Ms. Chan was called to Los Angeles from Britain to audition for the role of Astrid, Nick’s glamorous cousin. “There have been lots of times, maybe less now, where I’d be called in, and the character’s race was very much part of the story line,” she said. “Or I’d be told, you have a lovely English accent, but can you sound a bit more Asian? Or somebody else’s idea of Asian. And I just really knew that that wasn’t going to be the case on this film.” The experience went far beyond the casting process. “It made me realize how often I’ve been the only person of color, and certainly the only Asian actor, on a film or TV set. It was wonderful to look around and see people from all over the world.”
Jimmy O. Yang
Early on, Mr. Yang (“Silicon Valley”) thought he might go for the role of Nick, until his manager, ever so gently, set him straight. “He goes, ‘Jimmy, I don’t know how to tell you this, but they’re looking for a good-looking guy for the leading role,” he said. Later, undeterred, Mr. Yang read for the role of Colin, Nick’s equally good-looking friend. About a month after the audition, Mr. Yang’s manager sheepishly told him that the role of Colin had gone to someone else, but would he be interested in playing Bernard, the spoiled, good-for-nothing billionaire in Versace everything? “I was like, dude, yeah!” he said. “Bernard is the most obnoxious, filthy rich, throwing his money around guy, just the worst type of person. Which is just so fun to play.”
The release of the new movie Crazy Rich Asians this weekend, featuring an all-Asian cast, is an important milestone for people who care about diversity in pop culture. As a recent Vanity Fair headline declares, it could be a “watershed moment for Asian representation in Hollywood.”
It’s also a noteworthy moment for a much smaller and less important group: economists. (This story contains no spoilers.)
At the center of the movie, adapted from Kevin Kwan’s best-selling 2013 novel, is Rachel Chu (Constance Wu), an economist who teaches at New York University. Much of the plot is centered on the tension between Rachel—who discovers that her boyfriend, Nicholas Young, is the scion of one of Singapore’s richest families—and the Young family, who fears that she is a gold-digger. Nicholas is quick to dismiss such concerns. “She may be an economist,” Nicholas declares of Rachel in the book, “but she’s the least materialistic person I know.”
As a near-economist myself—I have a Master’s, while Rachel has a PhD—I found the choice to make Rachel an economist an intriguing and peculiar one. Economists are rarely represented in books and film. In fact, I can’t readily think of any other examples. That’s why, although Kwan’s thoroughly enjoyable Crazy Rich Asians is full of juicy subplots, my attention kept wandering back to Rachel’s professional life in New York. I was happy that economists were finally getting their moment in the pop-culture sun. But was Rachel Chu good at her job?
Here’s my analysis, based entirely on evidence from the first book in Kwan’s trilogy. (I haven’t read the other two books or seen the movie—yet.)
Signs that Rachel Chu is, indeed, a good economist
Rachel has an exemplary academic background. As an undergraduate , she went to Stanford University, ranked the third-best school by US News and World Report for studying economics and business. (Some people can’t be satisfied: Nicholas’s mom is disappointed Rachel didn’t go to Harvard.) For her PhD, Rachel attended Northwestern University, another top-ranked school for economics.
she went to Stanford University, ranked the third-best school by US News and World Report for studying economics and business. (Some people can’t be satisfied: Nicholas’s mom is disappointed Rachel didn’t go to Harvard.) For her PhD, Rachel attended Northwestern University, another top-ranked school for economics. Rachel is a professor at New York University, which also has one of the best economics department in the world. In one of the few mentions of her work in the book, a minor character says she had a discussion with Rachel about the “importance of micro-lending in sub-Saharan Africa.” Another person notes that her specialty is economic development. Perhaps Rachel joined NYU to collaborate with noted micro-lending expert Jonathan Morduch.
Throughout the book, other characters refer to Rachel as “smart,” “analytical,” and “accomplished.” All good signs of Rachel’s quality as an academic.
Rachel is a woman in a field that’s dominated by men. Less than one-third of economics PhD students are women, and a recent analysis of a prominent economics jobs site laid bare the misogyny faced by women in the field (paywall). Rachel’s ability to succeed despite this toxic environment suggests she has to be very good at her job.
