations: First, the very first thing in the movie (IIRC) is a quote from Napoleon that goes, .” And I'm like... but they don't go to China. The movie takes place in Singapore. Singapore is not the West, and mostly Chinese people live there, but it's not China or the West. It's, like, a third thing. A separate country, if you will, called Singapore. I feel like if this quote was in front of a Western movie that took place entirely in, like, the Chinese-American community of Flushing, NY it would have been called out more, you know? There's a scene where Ah Ma, who would have been born in Singapore the 1920s or so, and been rich, did not speak any English and only spoke Mandarin. I found this pretty implausible (Singaporean linguistics is one of my pet obsessions lol). First of all, the fanciest schools in Singapore in her day would have taught in English, English was a prestige language. But she might have gone to a Chinese-medium school. Even still, Mandarin was relatively rare in Singapore in her day because most of the Chinese people who came to Singapore came from Southern China where other dialects were spoken. Lee Kuan Yew, for instance, taught himself Mandarin in his thirties. So instead of speaking Mandarin, she might have spoken Cantonese, Hokkien, Teochew, etc. The use of Mandarin was something that different groups decided to do for political reasons, and then was promoted by the government. Until very recently there weren't many Chinese people in Singapore whose families were from Mandarin-speaking parts of China. Singapore has four official languages, English, Malay, Mandarin Chinese, and Tamil. English is sort of the "lingua franca", and the other three languages represent the biggest ethnic groups in Singapore: Chinese, Malay, and Indian. Malays speak Malay and the majority of the Indian community in Singapore is Tamil*, but there is no one majority language amongst Chinese groups (Hokkien is the plurality, like ~40% or so) so if you choose one of those varieties, you're favoring one language group that's technically the minority over all the others. So Mandarin was seen as a "compromise". Since the 1970s, Mandarin was promoted and the use of other Chinese languages was heavily discouraged by the government. Partially it was seen as an attempt to unify the people, partially it was "Mandarin is Correct and these dialects are Incorrect", and partially it was a "connect to Your Roots in China by speaking the language of China" sort of a thing. Lately, there's also the idea that, with the economic rise of China, Mandarin is a good business language. In Singapore, a) you have to declare your ethnicity to the government, and b) the second language you take in school (what's known as your "Mother Tongue") is determined by your ethnicity. If you're Chinese and you want to learn Malay, too bad, because you can't, you have to take Mandarin instead because it's the law (there are also Mandarin-medium schools where you learn English). *That said, I kinda think the fact that there wasn't much government handwringing about whether to speak Tamil or Hindi or whatever speaks to how the government viewed Indian Singaporeans but that's just my onion. So in the context of the movie, this scene was annoying because it was a missed opportunity. Rachel could have tried to impress Ah Ma by speaking Mandarin, only to find that Ah Ma only knows a dialect+English+maybe Malay. Something like that. Even despite all this Mandarin education stuff, in Singapore, recent immigrants from the PRC are sometimes stereotyped as being unsophisticated, so that could have been part of the issue they had with her, but it wasn't. And that's the other thing. Rachel, being only a second-generation American, whose mother is from China, is in a sense a lot "closer" to China than Nick's family, who have been in Singapore since the 19th century (and if any of them are Peranakan, they've been there even longer, not sure about this as I haven't read the book). Again I don't know about the book but the film doesn't really mine this situation for any irony. It doesn't seem aware of the contradiction. And I think it's because the movie has forgotten that Singapore is its own country. Chinese Singaporean culture, language, etc. has developed in its own way and the movie kind of glosses over it. Like, Singlish is barely in the movie. What it comes down to, IMO, is trying to view Singapore as an extension of China, and this idea that diaspora communities in general are inherently false, inferior, or "not real", instead of just being separate cultures. Any development of culture that takes place away from the Motherland is inherently inauthentic and should be discouraged and mocked. So in that regard the movie only makes sense if you view Singapore as "the Motherland" and the way they do that is to sort of pretend it's China. To do that, they have to flatten the world into East and West, and if Singapore is not the West, then it's the East, and China is the East, so it and China are the same thing, they have no real cultural differences of their own because Singapore has not developed its own culture, not in any real way. Like, yes, there's a scene showing kueh lapis, but there would never be significant cultural friction between a Chinese person and a Singaporean-Chinese person, it must be down to one of them being a Westerner. This also ties back into the problem of representation. There's this scene where Peik Lin is scared of (IIRC) an Indian security guard, and I found myself wondering why she