The recently extremely popular movie Crazy Rich Asians was a monumental movie release for the asian community in not only America, but for Asian communities all over the world. Hollywoods lack of asian roles and asian presence has been extremely noticeable within their films and has been a growing issue over the years. In 2018, with the release of Crazy Rich Asians, people felt that Hollywood was making a statement that with this movie's release they would change the issue of asian presence and support those communities more. Wrong.
I felt that the movie Crazy Rich Asians was a way to appease the general public on the lack of asian presence in Hollywood films. I personally did enjoy the movie and felt that it was a step in the right direction, however the level of orientalism present within the movie is astounding.
The movie revolves around a couple in love, Nick Young and Rachel Chu, who travel to Singapore to visit his family who are crazy rich asians, extremely family oriented, and very traditional. Throughout the movie there are exotic parties, a tropical wedding, and an array of colors throughout the movie. The movie really highlights the craziness of rich asians and portray it materialistically along with the personality and actions of a crazy rich asian. All in all, throughout the entire movie I felt that orientalism was at work because it made asian culture look bad.
When Nick Young and Rachel Chu break up do to his family's tradition and family oriented beliefs, it makes it seem as if being family oriented is bad and prevents having a full life. In the ending scene when Nick Young does eventually acquire his mother's blessing and there's the scene where he and Rachel are reunited, it's further degrading asian culture and supporting western individualistic beliefs. This is seen in many scenes, not only in the love scenes. Another scene where they're representing asians badly is when Rachel is at the bachelorette party and the girls gang up on her and put a dead fish in her bed and write in blood "Catch this you gold-digging bitch". This scene plays into the theme savagery and portrays the asian women as savages. The orientalism is subtle and well hidden, however it's presence is there.
Once again, I'd like to reiterate that I did enjoy watching the movie Crazy Rich Asians and did appreciate the fact that Hollywood released a movie consisting of mainly an asian cast. However, from my perspective, Hollywood still has a long way to go in portraying Asians correctly and respectfully and breaking away from orientalism.
I definitely see where you're coming from. It's important to acknowledge movies like Crazy Rich Asians because it does serve as a good starting point, but inaccurate representation can't be praised, especially when we have such a long way to go.
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