More of the Same

Rushaid Mithani

Communication 1000

Prof. Diana Kamin

April 6th, 2021

More of the Same

Abstract:

Crazy Rich Asians has relied on the notion of Asian representation to receive wide acclaim but has done tremendous harm to the Asian community in the process. Creative decisions made in the movie such as the cast, set design, and marketing, create the perception of respectability in the Asian community by erasing the cost of labor and people from the product. By employing this strategy, the movie ends up reproducing racial hierarchies and harmful stereotypes. Consequently, an ‘All-Asian’ film disregards the reality of the Asian experience.

Introduction

In his movie Crazy Rich Asians, Jon M. Chu shattered the norm by directing a movie with an all-Asian cast for the first time in modern cinema history (Ho). The film was seen as a major win for Asian representation on the big screen, turning down Netflix and shooting down the suggestion of casting a white woman as lead (Ho). Karen Ho of Time Magazine even states, “By representing Asian people so vividly, the film could set a precedent for many more stories like this one to be told. It’s coming at the right moment. After years of work in the game of Hollywood, Crazy Rich Asians is poised to win” (Ho). Ho further goes on to say how, “For decades, Asian-Americans working in the film and television industry have carried the impossible burden of fixing a system that has tended to punish, stereotype and ignore them” (Ho), yet those are the very aspects that Crazy Rich Asians not only reflects but aggressively reproduces. I argue that the film uses its all-Asian cast and, therefore, high-profile status of being a milestone for diversity in the industry to reproduce the very culture and dominant systems that have led to such stereotyping and erasure from society. It reproduces the very same racial hierarchies that have so long characterized Hollywood, all under the guise of diversity. As a result, Asian movie-goers took on oppositional readings to the film because the affirming of such hierarchies and stereotypes are so unrepresentative of the Asian experience.

Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding model maintains that “what we can know and say has to be produced through discourse” and that “there is no intelligible discourse without the operation of a code” (Hall 511). Therefore, what we know and recognize as reality and the shape of the world are produced and reproduced by the codes that we subscribe to, so much so that, “there is no degree zero in language” and what we perceive as reality is, “the result, the effect, of a certain articulation of language on the real” (Hall 511). Through the process of decoding then, we either accept such codes, reinforcing our “reality”, accept only a partial version of the code, or are so outside of such codes that we are able to take an oppositional or critical view of the code (Hall 515-517). In the case of Crazy Rich Asians, I will show how the story and direction it takes is coded to broadcast the success of the Asian community and its contributions to our society. Additionally, aspects of the film such as how it was marketed, and the people involved in its production reveal how it was coded to champion diversity in the industry. However, oppositional readings in the form of fan videos and critiques quickly reveal just how much the film twists reality to erase race and class division in the name of reproducing the model minority and successful immigrant stereotypes.

Encoding and Circulation

The creative direction that the film took suggests that the director tried to encode messages of diversity and Asian world-building (the contributions Asians have made to our society) to the audience. This theme is reflected in many different facets of the film. First, the movie was made to capture the most attention and draw as many sets of eyes as possible. At one point, Netflix made an offer to help produce and stream the movie on its platform but ultimately, the filmmakers declined this deal and made the film with Warner Brothers (Ho). In addition, the actors in the movie were all well-established in the industry, including names like Ken Jeong, Awkwafina, and the lead actress Constance Wu (Thompson). In addition, the producers that created the movie were well established as well; people like Nina Jacobson who developed Diary of a Wimpy Kid, The Hunger Games and American Crime Story: People vs OJ Simpson, all of which were widely successful productions (Thompson). These factors suggest that the movie was aimed to appeal to status as all are well-reputed people in the industry. The showrunners wanted to reach the greatest number of people possible and the people they chose to play roles and develop the movie, as well as the platforms they reached deals with, are famous for their brand recognition and star status. In terms of Asian world-building, showing these stars all in the same movie altogether is an overwhelming display of just how successful Asian-Americans have been in our society and is a great way to show the different contributions that such people have made to our lives.

