Crazy Rich Asians Box Office Success is Less Want And More Need

(reposted from my Medium account)

With his hands draped over his knees, a skinny blonde boy stared at me on a soccer field in a late autumn day. After taking my gangly, short frame a few moments, he muttered “What are you supposed to be? Chinese?”

In life, so many moments come and go without any trace or memory of it. They come in and fade away like a gentle breeze.

But that day on the soccer field is one that will stick with me to my dying day. It was the first time that I realized that I was not like the others.

That I was different.

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Crazy Rich Asians has drawn comparisons to Black Panther for its refreshing, all-asian cast and crew, representing a minority group that often gets overlooked in popular media and entertainment. As a comic-book fan myself, I don’t know if I’d go that far, but this movie is important-and not for asians, but especially to the non-asian community, as to why stereotypes, good and bad, are almost always negative.

I’ve wrote before about the asian communities excitement over Black Pantherand it looks like people are just as excited to see Asians portrayed in a non-stereotypical level after just two weeks. CNN reports that Crazy Rich Asians generated an additional $25 million in its second week, compared with $34 million in its opening weekend, making the 6% dropoff one of the more impressive stories in Hollywood.

As a marketing person, I wanted to review Warner Bros.’ advertising efforts to see what they did to make Crazy Rich Asians such a success. While it’s not insane Black Panther numbers, the movie has already been the biggest hit comedy this year (if you exclude other superhero movies that is).

So what gives?

Adweek covered some of the marketing tactics the studios used to promote the film, which began long before the movies released. Among the hashtags made popular on social media were #goldopen and #representationmatters.

This last hashtag is particularly important because it speaks to a broader, social issue of representation in Hollywood, something most of us in the wokesphere know all too well.

It was never really about the marketing, but about the need

Crazy Rich Asians sounds like its about spoiled, rich 30 somethings with a lot of money to spend and even more pretentiousness to go around. Of course the heart of the story is really about a cross of Asian-American and Asian culture coming to a confluence with interlapping subtexts of wealth, class, and racial identity.

There are “bad” asian characters, like Michelle Yeoh’s excellent portrayal of Eleanor, Nick Young’s overbearing, family-first mama bear mom. But it’s a refreshing portrayal for the same reason the asian douche in the Cobra Kai remake is-in that it’s breaking stereotypes of what asians are supposed to be. We’re not all humble, penny-pinching nobodies….sometimes we’re just like everyone else-not particularly good at math, not good at martial arts, and sometimes we get the girl (good looking out for us Asian males, Henry Golding).

Many people mistakenly believe that by minority groups wanting better “representation” in media, that they mean casting them in a better light. It’s why they wonder why Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee became such global icons, yet we still complain about proper representation.

This is why Crazy Rich Asians is so important for the Asian (and especially the Asian-American) community, and why the movie has already become such a massive hit. Global audiences are beginning to understand that Asians are much more complex and nuanced that we’re typically portrayed in entertainment. We can be rich, poor, funny, charming, boring, strong-willed, weak-minded, and everything in between.

And that is enough of a marketing vehicle all by itself. To be honest, this movie didn’t need much of a marketing push…just a reminder that this movie exists, and it’s something that everyone, of all races should watch. If nothing else, just to see what it’s like when an underrepresented minority group gets a chance to do something different.

We’ve suffered whitewashing of Asian characters for far too long, and now is the time to change the game.

Why Kanye West sadly reminds me of another celebrity of color

 

In 2008 I was invited over to a friend’s house to watch a boxing match between Manny Pacquiao and Oscar De La Hoya. I had viewed my fair share of boxing matches in the past, growing up in the 90’s amidst the height of Mike Tyson and his decimation of every opponent not named Buster Douglas. However, this was a fight unlike the others I’ve seen in the past…as for the first time I was watching someone who actually represented me — A Filipino-American, a someone who looked kind of liked me, or at least, looked like someone I was related to.

The house was divided in its preference, but I was not…I was with the upcoming challenger Manny Pacquiao through and through, because he was a Filipino who stood in the ring on the world’s biggest stage, carrying the weight of not only himself, but of the entirety his people.

Pacquiao went on to not only win the match, but completely dominated in every facet imaginable. His speed, combines with the explosiveness of his punching prowess, was truly astounding to witness first hand, regardless of your ethnic origin. His punches carried the weight and conviction of an entire people, and we all felt it.

And it wasn’t against some nobody this time. This was against a literal “Golden Boy”, the champ himself, Oscar De La Hoya.

