Today, Explained - Crazy. Rich. And finally seen.

Episode Date: August 15, 2018

Crazy Rich Asians hits theaters today. Los Angeles Times film critic Jen Yamato says it's been 25 years in the making. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Johnny, congratulations. It's the final Borders video from your Hong Kong series day. Yeah, no, it's up. It's up. It's up. And we get to talk about another member of your family's experience with their toothbrush from getquip.com slash explained. So exciting. Who's it going to be? Drumroll. Oliver.

Oliver. The two-year-old. Brushing teeth with him was a nightmare. When I unsheathed the... Johnny, I'm going to stop you right there. We'll save it for the middle of the show. Yes, okay. Nice, nice. Storytelling. March.

We've been dating for over a year now, and I think it's about time people met my beautiful girlfriend. What about us taking an adventure east? When Stephanie Fu saw the trailer for Crazy Rich Asians, the first thing she noticed was that laugh. The way that Constance Wu laughed, it's like a little bit of an ostentatious laugh. Because it wasn't like meek or behind a hand or anything like that. I mean, I was going to see it anyway. Of course I was going to see it because it's all Asians. But like that laugh was a small signal to me that maybe it was not going to be just a useless collection of stereotypes. Stephanie's a reporter who works been on This American Life and Snap Judgment,

and she wrote an essay about crazy rich Asians for Vox. The movie comes out today, but Stephanie got to see it a little early. And 10 minutes in, there was a joke on screen where these people are Googling who Rachel Chu is. Rachel Chu is played by Constance Wu. She's the main character of the film. And somebody texts another person, which is Manglish or Singlish, I guess. It's Singaporean pigeon English.

And then the other person responds back, which is basically oy vey in Singlish. And I just started bawling. Manglish is the only other language that I am fluent in besides English. And it's what I speak with my family. And for it to go from this tiny part of my life that I rarely ever share with anybody I know, to on this 100-foot screen in front of me, on a movie that cost $30 million to make. It was this incredibly validating experience. All of a sudden, my culture, this intimate part of me would be seen by millions of Americans

and understood in some small way. There's one scene where they go to Nick's house and there is just food everywhere. And there's kueh, which is Malaysian desserts. And there's popiah, which I try to make for my friends, which is pounded up jicama and shrimp and tofu and eggs wrapped in a sort of spring roll. There was all these foods that I definitely almost never see outside of Malaysia. So the food was a big part that made me cry. The accents made me cry. The Bible study groups made me cry. There's so many languages and accents in that film. There's Malay accents, and there's Hokkien and Cantonese and Mandarin. I can't remember another movie

where I've cried from the beginning to the end. But it felt insane, because it felt like this movie was made just for me, and I never, ever thought that I would have that experience as an Asian American. My friend loved it. And we immediately were just chattering after the movie. We were just like, oh my God, oh my God, Awkwafina was so good. Michelle Yeoh was so good. Oh, wasn't, isn't your mom just like that? Oh, isn't your grandma just like that? It seemed like the other people were walking out being like yeah that was

good but it definitely wasn't the monumental experience it was for us money 1.2 million the nick you're dating is nick young yeah you guys know them or something hells yeah they're just the biggest developers in all of singapore Damn, Rachel. It's like the Asian Bachelor. To me, it was more about entitlement than it was about money. The rich people in that film are entitled. But also, the main character, who is a normal Asian-American daughter of a single mother mother immigrant learns to possess that kind of entitlement, to be completely proud and forthcoming in who she is. And I think in a meta sense, the existence of the film does that as well. There's a space for us, and we are interesting and valid,

and our stories have meaning. I was born in Malaysia. My family moved to the Bay Area, California, when I was almost three. And we had one foot solidly in Malaysia. We were very Malaysian, but we were trying really hard to also assimilate and learn what it was to be American. You know, my parents learned how to make a turkey and mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving. My mom joined the PTA. My parents sent me to Girl Scouts. But I think for all of us, I think for our whole family,

a big part of learning how to be American is watching TV. We watched Home Improvement and we watched Boy Meets World and we watched Full House. And I learned so many lessons from television. I remember saying, don't have a cow, dad, like Bart from The Simpsons. I remember watching on TV that whenever anybody was going crazy, if you slap them across the face, they would come back to reality and be like, oh, right, right, right, I'm being nuts. Snap out of it! And so once when my dad got really mad at me, I slapped him across the face because I'd seen it on TV and I was sure it would work.

Did not work. No, don't try that at home. Wait, what happened when you slapped your dad? Oh, I got my ass beat. Classic Asian youth story. So I had seen all these narratives about how to be American, but I'd never really seen a narrative about how to be Asian American. And it's different. You know, a lot of my struggles were the same. I had bullies. I had homework problems. But they were all so different. Because I went to a school that was 80% Asian. There was a lot of Chinese and Vietnamese refugees. And my bullies were was too whitewashed. I wasn't Asian enough. And so I brought banh beo to school to show all the kids like, look, I eat Vietnamese food. How could I possibly be racist? And my white friends were like, oh, what is that?