Signs that Rachel Chu may, in fact, not be such a good economist
The main reason to suspect that Rachel is not a very good economist is that she never really says anything analytical or intelligent in the book. She spends most of her time in shock about the wealth of her boyfriend’s family, and taking in the splendor of her surroundings. She displays little insight about her experiences, and isn’t particularly witty. I know a number of successful development economists, and they are a thoughtful bunch of people who enjoy discussing their work. Rachel does not remind me of them.
Crazy Rich Asians takes place over a summer when Rachel is not teaching. Nicholas suggests that she vacation with him in Asia over the period since she had the time off. Given that Rachel does not yet have tenure, it is shocking that she would take off for an entire summer without spending at least some time on her research. Her choice is not indicative of a very dedicated researcher.
Still, my verdict is that—based on the evidence we have—Rachel is almost certainly a good economist. I doubt she is on her way to a John Bates Clark Medal, but her credentials are far too strong for her not to be at least solid in her field. Sure, her conversations in the book tend to be a bit vapid. But I’ll assume that she has some very smart stuff to say that just didn’t make it into the book.
When I texted my Singaporean aunt that I’d seen the movie Crazy Rich Asians, she immediately wrote back: “Terrible portrayal of Singaporeans. Was given the book — couldn’t finish. So materialistic.”
She has a point. The film, set mostly in Singapore and Malaysia, is about Rachel Chu (played by Constance Wu), a young Asian-American woman who discovers that her hot boyfriend, Nick Young (played by Henry Golding), is secretly a billionaire when he takes her home to meet his Singaporean parents.
I’m Malaysian, and nobody in my family is a billionaire. We do okay, but the only designer item I’ve gotten from my family is a knockoff Chloé handbag from Petaling Street. Which is why, if Crazy Rich Asians is all about money, it was a little surprising for me to burst into tears 10 minutes into the movie. One character texts another person, “Wah, so many Rachel Chus lah!” Another character texts back, “Alamak!” (Essentially, the Malay version of “Oy, vey!”) That was it — I heard people talking like they had in my house growing up, and ... waterworks.
Those tears didn’t shut off for the rest of the movie. When I heard an aunt’s Malaysian accent, an uncle’s more bougie, British-educated Malaysian accent, a friend’s Malay accent — I cried. When I saw a Bible study group like my aunt’s, I cried. And the food! Rows of kuih talam, pastel hawker plates piled with satay. Mascara everywhere.
I’d waited a long time for this. The last American film with a mostly Asian cast was 1993’s The Joy Luck Club. After Margaret Cho’s All-American Girl was canceled in 1995, it took a full 20 years for television execs to give another Asian TV series a shot with Fresh Off the Boat. In the meantime, execs have gone to great lengths to whitewash Asian roles from films, including casting Scarlett Johansson as Major Kusanagi in Ghost in the Shell and Emma Stone as Allison Ng in Aloha. But these erasures were just part of a long film tradition— Yul Brynner played the King in The King and I, Boris Karloff played Fu Manchu. An early producer actually suggested casting a white woman for the lead role in Crazy Rich Asians.
As a radio journalist, I’ve crafted hundreds of intimate narratives for Snap Judgment and This American Life. I understood the power of story and of representation in media. But I couldn’t have predicted how impactful seeing my story onscreen would be. And yes, despite the whole gobs-of-money thing, it did still feel like my story, because Crazy Rich Asians is not so much about money as it is entitlement — especially the entitlement to unapologetically be yourself.
TV and movies taught me how to be American
I moved to America from Malaysia when I was almost 3, and I was not taught this sense of entitlement. My parents worked hard to fit in in our adopted country. We invited white American families over for Thanksgiving and combed through recipe books to learn how to make turkey and mashed potatoes. They signed me up for the Girl Scouts; my mom joined the PTA.