was acting as though she'd never encountered a guy like that before if she was from Singapore. But aside from that, there are no other ethnic groups represented in the movie (I'm not talking about the actors, strictly the characters as written). For one thing, the reason Singapore is its own country and not part of Malaysia is because of a race riot. IMO a lot of these frantic attempts to unify the Singaporean population and establish "respectability" as quickly as possible were because a) Singapore was pretty poor not too long ago, b) it only became its own country in 1965, and c) because of this whole race riot thing. I don't think that this was the movie's MO, though, I think it was just that, in service of pretending that Singapore=China, it's a lot easier to do that if the whole cast is Chinese. Malays and Indians and others are a reminder that Singapore is its own place. There's a line in Crazy Rich Asians where they're like, "eat, there are starving people in America!" And it's a cute joke (although, again, no one has ever said that there were starving people in Singapore, they said this about China, but whatever) but it also kind of struck me. Singapore is a very young country and much of the population came over only in the 19th century. As the movie points out, the concept of "Old Money" barely exists in Singapore, almost everyone's money is new, and even Nick's family's money isn't THAT old. But this is kind of the position that the US has occupied in a lot of media, upstart country, exclusively new money, emblematic of capitalism itself, a lot of immigrant/diaspora communities with a perceived false or absent culture, the problematic assumption that "we" all immigrated from one specific place, and the non-representation of minority populations to facilitate that assumption in cinema. And now I guess the baton has been passed. So I think that's what the movie is about, and it's half aware of it and half not.
Thank you for this comment, communicates eloquently what I wanted to explain was the fundamental "fakeness" of this movie from my perspective as Singaporean. The film not only completely ignores the Singaporean perspective from non-Chinese Singaporeans, it also distorts the history and complexities of the Chinese Singaporean perspective (likely due to the filmmakers/audience being Chinese American and having a complex about "not being Real China enough" and thus misrepresenting the canvas is paints on)
Yes! Speaking as a Singaporean Chinese and looking at other comments about the lack of diversity, I dont think CRA is even representative of Singaporean Chinese people. The characters are the 1%; these rich billionaires are as far from representative of local Chinese experiences as can be. Chinese culture in SG is pretty different from the Mainland; heck when SG became independent it adamantly wanted to avoid becoming another China. Following this logic that CRA isn't representing Singaporeans, Eleanor's problem with Rachel not being "Chinese enough" makes sense because you realise they're not really Singaporean Chinese in the way most Singaporean Chinese are. They're just Chinese with a SG citizenship. The movie is just a traditional Chinese family vs Americanized Chinese girl story, with the window dressing of Singapore and "oh look food court!!"moments sprinked throughout. (Not to mention the Singapore Tourism Board must've been salivating at the chance to promote SG, and gentrified tourist attractions do not cultural authenticity make). Combined with the fact that its produced by Asian-Americans, the movie is futher distanced from any true "authentic" representation of Singapore. Non-chinese Singaporeans pointing out the lack of diversity in the film make an excellent point! If there's one (1) thing Singapore is defined by, its that its multicultural. But again its an irrelevant one as the film isnt seeking to represent Singapore. Lacking non-Chinese main characters/supporting characters allows Western audiences (and even Westernized Asian Americans desperate for any representation) to neatly categorise Singapore as "Oh Chinese". A multiethnic country would challenge their one-dimensional views of "foreign countries" so you know. Cant have the Other being complex amiright :/. Its ultimately a film about class and not even in a way that examines local interracial dynamics. Its undeniable Chinese ppl, as the majority, have privileges over non Chinese in SG. But can we recognise the Chinese people here aren't really Singaporean Chinese? If there's themes about identity, its certainly not about a Singapore identity by any means.
Singlish barely being in the movie makes sense, though, as they're all rich schmutzes. Singlish is like a working class/middle class dialect thing, not something the rich would ever want to hear. Other than that, great points and line up with what my SG Chinese friends thought.
A lot of people here are talking about how CRA has bad representation in that it doesn't represent true immigrant experience/ relatable life of asians/ etc but I'm wondering why is it that a film with a large Asian cast has to be about all that. Why can't we have an escapist vapid romance film? Why does every film with a large minority cast have to be about the minority existence? I feel in that way, that expectation too can be othering--where films with a large white cast can be about whatever drivel it pleases and its fine, but when we have a large asian cast, or a large black cast it has to talk about racism, or the legacy of colonialism, etc.