The marketing of the movie and its set design are other means that producers and directors used to show diversity and world-building. The stars I mentioned above were largely used to market to the Asian-American community and draw attention ("Marketing for the Crazy Rich Asians"). However, another wide-range marketing strategy that was used was the promotion of the film including an All-Asian cast to shed light on Asian-American’s customs and traditions to the broader public ("Marketing for the Crazy Rich Asians"). Additionally, because this was “Heralded as the first major American studio film to feature a majority-Asian cast in a contemporary setting since The Joy Luck Club nearly 25 years ago, Crazy Rich Asians has been met with impossible expectations: If this film flops, audiences are told, who knows how long Asian-Americans may have to wait for another shot at the spotlight” (Tseng-Putterman). Therefore, there was a great deal of predatory marketing and use of the all-Asian cast as an important step towards the diversity of Asian-Americans into America’s film industry. Overwhelming pressure was used to make sure the film was given a warm reception. Such were the tactics used to get Asian-Americans in theater seats. Ultimately, this resulted in a huge success for the movie, which had a 35-million-dollar five-day opening and “the possibility of a 125 million domestic total” (Thompson).

In terms of Asian world-building or trying to show the contributions that Asians have made in society through infrastructure, the set design echoed an extravagance sentiment. The location the producers chose to shoot the movie in was Singapore, which producer Jacobson describes as “the airport city of the future” and reveals that during the shooting of the movie “they closed down the Marina Sands for the engagement party, the Botanical Gardens with its super trees for the wedding reception, as well as Raffles” (Thompson). Additionally, they “filmed five weeks of interiors in more production-friendly Kuala [Lumpur], with frequent shopping trips to Hong Kong” (Thompson). The set design and locations seem so futuristic and extravagant that Jacobson had to state that “whatever the movie suggests, there was no location filming in Shanghai or New York” (Thompson). Here we can see the dominant code the movie makers tried to convey was one of Asian success. They wanted to acknowledge and imagine the success of the Asian community and hoped to infrastructurally highlight Asian excellence and achievement through set design. Therefore, there was a great deal of identity building and identity association with success. The movie worked within the dominant system of class hierarchy and aligned Asians at the top of such a hierarchy, reproducing the class hierarchy as well as racial hierarchy, trying to align with the associated successes and advantages of whiteness.

The building of such a code not only reinforced dominant hierarchies and ideologies about the world, but also erased the cost of production of displaying such extravagance. In Laurie Ouellette’s “America’s Next Top Model: Neoliberal Labor, she addresses how the show is able to separate and thus erase the human cost of production from the show. Ouellette writes how the show, “expung(es) the labor of camera operators, editors, and craft services workers from the ‘reality’ captured on screen” (Ouellette 170). Ouellette also describes how these workers are often abused financially in multiple ways (Ouellette 169). Additionally, Ouellette goes on to state, “ANTM exploits the labor of unpaid female contestants who are often lower income and women of color, it also constitutes the young women as the ultimate beneficiaries of their own self-enterprising activities” even when judges, the network, television companies, and producers all benefit from this exploited labor (Ouellette 169). Crazy Rich Asians is no different. As already reference above, popular locations had to be closed and rented out in order to film there. The cost of such closures is immense. Considering that there are people who are paid to maintain these locations, the foot-traffic that such locations offer for nearby businesses and vendors, the environmental cost for the “frequent shopping trips to Hong Kong” (Thompson), in addition to the considerations of the labor of the production crew that Ouellette offers show the human cost of manufacturing such an extravagant set design. The erasure of the cost of production is so immense, and the product so distanced from reality as a result, that such erasure is the very reason that inspires an oppositional reading of the movie as movie-goers cannot at all relate to the film.

Decoding and Oppositional Readings

Many in the Asian community immediately picked up an oppositional reading of the movie because they felt that it was not reflective of their experiences at all. I aim to demonstrate how such oppositional readings were formed through an opinion piece and a fan made video on Facebook. In an opinion piece, Tseng-Putterman shows how the author reacted to and perceived the diversity code that the movie tried to portray, while the Facebook video shows a fan’s reaction to the extravagant set design and its corresponding code of being representative of Asian success.

