Jackie Richardson ’21 | Assistant Arts Editor
Reviews of “Crazy Rich Asians” fall into two categories. The first sort, usually published in mainstream media outlets, gasps at the movie’s opulence, praises its revitalization of the romantic comedy and reminds the reader that “Crazy Rich Asians” is the only movie produced by a major Hollywood studio to feature a majority Asian American cast in a contemporary setting since “The Joy Luck Club.” The second, less common kind criticizes the movie for various reasons, most of which stem from the belief that white, Western ideals inflect the film too heavily. The debate surrounding “Crazy Rich Asians” isn’t just a debate about the movie itself, or even Asian American representation in general; it ultimately reflects an anxiety about who Asian Americans are and where we’re going (I consider myself Asian American; I am an American, and my mother is from Singapore).
But first, a brief summary is in order. “Crazy Rich Asians” follows Rachel Chu (Constance Wu), a middle-class economics professor, and her boyfriend Nick Young (Henry Golding), who suggests the two of them go to Singapore for his best friend Colin’s wedding. On the first-class flight there, Rachel discovers that Nick’s family is rich — crazy rich — and on landing, she finds herself in a fabulously wealthy, “snoshy” (“posh” and “snobby”) society that is extremely hostile to her, a “poor” outsider who “brings nothing to the table” and therefore deemed to have no right to be with Young. But true to the rom-com genre, love conquers all. I’ve seen the movie twice, and I would see it a third and fourth time. If you need any more convincing to go see it, watch it for what it is: a fantastic, fun, romantic movie.
Watching a movie for what it is seems rather obvious. A person wouldn’t watch “Mamma Mia!” for trenchant commentary on Greek life any more than they should watch “Crazy Rich Asians” for that on Singaporean life. However, because “Crazy Rich Asians” is the first movie in 25 years to have a majority Asian American cast, some expect from it what American film executives have failed to produce: mainstream, meaningful Asian American stories. Mainstream the movie certainly is; meaningful … somewhat. In his review of the movie, Mark Tseng-Putterman writes that “the film flirts with messages about privilege, immigrant striving, and the disconnect between Asians and Asian Americans — before ultimately abandoning such ideas for a fairy-tale ending that cements the movie as a celebratory work of affluence-porn.” A flirtation with those ideas doesn’t necessarily indicate a commitment to developing them, and there is power in marginalized people creating art that doesn’t center on their marginalization.
That said, just because “Crazy Rich Asians” doesn’t really try to say much about Asian American life doesn’t mean that nothing about it is revealed. Two moments in particular stand out. The first is a short moment — a joke — in which Goh Wye Mun (Ken Jeong) speaks to Rachel in broken English with an exaggerated Chinese accent, then reveals to her, in an American accent, “Just kidding, I went to Cal State Fullerton.” The second is the first scene in the movie, in which Eleanor Young (Michelle Yeoh), Nick Young’s mother, coolly purchases a London hotel after the white hotel manager dismissively tells her to “try Chinatown” for a room.
Tseng-Putterman and others have written that these two reversals — the first comedic, the second triumphant — misplace the source of the pain of the very stereotypes they attempt to flip. The first treats a Chinese accent as the problem, rather than the people who made it an object of derision in the first place; the second features Eleanor Young cleanly cleaving herself from those people who live in Chinatown. Both moments serve to reassure audiences that the Asians in Crazy Rich Asians are the “right” kind of Asians. These reassurances reflect an anxiety at the heart of Asian American — and especially Chinese American — life: that you can meet, and even exceed, white society’s standards and still never be enough. At a time when Asian American interests are increasingly being aligned with white ones — in Harvard’s affirmative action case, in debates surrounding New York City school segregation, and in hiring practices at Google — debate around whether or not “Crazy Rich Asians”serves to further whitewash Asian Americans amplifies a question that many Asian Americans have: how can we be (Asian) enough?