I've also been reading through people's comments, and I think the issue was more that the media was trying to sell it as a really important film. At the time, a bunch of news articles and people on Twitter were hailing it as this huge win for diversity and representation. So when people went to see it, and they didn't feel represented and didn't think it was all that diverse, it makes sense that they'd feel the movie fell flat If it had been sold as a cheesy feel-good romcom, I don't think nearly as many people would've minded
The trouble is that films/shows with a cast comprised mostly of underrepresented ethnicities (in America) ALWAYS get a shit ton of publicity, so they go for "omg guys look! no white people! how bonkers is that?" regardless of if it's an accurate depiction of the culture they're featuring. Don't get me wrong, I love representation, but it's really annoying when they use it for advertising. Kind of a "show, don't tell" situation.
Because it was being hailed up as an Asian representation movie. "An all Asian cast" it marketed itself. Well it's not. It's rich people being rich and gate keepy aka. their modus operandi. Doesn't really matter who they are, they can be British for all I care. The cultural aspects and how money and status are viewed on SA are outright ignored and it avoids anything white ppl might not understand. Even the colour red has to be explained at length. It doesn't need to make us misery p*rn, but it fails to examine the meaning of opulence which is inseparable of it's very themes: upper class person and middle/under class person in love. Would you like a LGBTQ love island? Does it help or rather actual hurt mainstream's understanding of queer people? I don't think sth should market itself as LGBTQ+ just because the surface level aesthetics are LGBTQ+ the same for ethnic. While I don't oppose to just enjoying the move for what it is "a fun fantasy indulgence of romance and being disgustingly wealthy ". I do want to ask: Does being represented in mainstream just means we get to be the boots and we get to be reduced to cardboard reality TV stars?
These movies would be just as cringeworthy and bad if they had all white casts but the fact that they make them minority driven and prop that up as some kind of message of empowerment and act like that gives them a greater meaning, makes them worse and more insulting especially since China and India and Korea and Japan and countries across Asia already have film industries that are as big as Hollywood if not bigger which produce thousands of movies a year that are all exclusive Asian casted films and have as much substance as Crazy Rich Asians but they don't try and market them as finally giving a voice to the voiceless and their existence being some kind of act of cultural justice because they market those movies as simple entertainment which they are.
While your criticisms on how the movie treats wealth are valid, I think it's misleading to say it's about nothing. It's about the identity struggles faced by second-generation Asian-Americans, a very specific audience. You mentioned this briefly as an aside, but it's the movie's core. My parents came from Taiwan. Chinese culture is very important to me, but I worry about not being Chinese "enough". The primary struggle is between Rachel, the audience surrogate, and Eleanor, a disapproving avatar of Chinese-ness. She considers Rachel to be fully assimilated into American culture, but we aren't, and we don't want to be. We're still Americans, but we want to practice our culture too, and Eleanor rejecting Rachel for being too American is extremely hurtful. The film's climax at the Mahjong table has enormous significance, and saying that the movie is about "nothing" without mentioning that scene is unfairly dismissive.
I too found the 'nothing' to be viscerally hurtful. The idea of Asians struggling to fit in with other Asians seems to be unrelatable to most, though lots of people would relate to trying to fit in with the cool kids or rich kids. I agree with BigJoel's economic view, but not his disappointment with it in this movie. The class disparity is not understated at all, but shocking and intimidating to our main character.
I mean he’s gotta have a hook line clickbait title to initiate discourse That being said this is more about spotlighting Asian actors more than an agenda of discussing elitism and broader subjects that would be a heavy mouthful for a ROM-COM If he thinks the fluff is ‘nothing’, he could’ve delved into a heavier movie that did discuss classism and elitism
I just took this film as a classic Cinderella style commoner and prince romantic drama just with Asian cast and take 🤷🏽♀️ nothing deep just light fun to enjoy. I also feel that to say bc you are not white, you MUST perform & discuss your race, that in itself is a typecasting. There’s like a million hallmark movies with the exact same plot, it’s just a lush fantasy!
