- There is power in seeing a face that looks like yours do something, be someone. There is power in moving from the sidelines to the center.
Yay Crazy Rich Asians. Yay mass-market acceptance. Yay minority representation. For the record, on the indie side we've long since figured out how to get into festivals: have a minority star. Sci fi film starring a white guy? You're in sci fi festivals. Sci fi film starring an asian? you're in every asian film festival. I know a girl who got into every GLBT festival there was with a 6fps 8min stop-motion short about toothpicks because she implied that the two toothpicks were lesbians. But that doesn't get them bought. Crazy Rich Asians did $35m over the weekend. Woot woot! Is that domestic or foreign? Well, it's both... because it didn't play enough screens overseas to be counted individually. That's about on par with any given Tyler Perry film which also don't play foreign. Straight Outta Compton? 20% of its haul is foreign, which is impressive, considering it's about a bunch of black people being black in the land of blackness. How 'bout The Meg, a forgettable movie about a giant shark, that Crazy Rich Asians unseated? Yeah. $100m in China alone. Americans see "crazy rich asians" but "asians" see actual nationalities. Buddy of mine runs with a bunch of Koreans since college and every conversation I ever participated in was about "you know Joe? From Korea? No, not that Joe he's from Laos. He's dating Trudy who's from Vietnam. We're all going to go see a movie with Bob who's from Taiwan, I think." Makes sense; I'm neither Canadian nor Mexican. Hell, I'd be offended if you thought I was a Texan and we use the same money and language. But from a cinematic standpoint it makes the casting of "asian" actors a non-starter for foreign markets. As a movie goer i really wanna see everybody in every movie. But I also know Hasbro didn't put out a Rey action figure until the Internet lost their minds and she's white AF. Audience member? Bring on the minorities. Executive whose continued livelihood depends upon getting the fine citizens of Guangzhou to show up Friday night? It's gonna be Jason Fucking Statham all the way.
Good point, and I don't think it's any differrent for other continents - nobody gets excited because a movie features a European, although a Hollywood movie will probably do well here if it has a Dutch main character. I think it's telling that a bunch of newer TV series have a far more diverse cast than similarly new shows a decade ago. It's not unreasonable to assume the differences in the economics of those two types of media has sped up minority representation.Americans see "crazy rich asians" but "asians" see actual nationalities.