But the main way we learned to be American was by watching television. As a kid, I said, “No way, Jose,” because Michelle Tanner did in Full House. As a teenager, I fought off suicidal thoughts after watching Claire go from hot mess to success in Six Feet Under. When I started dating, I asserted myself and my worth for the first time after watching Carrie do it in Sex and the City. Movies and TV have taught me how to make a joke, how to love, how to be an adult: how to be an American.
But none of these narratives taught me how to be Asian-American. The TV kids failed their math quizzes; that felt different from the shame I felt from failing all of my Chinese tests, when my parents would shake their heads and say, “But your grandmother’s dying wish was that you learn Chinese.” The TV bullies stole lunch money until the main characters stood up for themselves. My Vietnamese and Chinese bullies pushed me into a dumpster for being too “whitewashed,” while my white friends gagged at the smell of the bánh bèo I brought to school to prove my Asianness.
When TV parents found out their daughters were on their periods, they gave them tampons and awkward, heartwarming chats. My mom force-fed me dong quai soup, which I think is supposed to make your period easier but mostly just made me dry-heave at the kitchen table.
Even when I did see the rare Asian-American girl on TV, she never felt like me. We Asians had the Yellow Power Ranger, Claudia from The Baby-Sitters Club, and the Asian Rugrat. All of them were perfectly assimilated sidekicks, and if they were giving me advice on how to be an Asian woman in suburbia, it would have been: Be beautiful. Be wholesome. Be American.
Crazy Rich Asians features Asian Americans of all types
But watching Crazy Rich Asians made me wonder what I could have learned about being Asian-American if I’d seen this film when I was 13. How could it have changed my life and what I thought I deserved?
Maybe if I’d seen the absurd yet totally relatable best friend character Peik Lin, played by the irreverent Awkwafina, I would have joined my high school improv group instead of being the fangirl who brought them sandwiches. Maybe if I’d seen Asian musicians like Kina Grannis, who sings in the movie, I would have known Asians were capable of having powerful voices. Maybe I would have taken singing lessons instead of piano, which I hated.
I’d have watched Americanized Asians misbehaving and acting rude, blunt, and badass. I’d have seen evil Asians and conniving Asians and friendly Asians and lecherous Asians and ethical Asians and brave Asians and complicated Asians.
Maybe when people in high school told me I was “basically white” because I was loud and inappropriate, because I listened to punk and guffawed with my mouth wide open instead of hiding it behind my hand like the good, quiet Asian girls on TV did — maybe I would have disagreed with them.
Maybe all of us would have understood that “Asian” is a shared ethnic background and not a personality type. Maybe I would have understood that I did not have to be white in order to be myself.
And I would have watched Rachel struggling to be Asian enough. When I went back to Malaysia five years ago, I got into an argument about politics with some family members, and just like Rachel, I was told that I was “too American,” that I had forgotten how to respect my elders properly, that I had changed too much to belong.
In bed alone that night, I opened Joan Didion’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem to distract myself, and wound up reading “On Self-Respect.” The last line eviscerated me: “Without [self-respect], one eventually discovers the final turn of the screw: one runs away to find oneself, and finds no one at home.”
Where was home, even? If they didn’t want me here, and they didn’t want me back home in America, how could I believe I was worthy of self-respect?
And what if I’d seen Crazy Rich Asians before that moment? Over the course of the film, Rachel overcomes discrimination from Asians who called her “too American” by defining her own identity and demanding that others recognize it. I don’t want to give any spoilers, but suffice it to say that instead of doing that using money, she channels that entitlement with courage and, yes, self-respect.
Despite having read Didion’s “On Self-Respect” a hundred times, despite pinning up sections of it in my office for years, I don’t think I fully understood how to reconcile and respect both my Asian and American selves until I watched myself do it onscreen.
So, yes, the characters in Crazy Rich Asians possess a fair amount of rich people entitlement, and some good old American entitlement as well. For those of us who’ve been “ching-chong ching-chonged” or catcalled to “go back to China” or called a “zipperhead” or asked if we speak English, for those of us who ever held ourselves back because we didn’t see people like us living those dreams, who for so long never dared to hope to see a reflection of themselves, for those of us who anxiously hold the mainstream acceptance of a single film as a judgment on whether we’ll ever really belong in this country — well, we could use a little entitlement.