That was the beginning of the legend that became the “Pac-man” and his meteoric rise to wealth, power, celebrity-ism, and fame. Filipino’s, Filipino-Americans, and boxing fans in general united under a familiar flag of the classic underdog…a man who fought for more than just himself. A real-life Rocky Balboa, , Philadelphia for the Philippines(just substitute the “-adelphia for -ippines”).

Match after match, Pacquiao saw unprecedented success, and Filipino’s cheered wildly with every match, even lowering the crime rate in his country when his fights were on. He defeated worthy opponents with the ease of a master at his craft, bludgeoning such renowned competitors as Juan Manuel Marquez, Miguel Cotto, Shane Mosley…and was eventually crowned as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world at one point.

The “Pride of the Philippines” gave us something to be proud of.

And then something happened.

For some inexplicable reason, Manny Pacquiao stated a wildly unpopular opinion about the LGBT community that could not simply be ignored or erased. I won’t justify his thought by repeating it here, let’s just say that I not only felt disagreement, but resentment and pain-in the person that I had rooted for, for so long.

It’s not that he isn’t free to express his opinion, and Lord knows we all have things in our past we aren’t proud of, it’s the fact that he defended his stance by quoting the bible (based on a couple passages, ignoring the rest of its context) essentially trying to get us woke to his truth, and what he believes in.

It was at that moment I realized that there is a difference between a celebrity of the popular, more mainstream white culture, and a culture subdued by its under-representation, in this case-Filipino’s.

Because even between Filipino’s and Filipino-Americans there is a stark contrast between our beliefs, ideals, and culture (for example Filipino’s are much more religious than their cross Pacific counterparts) but how can we expect the mainstream consciousness to understand those nuances when there is no popular context for learning them?

And that’s the problem with Kanye West.

Ever since he made his controversial statements about slavery, there has been people on both sides, and all colors, debating about the freedom for him to speak his mind.

But the issue isn’t about the freedom to speak his mind, or even the freedom to have an opposing thought to the collective social construct…it’s about the weight that one carries when they represent the historically disenfranchised.

As the ridiculously, unfairly brilliant writer Ta-Nehisi Coates pens in his Atlantic takedown of the artist;

“ West calls his struggle the right to be a ‘free thinker,’ and he is, indeed, championing a kind of freedom…a conqueror’s freedom, freedom of the strong built on antipathy or indifference to the weak”

Coates articulates and even empathizes with much of what Kanye must be going through-a person of color carrying the weight of a people on their shoulders, wanting, yearning to be free from those restrictive vices.

But while celebrities can afford to shield themselves from the repercussions of their words, the rest of us still standing in the arena cannot. Pacquiao doesn’t own or share many of my beliefs, but his words represent mine in social circles regardless. If I had a dime for every time someone asked me how I felt about Manny’s statements, being Filipino-American…well, I’d still be poor, but at least I’d have some compensation for the amount of ignorance that someone from my country of origin touted with no regard for its consequences.

If you’re going to drape a flag around your shoulders, carry the title of the Pride of the Philippines, claiming to fight for your country, then you need to act as ambassador for all, not just yourself. Likewise-if Kanye is going to make songs about the struggles of inner-city youth, claim to be this generations black Beatles, and attempt to speak out for all black people like he did with Mike Myers, he needs to understand the context of his opinion.

One of the great comic book movie quotes of all time came from Spider Man’s “With great power comes great responsibility” mantra. It is with this I would say that people like Kanye, Manny, and other POC with a large mouthpiece must do better…choosing their words carefully, and researching matters more diligently and thoroughly than their white counterparts - Because they speak on behalf of us all….whether we want them to or not.

This is a repost from my Medium blog which you can find and follow me here.

Seattle Eater-because food matters

For those who know me personally, you've seen that I have recently started writing for Seattle Eater. I love the work, as finding out about new places in the city to explore is something I have a lot of passion about. 

And I love to eat, so there's that. 

I should make it clear that I am not a food critic. I can't explain to you how the flavors of an Unagi roll interact with each other to balance salty and savory sensations together to produce a party in your mouth, I just know when something tastes good. 

It's also developed my writing ability to be agile enough to talk about various industries. I've historically written about the interior design industry (Seattle Lighting, LightArt, 3form, Terris Draheim) or non-profits (Malama Honua Charter School, John P Hanson Cancer Foundation), but now I get a chance to tackle the juggernaut that is the food industry.

Check out some of my work on Seattle Eater where I've covered the Indian food scene as well as the Dim Sum. 

And if you have any suggestions for maps, restaurants or article ideas, please reach out to me and let me know. 

I appreciate your support in advance! And keep eating! (that's a horrible sign off, but oh well)