That smells so bad. And I also looked different in that, like, I had red and pink and blue hair and wore fishnet shirts and invaders and patches on my backpack and listened to punk. So everyone at school used to say, oh, Stephanie, you're so white. You're basically white. Because I assumed that there was only one real way to be an Asian or a couple ways to be an Asian. And I wonder if I had seen Crazy Rich Asians earlier, if I would have understood that there were a lot of ways to be an Asian. Because in American media before now, there was the yellow Power Ranger growing up who died. So she didn't even last very long. There was Claudia Kishi from the Babysitter's Club. And there was the Asian Rugrat. And in American media, the only image of an Asian American was this perfectly assimilated, basically just a white person, but Asian.

So all of these Asian Americans were assimilated. They were obedient. They were elegant. They were beautiful. But they weren't that complicated. And I was very complicated. And in Crazy Rich Asians, there are complicated Asians, and there are evil Asians, and there are really funny Asians. And what if I had seen the bevy of Asian that I could have been?

Maybe I wouldn't have felt so left out or weird. When Rachel Chu, when Constance Wu's character goes to Singapore, she's told by a lot of the Singaporeans there that she's not Asian enough, that she's too American because of her American upbringing. And I've had that exact feeling

going back to Malaysia. And in the film, Rachel learns to deal with that by gathering her dignity and self-respect and realizing that she's like a chimera of the best of two worlds, which is a really hard thing to do when you feel homeless and stranded and alone. I think that the nature of being an immigrant is that you are constantly a little bit homesick no matter where you are and that it is just inherently a lonely experience but I do feel a little bit less alone having seen

this movie the best thing about crazy rich asians is that the filmmakers cast a bunch of asians to play the asians that's sort of rare. More after the break. This is Today Explained. Tell me about Oliver's brushing habits now that he has, now that this two-year-old has a very modern Quip electric toothbrush that you got at getquip.com slash explain the family pack, I believe. The family pack, yeah. It was really hard to brush his teeth and it honestly made it to the point where I was like, who cares, baby, why are we brushing his teeth? I didn't really think I needed to because it's like his teeth are going to fall out. I'm

going to stop you before Child Protective Services comes through. Comes to my house knocking. We brushed his teeth just not like every day because he was like freaking a one-year-old. So anyway, all I'm saying is that when the quip showed up, I actually made it kind of a ritual because I was like, we're starting a new chapter. So I like pulled the box up and I was like, boys, there's a present, you know?

And yeah, we all opened it. And that Christmas in July. Yeah, kind of like that. I wanted to like frame it as like, this is an exciting thing. Let's all get on board. Yeah. And that Christmas in July. Yeah, kind of like that. I wanted to frame it as like, this is an exciting thing. Let's all get on board. Yeah. And Oliver was hooked since then.

He was fascinated. He's like, what is this thing? And now he's way into it. Cool. Jen Yamato, LA Times film critic. Have you seen Crazy Rich Asians? I have twice. Have you read Crazy Rich Asians? I have twice. Have you read the book?

I've read the book. Have you spoken to the director? I have spoken to the director, John M. Chu, several times. Have you interviewed the cast? I've interviewed so many of the cast members and cried over their shared stories. Then you are the perfect person to ask, why is this movie so important? I wouldn't say I'm the perfect person, but I am a person. This is a big studio romantic comedy. It is glitzy and glossy, and it is fantasy and escapism, and it hits all those beats that you want out of

romantic comedy, and it happens to star an all-Asian cast. This is huge. This is the first time in 25 years that a Hollywood studio has invested in a movie on this scale, telling an Asian American centered story with an all Asian cast since the Joy Luck Club. No talking in Chinese. How do I know you're not cheating? We are your auntie and we are very honest people. 25 years, let's just let that amount of time sink in. And what happens at a studio level, this is Warner Brothers, really backing a movie like this, I feel like it sends a statement to the industry.

And does that statement mean more because the cast is all Asian? It's not like Harold and Kumar even where the two stars are Asian but but this is really just saying like an entirely Asian cast can sell this movie? Absolutely Harold and Kumar is a great example that I think has been under referenced. It meant a lot to me personally that's why I brought it up. It's a great movie, three movies right? A trilogy people forget that one of them's a Christmas movie, I think. I shot Santa Claus in the face. He's real.