Big Joel's points make much more sense from a marketing perspective. Crazy Rich Asians works as a book targeting Asian people because it’s far easier to produce a book for a very specific audience. Because movies are far more expensive to produce, studios want to expand their audience as widely as possible so it’s extremely difficult to make this movie work when so much of the target audience is now white people and other non-Asians.
This is so true bestie! When the movie came out, I remember how a lot of people praised this movie because of representation and.. stuff? But with title like Crazy Rich Asian is kind of off-putting, considering wealth gap in my country is sooo wide, and how normalize it is to idolize rich people on tv, including my parents which is so annoying, so I didn't watch it lol. But you know what? At least we got Parasite (2019) and it was great movie and it was a good representation for Asian on Hollywood. 🤷♂️
I just want to say that Parasite is the best movie of the last decade and the half of this Crazy Rich Asians movie that I watched was really stupid lol
There was another great Asian movie around that year regarding class divide: Shoplifters. IMO it's even better than Parasite. It went to win Palme d'Or but absolutely untouched by Hollywood lol.
really loving that this one is up on cny, happy new year to the comments section i guess and as a filipino living in singapore i did find it very.......let's say interesting....how they decided to go with the mom being like "no this girl is not chinese enough for my son" and "you're not our kind of people" when singapore is majority chinese, and they don't show Any other kind of singaporeans, no malaysians, no indians, nothing. really makes you go Huh. i think it's perfectly ok as a silly romance film tho if you like those, and there's definitely a part of me that goes "well no one cares when romcoms with all white people are silly and dumb so i think we should have that too" like, it's not particularly ground-breaking or a masterpiece or anything, but that should be fine too. crazy rich asians shouldn't have been held up as some kinda standard bc honestly it Shouldn't be out of the ordinary to have a wacky romcom that's made up of primarily asian actors, just a thing that happens, y'know?
This is exactly why we loved it. My family is Filipino-American (I’m the token white wife) and everyone loves this movie as a piece of all-Asian cotton candy. Insubstantial fluff is a luxury that shouldn’t be restricted to white people.
The mom was referring to how Rachael is not Chinese enough bc she’s too American. It’s definitely a source of conflict between the diaspora and the old country.
@@adelaideivy1318 Hahahaha, "token white wife", all the best to your marriage, but Asian male diaspora in the West (and this goes for East and South) whine about Asian women dating White guys... and then we hope for a White wife ourselves. Decolonisation of the mind in beauty standards needs to happen for both genders, and people of neither genders should be hypocrites about it!
It was cool that my wife got to watch this romantic comedy starring people that look like her, and got to see it do well at the box office. Even better to see more and better films by and about Asian-Americans since then. Plus the success of Asian films and TV with international audiences. I dunno. This movie isn’t amazing but how happy it made her and its impact on the broader landscape means it has a special place in my heart. I’m kind of fond of it despite learning it scrubbed class commentary from the source material.
Yep. Take nothing away to those who like what they like. It's just important to also talk about the flaws. God knows how many just as vapid all white American movies out there, but its just that there's potential in this movie to talk about so much more. But it is what it is.
I thought the book was better but I still enjoy the movie. It’s just fun and visually beautiful. I love Astrid, she was my favorite character and they undermined her in the movie portrayal.
I’ve never seen the movie or read the book, but I’ve spent some time in China among Chinese people and in relationships with Chinese people and the idea of “you’re not Chinese enough” is a very real thing. Chinese mainlanders do not view people born and raised outside of mainland China as Chinese. They are some sort of “other”. So a wealthy mainland Chinese person might view an American-born Chinese as not being Chinese enough and thus not suitable enough. And it kind of gets worse if the judgmental person is from Beijing or Shanghai. It’s like “I’m from Texas” on steroids.
As a third/fourth generation Chinese American, I have been told that very thing to my face by Chinese. Sometimes in shock, sometimes with a straight face. Usually it comes after being asked if I know Chinese and say no. The punchline comes in that I've also had the comment come from non-Chinese - the shock seeming to come from me somehow not being in touch with a country I've never been to or culture I've never experiences (Chinese-American culture being different than mainland... plus my family coming from people that fled the country when the CCP took power to give a sense of where we would have fallen on that scale of things). It's like... I'm from Boston - the basis for my culture is rooted in baked beans, clam chowder, and a love-hate relationship with New York.
