It has been heralded as a milestone for representation of the Asian community on screen, the first Hollywood blockbuster to feature an all-Asian cast in 25 years.
But Crazy Rich Asians, which has been a roaring success at the US box office, raking in $26.5 million (Dh97.32 million) over its first weekend, has proved polarising among the community it is supposed to represent, hit with allegations of perpetuating racist stereotypes and presenting a single version of Asia that is “palatable” for Hollywood audiences.
The film, set in Singapore in the opulent world of Asia’s hyper-wealthy, is an adaptation of a popular book by Kevin Kwan. The story follows an New York University professor who flies to Singapore to meet her boyfriend’s family, only to discover they are the owners of one of Asia’s largest fortunes. A whirlwind of wealth, champagne, extravagant parties and designer handbags follows.
The film has been heaped with praise by critics, both for challenging the norms of Hollywood, where Asian characters are often few and far between, and often played by a non-Asian actor, but also for being a highly enjoyable “glimpse through the curtains at an intensely insular world, the 1 per centof the 1 per cent.”
But some viewers in Singapore and across Asia disagree. In a two-part takedown of the film, Sangeetha Thanapal, an activist and writer of Singapore-Indian origin whose work explores Chinese privilege, said that the film “simply is not the ‘Great Asian Hope’ that it is being portrayed as”.
“While it is being billed as an Asian movie, it is made up almost entirely of east Asians,” said Thanapal. “The few brown people featured in it are seen in service positions to the glamorous and wealthy Chinese characters. The dominance of east Asia in the worldwide imagination of who constitutes the idea of Asia is troubling, especially since brown Asians make up a sizeable portion of the continent.”
A key criticism of the film is that it entirely erases the 15 per cent of those in Singapore who are Malay and the 6.6 per cent who are Indian. “Brown Asians have been overlooked from the American definition of Asian for generations,” pointed out Thanapal.
The journalist Cat Wang pointed out that in the context of Singapore, the film “renders minorities invisible”.
“The movie perpetuates the misguided view that to be Asian means to be Chinese,” she wrote. “So while critics and star-struck fans have hailed Crazy Rich Asians as a decisive victory for Asians everywhere, in reality, such an assessment is simplistic at its very best and destructive at its very worst.”
Another journalist, Kirsten Han, said it was very significant that the story was based around a specific type of Asian community — super-rich, ultra-glamorous, and extremely westernised, which was much more palatable to Hollywood. “Would the white Hollywood executives who backed the film have done so if it hadn’t been about over-the-top Asian wealth?” questioned Han.
A review of the film by a Singaporean film critic was equally scathing. “The main cast also comprises non-Singaporean actors who mostly speak in western accents,” he said, alluding to vetoed attempts by local members of the cast to include more “Singlish” — a form of local patois — in the film.
The film still does not have a release date in China, but international Chinese audiences have not all warmed to the film either. Writing on the popular Chinese review site Douban, one reviewer said: “”My [American-born Chinese] friends loved the film, but my Chinese friends really hated it.”
“Starring all Asian faces is really not easy in Hollywood. Still, I felt uncomfortable,” another wrote. “The revival of Chinese culture doesn’t mean telling a Chinese story in a western way.”
But the film’s director Chu, admitted the film would never be able to live up to all the expectations placed on it. “We decided very early on that this is not the movie to solve all representation issues,” he said in a press conference. “This is a very specific movie, we have a very specific world, very specific characters. This is not going to solve everything.”