And I shot him in the face. What? He had three movies with two Asian American heroes who were totally normalized, but they were basically the only Asian characters in this world. Yeah. basically the only Asian characters in this world. And Crazy Rich Asians is a big studio movie with an all Asian cast of Asians from all over the world. You have British Asians, Australian Asians, American Asians. And this is meaningful because it's a normalized, glossy, glamorous Hollywood movie that allows Asians and Asian faces to be part of the normalized narrative. So what's Hollywood's relationship with Asian actors and actresses like? I mean,

why did it take 25 years? There's a pretty startling statistic released by USC Annenberg of their annual inclusion report. And that statistic is that last year in 2017, of the top 100 films, that means by box office, so the biggest 100 films, only 4.8% of them featured an Asian character that had a speaking line. I remember reading old interviews with the Joy Luck Club cast from 25 years ago when that movie came out. The actors were talking about how this was such a watershed moment for Asian representation in Hollywood. And I really hope that after this movie, things change and there are more opportunities for Asian performers in

Hollywood. It's just heartbreaking to read those sentiments from back then and realize that, no, the tide didn't really shift for not only Asians, but many kinds of performers of color. How does whitewashing factor into this? Emma Stone was cast as a part Asian in Aloha, Tilda Swinton in Doctor Strange. Scarlett Johansson played a Japanese cyborg in Ghost in the Shell. People got very angry. The argument of, well, why can't a white person play any of these ethnic characters or whatever is frankly dumb. And anybody willfully making that argument is choosing to ignore the histories of the entire world. And I think when progressive change is made to raise up underrepresented voices,

that's a good thing. Okay, what about this other casting call that came up recently that involved Scarlett Johansson again? She was supposed to play a transgender man in a movie called Rug and Tug, I think, and people freaked out and she withdrew. But is that a win

for the trans community or a loss i mean maybe a good movie about a trans man doesn't get made now sure and i think that's definitely a good point to raise would this movie have been greenlit without a star like scarlett johansson to it? Probably not. And so now what will happen to that project without her in it? I don't know. But what I say to that is if a movie cannot be made with accurate and authentic representation nowadays of characters that have been historically underrepresented, then maybe now is not the right time for that project to be made.

It just seems so subjective, like hard and fast rules are impossible. Can, I don't know, like a Cambodian American who grew up in Houston play a Vietnamese soldier in a movie about the Vietnam War, or is that a problem? Well, that's a really good question that brings it back to Crazy Rich Asians, because in Crazy Rich Asians, you have performers from all over the world, many different countries, playing these very elite, wealthy Singaporeans. But in the making of Crazy Rich Asians,

director John M. Chu has talked about facing this problem. Does he have to cast every character authentically to that culture? And he ended up not doing that for all of his characters. And that has been a source of controversy and I think a valid and legitimate conversation. It feels like a little bit like you're going to upset someone no matter what you do. Well, maybe so. But I think what is valuable and what I think, especially with something like Crazy Rich Asians, is that it's a good place to start a conversation. How do we improve?

How do we do things better? I imagine the couple times you've seen the movie so far were in like, you know, L.A. screening type of situations. Are you going to go see it with the hoi polloi now that it's out? I think if anybody out there is thinking about seeing Crazy Rich Asians and doesn't already have plans to or doesn't already have your ticket, I think you'll probably have a very special experience going to a packed theater on opening weekend because the people who are really going out of their way to see it this weekend

are people that I think largely means a lot to. I mean, I love hearing sniffles in a theater or like looking over at strangers and seeing that I'm not the only one like trying not to embarrass myself, wiping away my tears. That's one of the beautiful things about communal theater going.

Amen. Jen Yamato has seen Crazy Rich Asians twice and she's definitely going to see it again. I'm Sean Ramosferm. I have not seen it yet, but hope it does really well so we can get lots more romantic comedies about all sorts of people from all sorts of places. Until then, we'll always have our favorite not-diverse-at-all rom-coms.

My favorite is Gross Point Blank. Irene Noguchi's is While You Were Sleeping. Bridget McCarthy's is Moonstruck. Noam Hassenfeld's is Ten Things I Hate About You. Luke Vanderplug's is Lord of the Rings. And Afim Shapiro would like to know if Friday is a romantic comedy. Hell no! Brie Seeley and Catherine Wheeler are our summer interns. Their favorites

are Big and My Best Friend's Wedding, respectively, and the romantic Breakmaster Cylinder doesn't do comedy. He's very serious. Today Explained is produced in association with Stitcher, and we are part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. podcast network. So the real question here with Oliver, Johnny, and his new Quip toothbrush that you got to get,

quip.com slash explained, is will it last? The beautiful thing about children is that they lock into routine pretty quickly. If you do one thing three days in a row, suddenly it's like an institution. And the kids will show up. And so every night, right before bed, I go, in positions. And Oliver steps up onto the bath. Henry gets on his little stool. We like sit around and brush our teeth every evening.

And it's like actually a beautiful thing. And we'll talk about Henry tomorrow. Yes, we will. One last thing before we go. It's Wednesday. And that means there's a new episode of Vox's new Netflix show for you to watch. This one's called Can We Live Forever? I know what you're thinking.

No, like, but hear me out. Not forever ever, but hear me out. Not forever ever, but maybe like forever ever? Because 200 years ago, no country on earth could expect its population to live past 40. And now the average life expectancy is about 72. Scientists estimate that the maximum human lifespan may be about 120 years. If we can make ourselves less susceptible to disease and injury and therefore death, how long could we keep going? You can find Explained on Netflix or at netflix.com slash explained.