Crazy Rich Asians: A Narrative of Redemption

Crazy Rich Asians is a 2018 romantic comedy directed by Jon M. Chu and based on Kevin Kwan’s novel on the insular world of Asian elites. With an all-Asian cast, the first since Joy Luck Club 25 years ago, Crazy Rich Asians brought to Hollywood a long overdue scale of Asian representation, one that was welcomed with open arms. The plot unfolds around Rachel, a young Economics professor at NYU who travels to Singapore with her boyfriend, Nick Young. Unbeknownst to Rachel, Nick is the heir to one of Asia’s largest fortunes, the matriarch of which rejects the idea of her son marrying a commoner who is part of the Chinese diaspora. In this movie, Chu encapsulates Asian family dynamics, where as Nick’s mother explains, “parents are obsessed with shaping the lives of their children” (1), where parents teach their children to be practical compared to the American mindset of following your dreams, where children think of their loved ones before themselves, and -adhering to the genre-, where ultimately love triumphs all. The commercial success of the Crazy Rich Asians book motivated Chu to translate it into large-scale production. Chu’s film was largely successful in English-speaking countries, with the US market comprising 73% at “174.5 million” (2), followed by Australia and the UK. Its overwhelming success also encompassed several Golden Globe nominations, and a Screen Actors Guild Award for an outstanding cast. Chu handpicked global talents of Asian descent, each incredibly talented and proud to share their culture with the world. As Pierre Png, who plays Micheal Teo claims, the film “puts Singapore back on the map again for many other reasons than it already is. It gives us Singaporeans a lot of confidence” (3). However, as this film crossed borders, it garnered the greatest criticism from the Singaporeans it claims to represent. Many Singaporeans deem Crazy Rich Asians to be an escapist fantasy that glorifies excessive wealth and misrepresents Singapore’s people, culture, and their stories in an attempt to appeal to mainstream Western audiences.

Despite the casting, Crazy Rich Asians is not a story about Asian-Americans nor is it a story about Singaporeans, but rather the outlandish story of a specific group of Chinese-Singaporeans. Rachel and Nick simply board the first-class plane, to the exotic and poverty-free land of Singapore, and they take the audience with them. They immediately immerse themselves into the lives of the nouveau riche -luxurious parties, private jets, lavish casinos, and high-end shopping- against a panorama of the Singapore skyline. In one scene, as Goh Wye Mun encourages his children to finish dinner he exclaims “children are starving in America” (1). While Asians cheer at this dialogue due to its subversive nature, — a spin on what a white parent might say about children in Asia -, it also distinguishes affluent Asians and those part of the working class. Crazy Rich Asians’ depiction of the 1% of the 1% in Singapore certainly makes for a cinematic treat, but it conceals the reality of most Singaporeans. What audiences do not see is the old man at the hawker center struggling to pick up dishes, the crackling of old ladies as they finish a session of tai chi at sunrise, the lifeless gaze of a truck full of undervalued migrant workers, and the proud smile of the young boy returning home from national service. Crazy Rich Asians strip Singapore of its soul, of its inequalities, and its diversity and transforms into a shiny city backdrop that serves an Asian-American Orientalist fantasy. As Edward Said explains, “Orientalism is premised upon exteriority,” and Crazy Rich Asians exemplifies such Orientalism because it attempts to understand a vast and complex region through a narrow lens, taking away from the humanity and diversity of thousands of Singaporeans in pursuit of making them easily identifiable and “familiar” to the West (4).

Celebrated for groundbreaking levels of representation, Crazy Rich Asians erases the narrative of Indian and Malay Singaporeans, roughly a fourth of the country’s population. Those who are not East-Asian are simply portrayed in service positions to the opulent Chinese or are entirely neglected. This is best exemplified by a scene in which Rachel and Peik Lin are startled by the presence of two South Asian guards in Turbans at Young’s estate, portraying the guards as misfits or outsiders. According to the Singapore-Indian writer Sangeetha Thanapal, this is especially troubling because “Brown Asians have been overlooked from the American definition of Asian for generations”(5). In other words, this movie perpetuates the dominance of East Asians in the American imagination of what it means to be Asian. At a more deep-rooted level, some Singaporeans argue that Chu’s focus on Chinese-Singaporeans and culture serves to perpetuate the dominance that this group has in Singaporean politics and media. Journalist Kirsten Han explains that such selective representation is a “clear disregard for the nuances of issues like Chinese privilege, racism and inequalities” (6) that prevail in the country. Crazy Rich Asians glorify Chinese-Singaporeans at the expense of the systematically disenfranchised minorities. Is the representation of one group at the cost of another really worth it? Singapore is a land that boasts the four national languages of Mandarin, Malay, Tamil, and English, and prides itself on its diversity and complexity, and Crazy Rich Asians fails to encapsulate this very essence of Singapore.