Tseng-Putterman immediately takes issue with the code of diversity in the industry that the movie ultimately relies on. Not only does Tseng-Putterman reject the diversity code the movie sets out to display, but in his opinion piece “One Way that Crazy Rich Asians is a Step Backwards”, he is able to show how the movie advances the status quo and racial hierarchies. Tseng-Putterman argues that the movie advocates for a “certain kind of respectability politics that assumes a white audience” showing how elite college educations are not so subtly name dropped, Asian accents are replaced by British accents, and the differences between Asian and Asian-American experience are all but washed away (Tseng-Putterman). Tseng-Putterman’s analysis is powerful in that he illustrates how even in a movie that is touted as a win for diversity and a long-awaited chance for Asians to have themselves represented in the movie industry, the audience that must be considered first and foremost and audience the story must cater to are once again white audiences.

Tseng-Putterman illuminates how from the beginning, the movie’s goal is not only to minimize the diversity of Asian identity, but to align it with whiteness. Tseng-Putterman states how “It’s a thesis that’s been visually achieved through the viral hashtags #StarringJohnCho and #StarringConstanceWu, in which the digital strategist William Yu and other Twitter users employed Photoshop (and later deepfake) to place the likenesses of Cho and Wu on the bodies of the stars of blockbusters like Captain America and Ghost in the Shell” (Tseng-Putterman). Therefore, the movie uses its platform to uphold racial hierarchy, reinforcing the model minority myth by equating the Asian experience and success to whiteness. Additionally, Tseng-Putterman states “it effectively excludes South and Southeast Asians despite their deep presence in Singaporean society” (Tseng-Putterman). The only South Asians that are ever shown are in the positions of servants and guards to reflect inferior status (Tseng-Putterman). Tseng-Putterman’s comments here show how the movie not only upholds the Black-white racial hierarchy but furthers even more racial difference in terms of an Asian-South Asian hierarchy.

The set design only furthers the illusion from reality that is crafted in the name of upholding racial hierarchy. The fan made Facebook video “Singapore: Crazy Rich Asians vs Reality” reveals just how far apart the Asian experience is from the depictions of the movie. In the movie, Awkwafina’s character is depicted as the “average” person in Singapore, especially in comparison to the rich shown later in the movie, yet even her character is given an overly luxurious life. Therefore, even the average person is shown to have an extravagant house and bustling social life. On the other hand, the fan made video shows just how far apart such depictions are from reality. The cars that people drive there, the clothes they wear, the social gatherings they attend, the houses they live in, and most importantly the humidity in Singapore, are all purposefully erased from the story (Sgag). The inconveniences and everyday reality are purposefully edited out of the product which leads to wild inconsistencies of what is shown and objective reality, so much so that fans feel the need to address it and depict their experiences.

Conclusion

The underlying code built into Crazy Rich Asians is meant to show the commitment the industry is making to diversity and the contributions of the Asian community to the success of our society. These messages are coded in several ways, from the personnel employed and marketing of the film to its set design. The coding is particularly problematic because the cost of production as well as the reality of life in Singapore are so separate from the finished product that the movie ends up reproducing and enabling the very stereotypes and hierarchies it is trying to dismantle. A look at how audiences decoded such a message quickly reveals how the movie sacrifices diversity to align itself with whiteness and promote sameness with whiteness, and how it erases reality and the human cost of production to such an extent that fans have felt the need to correct and contrast their lived experiences with those from the movie.

Works Cited

Hall, Stuart. "Encoding, Decoding." Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse. Birmingham: U of Birmingham, 1973. 508-17. Print.

Ho, Karen K. "How Crazy Rich Asians Is Going to Change Hollywood." Time. Time, 15 Aug. 2018. Web. 10 Apr. 2021.

"Marketing for the Crazy Rich Asians." "Buy the Way..." Insights on Integrated Marketing Communication. 12 Apr. 2020. Web. 10 Apr. 2021.

Ouellette, Laurie. "America's Next Top Model: Neoliberal Labor." Ed. Ethan Thompson. How to Watch Television. Ed. Jason Mittell. New York and London: New York UP, 2013. 168-76. Print.

Sgag. "Singapore: Crazy Rich Asians VS Reality." Facebook Watch. SGAG, 02 Sept. 2018. Web. 10 Apr. 2021.

Thompson, Anne. "How 'Crazy Rich Asians' Producers Steered a Box-Office Smash and Spawned a Sequel." IndieWire. IndieWire, 25 Aug. 2018. Web. 10 Apr. 2021.

Tseng-Putterman, Mark. "One Way That 'Crazy Rich Asians' Is a Step Backward." The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 23 Aug. 2018. Web. 10 Apr. 2021.