Accepting their money is not a sign of respect or equality. People can take your money and still think racist thoughts about you. The more realistic depiction of racism would be the manager graciously showing them to their room and then making a snide comment about how dirty they are afterwards.
Everything I've heard about mainland chinese society from students I've taught at university i see reflected in this movie (all from pretty wealthy families). So the whole "you'll never be chinese enough" deal absolutely makes sense, going off of these experiences that were related to me (i know the movie is set in singapore but my students tended to think of all asian countries surrounding china as "also china"). It does muddle the message of the movie, but in the end, to me it was just fun, sparkly wealth porn.
Your students are half-right about Mongolia, Korea, Vietnam, and Japan. Because they are part of the Sinosphere culturally... they are super wrong when it comes to South Asia (tell them you mean Indians and they'll go "ohhhhhh") and South-East Asia. Ethnically Chinese people are all over and super successful in South-East Asia.... but that's exactly the problem, we're treated like Jewish people are down South, and South-East Asia has received way more cultural influence from the Indian Subcontinent. China has a lot of countries to our Southern border, and all of them except Vietnam are influenced by us in only that we exist in their countries making up a disproportionate amount of the GDP.
The movie was doomed to be a dumbed down adaptation by the fact the books were basically doing double duty as romantic satires and annotated encyclopedias of singaporean political history in the form of its footnotes
Hot take: I don’t think people being excited about a movie with a predominantly Asian cast getting popular is all that bad. Bad/mediocre movies about white people get popular all the time. I think it’s ok to look at the fact that a movie about Asians is popular as a positive thing, because that’s kidna new, even if the movie isn’t all that good or revolutionary in its message. However I’m not Asian and I don’t know what it really feels like to watch this movie or the to watch the public’s response to it as an Asian-American. Also I saw another comment about how the movie panders to a white audience where the book didn’t, and that’s not cool either
I might be off base on this, but I feel like shifting the conflict of the movie from a class struggle to a kind of intersectionality hits the mark for a lot of asian folks living all around the world. I myself am not asian, but have seen a lot of folks online being vocal about being gatekept on two sides of their heritage. Never really feeling "American" (or whatever) with elders not being able to connect because they came up in such a different world, IE not "Chinese" enough, despite having an all Asian ethnic background. I've mostly seen it in the context of "cultural appropriation" talks, since a lot of these same folks are artists and creators, and get frustrated with things like Raya and ATLA for taking appropriation of "their" culture when they themselves feel trivialized and pushed outside it. A big hit movie removing class consciousness and injecting wealth spectacle seems perfectly on brand, and all the conversations I remember about this film were not "it's a truly important story," but "finally we have some stupid frivolity of our own" But I haven't seen it, and probably won't unless I tivo it or something. Your video was the only curiosity I've ever had about the film.
I find this movie a little fascinating because it’s a classic Gothic horror story that doesn’t know it’s a classic Gothic horror story. You have the pure, innocent girl falling into the grasp of a mysterious wealthy family with power and secrets while alone in a foreign (to her) land. She manages to survive the machinations of the mysterious wealthy family and win love for herself.
While I agree with some of your points, I think you do miss the exploration of different organising principles of society. Yes it's disappointing that money is not explored, yes it's subsumed by the totalising narrative of global neoliberal capitalism, yes the B plot is a bit strange when placed against the A plot, yes the focus on rich Asians is a poor excuse for representation. But it's not "about nothing": it's about the conflict between American individualism and the pursuit of happiness (cf. Rachel, a literal professor of economics, lacking familial constraints and pursuing her own path) and familism (Nick's mother and grandmother are the key representatives here). I think this really is interesting, since the latter is how Chinese society was organised for thousands of years and still is a great deal today: the notion that the family is the key political and economic unit, that family is business and business is family (this is dealt well through the cousins - and arguably does drive the B plot), that one's motivations are shaped by preserving the family and one's lineage, and that your family's interests are your own and your interest the family's. The tension it represents is important, and while familism acts as the antagonist and Rachel wins out, her plunge into a world of familism throughout the film offers a foil for (mostly western) viewers, who are offered an alternative way of organising life in a complex and fairly nuanced way. I actually felt myself sympathising with Nick's mum and the familism she represents, and that, imo, is what the film is about.