Stephanie Foo is a writer and radio producer. She has worked on staff at This American Life and Snap Judgment, and her work has been featured on shows like 99% Invisible and Reply All.
First Person is Vox’s home for compelling, provocative narrative essays. Do you have a story to share? Read our submission guidelines, and pitch us at firstperson@vox.com.
Tan Kheng Hua, Constance Lau and Janice Koh are three of the "Crazy Rich Asians" stars who opted to wear outfits by Asian designers at their film's premiere in Hollywood. (Photo: Getty, AP)
If you know two things about the new movie "Crazy Rich Asians," you probably know these: 1. It's the first Hollywood studio film about an Asian-American character's story in over 25 years and 2. It features luxurious fashion.
Balenciaga, Dolce & Gabbana, Céline -- all of those designers are name-checked in the film adapted from the book of the same name. After all, the "Crazy Rich Asians" novel was written by Kevin Kwan, a man who described his relationship with fashion this way:
"As my mom always says, I wasn’t born to shop; I was conceived to shop," Kwan said at the "Crazy Rich" Hollywood premiere Tuesday night. (The movie hits U.S. theaters on Aug 15.) "I was basically (my mom's) bag carrier all around the boutiques of Europe and Asia" before going to Parsons School of Design and later producing magazine shoots, he said.
CLOSE At the Los Angeles premiere of rom-com "Crazy Rich Asians" stars Michelle Yeoh, Constance Wu and Henry Golding show off their haute couture. (Aug. 8) AP
And so it makes sense that the cast of the "Crazy Rich" movie would be dressed to impress at their Hollywood premiere. But several cast members took it a step further on the carpet for their landmark film: They wore ensembles by Asian designers as they posed for photos and gave interviews outside of the TCL Chinese Theatre.
Two of the movie's stuffy "aunties," Janice Koh and Selena Tan, used their outfits to pay homage to Singapore, their hometown and the setting of the movie. Koh wore a mandarin-collared black gown with flared sleeves by Singapore-based label Ong Shunmugam, and Tan rocked a navy and black frock by Singaporean designer Frederick Lee Couture.
Tan Kheng Hua, who stars as the mother of Constance Wu's fish-out-of-water protagonist Rachel Chu, showed off a kimono dress from Singaporean designer Thomas Wee. Constance Lau, who is a Radio1 Asia personality in the film, wore - as she described it - "a take on the Chinese dress, what we call a Cheongsam in Singapore." Her version was made by Singaporean designers of brand Time Taken to Make a Dress.
Jimmy O Yang, the wild Bernard in "Crazy Rich," walked the carpet in a custom-made suit by Ge Wang of ESQ in Chicago. "I wanted to support the local Asian designers," he said about his choice to rock the opulent jacket. (His watch, meanwhile, is a Cartier purchased on Ebay. "I’m still not sure if it’s real or fake," he said.)
Gemma Chan, fashionista Astrid in the movie, said she's been making a point to spotlight several different Asian designers on the "Crazy Rich" press tour. For the Hollywood premiere, she was in Oscar de la Renta. One of his protégés, Laura Kim, is Asian. "I am representing!" she said.
Nicos Santos, who's a style expert onscreen, is not that dissimilar from his character in real life. "I used to work in retail," he said at the premiere. "Neiman’s, Dior, Jimmy Choo... after my shift, I would go do (comedy) open mics." Though Santos didn't wear an Asian designer on Tuesday-- he wore Paul Smith-- he did find a different way to spotlight a designer that's important to him.
"Because I used to work for Bottega Veneta, I did suggest that we drop that name (in my character's dialogue), because it is one of the most luxe labels out there. And I wanted to give a shout out to my old employers."
CLOSE "Crazy Rich Asians" director Jon M. Chu says the all-Asian set made cast emotional, while stars Constance Wu, Gemma Chan and Henry Golding talk about the film being a stepping stone for Asian representation. (Aug. 8) AP
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