Although it fails to narrate the Singaporean story, Crazy Rich Asians certainly bring to light the story of Asian-Americans from varying perspectives, heritages, and experiences. The celebrated Michelle Yeoh who plays Eleanor Young believes that meaningful representation is where “characters have real hopes and dreams and lives” (7), and Chu is successful at this because he brings to life the dynamism and complexity of Kwan’s characters. The movie begins with a powerful scene set in 1995, where a white hotel manager refuses to let young Nick and his mother Eleanor stay at their hotel, and instead makes a statement laden with xenophobic assumptions, “May I suggest you explore Chinatown?” (1). In retaliation, Eleanor then reveals that she has bought the hotel, which leaves the manager agasp. This triumphant scene highlights the dynamic nature of globalization where Asian immigrants who were previously part of the working class, are now the highest-earning groups in America and society is welcoming their presence in global elite spaces. Despite this, Asian-Americans are also the most economically divided racial groups in the United States, plagued with internal prejudice and racism. Rachel’s journey represents the conflict between growing up in Asia and being part of the Asian Diaspora and the discrimination faced by the latter. Rachel heads to Singapore with an open mind but struggles to fit in as she is treated like an outsider by Nick’s family, especially his mother who makes it explicit that she “will never be enough” (1) for Nick. Constance Wu, the actor that plays Rachel claims, “I think it was a good trial for [Rachel] to appreciate her roots but also appreciate and reconfirm the identity she had created for herself in America” (8). Rachel’s journey validates the experience and the struggle of anyone who grows up in a country where the dominant culture is not their own, and how they are caught between their cultural roots and their ties to the country they live and grew up in. As the world becomes more globalized, we realize that identities are not singular, but can be plural and can be molded to what we deem fit and what helps us grow as individuals, and movies like Crazy Rich Asians helps bring us to this realization.

Crazy Rich Asians is caught between the conflicting pursuit of establishing a global identity that transcends race and maintaining specificity and authenticity that honors the Asian and Asian American experience. In an attempt to present a tale palatable for Hollywood Audiences, Crazy Rich Asians becomes yet another product of the Western imagination. As a Singaporean, I was proud to see the enchanting Marina Bay Sands and Sentosa on the big screen, but my eyes yearned for more familiar locations rather than those on every tourist flyer. I waited impatiently for a glimpse of Singlish, but I got nothing more than the occasionally forced lah. Awkwafina’s “blaccent”, Nick’s British accent, Wye Mun, and several others’ all American vernacular prevails in place of authentic Singlish. To top it off, Wye Mun ridicules the stereotypical Chinese accent when he greets Rachel “Koo Koo ka Chu you, poo-poo” and follows this by his snide remark “I don’t have an accent, Nah I’m just messing with you” (1). Here, he demonstrates the Asian-American attitude that the English language, and by extension, the American Accent is far superior to their own cultural roots, an ideology fueled by Western power dynamics. In pursuit of representation, this Hollywood production becomes a narrative of redemption, one with diverse actors, progressive storylines, and ideals of racial harmony at the surface level. Once we delve deeper, however, it is apparent that Crazy Rich Asians does not blur the differences between Asia and the West, but rather proves sameness, and in drawing this White-Asian equivalence, it distances itself from “other” Asians. Yes, none of the Asian characters are practicing martial arts, playing the protagonist’s best friend or the captain of a Math competition club, but they are still exoticized at the whims and mercy of a Western Audience.

While Singaporeans criticized Crazy Rich Asians, the movie certainly garnered appreciation from local filmmakers and producers as it opened doors for these storytellers to tell their stories on a global platform. Most Singaporean productions are unable to build a global audience as they are usually tailored to local audiences, independently financed, or heavily censored. The question then is — What would it take for films to better represent Singapore? In order to expand visibility and strengthen the Singaporean cinematic identity, filmmakers should adopt a co-production model, where they collaborate with overseas partners to reproduce their authentic creations, delicately balancing artistic and commercial value. Furthermore, Singaporean filmmakers should strive to tell stories unique to Singapore and its people, stories about their success and failures, their unity and their differences, but most importantly how they too grapple with issues that prevail across borders. By presenting everyday life rather than Crazy Rich Asians’ contemporary representation of Singapore and expressing a larger universal narrative, global audiences will be able to form a more intimate connection with Singapore and understand what it truly means to be Singaporean.

Bibliography

1. Chu, Jon M, Constance Wu, Henry Golding, Michelle Yeoh, and Gemma Chan. Crazy Rich Asians. , 2018.
2. Wakeman, Gregory. “How Crazy Rich Asians Changed the Movie Industry.” Metro US, 28 Feb. 2020.
3. CNA. Crazy Rich Asians Singapore Premiere. CNA Lifestyle, 22 Aug. 2018.
4. Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon Books, 1978.
5. Ellis-Petersen , Hannah, and Lily Kuo Kuo. “Where Are the Brown People? Crazy Rich Asians Draws Tepid Response in Singapore.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 21 Aug. 2018.
6. Han, Kirsten. “Crazy Rich Asians Is a Win for Asian Americans. But It Gets Singapore Wrong.” Vox, Vox, 17 Aug. 2018,
7. Erica Gonzales. “‘Crazy Rich Asians’ Star Michelle Yeoh Reveals She Pushed for a Better Script.” Harper’s BAZAAR, 27 Aug. 2018.
8. Lee, Jess. “Crazy Rich Asians Stars Talk Asian American Identity.” Digital Spy, Digital Spy, 15 Jan. 2019.