Yeah, I think this video is too quick to dismiss other readings or perspectives on the film. I feel like a more fair version of the criticism offered by this video would be someone being disappointed that it didn’t explore issues of money in class more directly, but this video kind of comes across as though the movie is completely worthless because it didn’t. And I don’t think that’s a fair criticism. I don’t wanna say it’s any kind of must see movie, But I do think there are a lot of good points to it, especially the ending Mahjong scene (which I believe was not in the book and god damn is the scene brilliant), and it’s a movie that can be a lot of fun if you turn your brain off a bit. Plus, it makes a lot more sense than many romcoms, Which granted is a pretty low bar to clear, but I actually think the narrative is pretty good all things considered. Anyway, this is far from a garbage or worthless film, and I have no shame admitting I actually quite like it. I also feel like one aspect that was missed here was the fact that a lot of this movie almost seemed like an Asian analog to the kinds of royal family drama that we often cover in the US. It’s the Diana, Kate, or Meghan stories, to differing degrees. Regular or outsider girl marrying into a family with complicated inter family dynamics and a more opulent lifestyle than most of us could imagine. Because if you can build on that, there is a lot less of a need for a long description of the aspects of family wealth and power. It carries forward a lot of the connotations and existing sentiments from these narratives. And so, for example, outsider to me always felt like it was a bunch of different reasons, including the class issue. On a similar note, the other thing I think about watching this movie is the contrapoints video on opulence. This kind of lifestyle is so beyond the ability for most of us to fathom. The average viewer can see and probably has feelings about pretty, rich people. The audience comes in with certain expectations and can see how gross the wealth on display is, yet also view it as aspirational and fun spectacle; it’s so bad that it ends up being kind of good in a guilty pleasure sort of way. It also kind of raises the stakes and builds (what some might say is somewhat artificial) tension, since Nick is willing to walk away from having everything, everything most people don’t have. Anyway, I don’t think the audience needs to be hammered over the head with a lesson on wealth and society here. Finally, as you mention, I do think there is an inherent blind spot in this analysis by not mentioning that this in many ways is a movie about clashing philosophies on society, family, and the individual. The eastern perspective that Eleanor represents is hard for many of us to grasp, from an American (or Canadian) upbringing, in part because it looks and sounds a lot like things we generally accept to be bad (to be clear, this isn’t saying they are these things, but I feel like many aspects of non-western philosophy and culture are challenging because they reveal certain assumptions and challenge what we simply take to be true and objective things and these things may run contrary to things we value). Meanwhile, Rachel is caught between the east and west, though leans more towards the west, but still understands where Eleanor is coming from. She has empathy. And again, that really shines in the Mahjong scene. And I think this is what the movie chose to focus on in many ways. Maybe not everyone agrees with that choice, but I think it’s the central thrust of the movie. Ultimately, I think this is really just a critique about interpretation and implementation rather than about the actual substance. I haven’t actually read the book the film is based upon, but I think I’m pretty happy that this movie turned out like it did, and I am somewhat skeptical that if they had followed the book too closely, it might not have been particularly good. We’ve seen plenty of times where people try to adapt a book almost Word for Word into a movie and have it go very badly. Again, having not read the source material, I’m totally I’m willing to acknowledge that there may have been a way to add More commentary on class and well, but all things considered, I don’t think the adaptation we ended up with is by any means bad.
I really appreciated this comment, it was nice to see somebody try to play the field for this movie earnestly because it clearly does have value, as you pointed out, just not everywhere it needs it.
I read the whole trilogy and I prefer much more how the books dealt with some topics that were left out in the movie, which took more the course of a soap-opera like show that, while kind of enjoyable, it left me a little bit disappointed.
I didn't really think the movie was about wealth relations when I saw it. I thought it was mostly about Asian identity, especially as an Asian American. Being half Chinese and half white, this has always been something I've thought a lot about, and I think the ideas of not being good enough for social status or familial expectations are relatable to a lot of Asian Americans, like even without the expectations brought on by wealth. The feeling of not being good enough or needing to do something because your family wants it can be felt by all people, not just really rich people.
Really love this analysis and mostly agree. I will say I think there is still a slight link in the 2 stories. Nick is willing to give up the money to be with Rachael but Astrid embraces her money at the expense of love (in both book and movie). That "girl boss" ending is not cringe because so many of these types of movies are about the rich character willing to give up their money (for love or to be a better person) but Astrid is this really nice "charitable" person who still loves her rich girl toys. Putting on the earring is her embracing that part of her/her family.
