"Crazy Rich Asians" and Its Timely Fantasy

 For the entirety of its runtime, Crazy Rich Asians works overtime, in a dizzying manner,  to delight and suspend any weary or reluctant spectator. It is entertaining, fun, and comfortable. It doesn't necessarily need to be anything else beyond that. It is undoubtedly a shame that it isn't more. The film consciously wades in the generic cauldron of romantic comedy tropes and comes out the other side celebrating its own feat. A large part of that success comes from the overwhelming sensory experience— the film knows its subjects and depicts Singapore's upper echelons with glamorous visual splendor. Despite efforts to underpin flashes of a bustling Singapore street culture, there is a concentrated focus on the elite that buoys the entire scope of the production. This film has everything going for itself, for the grand orchestration of a supposed social microcosm, but it isn't a perfect antidote to systemic and institutional absence. It should be a question if the representation of the select, privileged few can be touted as revolutionary considering how intensely the film's marketing relied on the automatic investment of the marginalized.

After all, the expansive ensemble sets incorporate glittering decorations, magnificent buildings, flowing eveningwear— gimmicks and props only the rich could fathom owning. A social party or gathering becomes the essential shot of energy and presentation that couples a developing Cinderella storyline, with all the substance provided coming from the central love story. Protagonist Rachel— impressively young, educated, professional, and too American—trudges against social stigma as her presence offends the elite's social order and trendy.  The seemingly devastating fact that very few will accept Rachel as the true love of their Nick— the city-state's most eligible bachelor and the coincidental scion of the family with the most social and economic clout— heighten the stakes. By virtue of being unattainable, Nick belongs to his family, the world of the international bourgeoisie, and the rigid expectations that preserve the fantasy's exclusivity. Potential romance across class lines and respectable sociability seems unhelpful to the Young family's legendary status within the city-state. 

The glamorous mass of relatives, acquaintances, and approved connections gathered at the central wedding watch for Rachel's eventual failure, content for a portion of the film to judge her with obvious glee. It isn't until Nick's mother, Eleanor, and a scheming bridal party takes it upon themselves to ostracize her definitively. Just within that main arching storyline, there's drama, tension, conflict, and an emotional foundation that grounds the film despite the spectacle of it all. The film assumes the audience will relate to the gilded foreign bourgeoisie, admire and gawk at them, and even ridiculed them for a bit as we hungrily look into an environment of privilege. Somehow, the audience recognizes them (the select characters allowed to be more than superficial; the task of injecting vibrancy to their blink-and-miss-it roles falls to the ensemble cast) as humans with concerns on love, family, and social interactions. 

It is a tension between Otherness and inclusivity— who and what is socially desired and accepted— that dominates Crazy Rich Asians' offered bout of representation. There are even some poignant moments to counteract discourse within an entire diaspora, particularly familial duty towards passion or custom.  It is not, however, an introspective exploration of why Rachel must be from the right background economically and socially by any means, instead accepting the conditions without trying to disrupt anything. The narrative prefers to drive forward with the notion that only the power of true love can conquer class's natural boundaries. I think that the film's beginning neatly introduces its audience with the idea of boundaries: outside of their immediate influence, perhaps in Europe, the Young family might experience racial struggles that the spectator can vaguely recognize. Connections to money and capitalism neatly resolve the issue, with the Young family eagerly accepted into the elite's enclaves as flexible citizens, comfortable and victorious with access. But the film posits that, within the height of their locational power in a setting they built and control, such notions of racialization aren't going to be a problem. For ninety minutes, maybe the film could convince you to be victorious alongside them. But there's an understanding that the film presents nothing else but a fantasy. The conflict cannot be quickly resolved by all with access to wealth and social power— for many, the lack of access to such solutions rubs the pain of cultural difference within hegemony, and thus identification with the film's setting fails. 

I think that it's fair to highlight all that and simultaneously accept that the film is so earnest. I found this article with an aptly-titled headline: "Crazy Rich Asians [Is] Going to Change Hollywood. It's About Time," it proclaimed at the time of its publication in 2018, because the film defeated a seemingly insurmountable pre-production process and a turbulent cultural context. Emphasizing a long moody trek through a culture reflected only in supporting roles, financial scarcity among bankable stars, and stereotypes, the article completes the hefty task of arguing that the film's simple existence is it revolutionary. It considers it necessary enough to note that the studio created the entire venture to lift Asian on-screen roles and creative voices behind the scenes. Of course, Crazy Rich Asians feels like a spectacle that will usher changing tides in the industry, especially when much of the celebration rests on the implicit acceptance that simple reflections of diversity on rectifies absence. Rather than create tangible change, Crazy Rich Asians choose to remain in the historical framework it was created in and project the viewing experience many have subconsciously accepted. Because studios have long deprived Asian-American audiences of worthy and authentic representation in mainstream cinema, somehow, that means any effort to include and empower them has inherent, impenetrable worth. 

We await with bated breath as Rachel steps out of the limo, donned in the elaborate costuming that will triumph over her naysayers, and it feels meaningful but only within the inner workings of the narrative. We know Rachel will be accepted into the masses, but the victory of her and Nick's love prevailing falls flat as a nostrum to social issues outside of the film's confines. In many ways, the film sets a stage and asks the audience to interject its value outside of the cinema: an intense social media and marketing campaign assured all those eager for Asian faces on the big screen of the ground-breaking potential.  No one can deny the film's charm, but it doesn't quite the fierce hunger for representation. It seems easy to explain away that hunger with Melissa Phruksachart's concept of Messianic visibility, poke holes at the idea of self-completion and fulfillment through visual representation. Still, there are hosts of theories that explain film's use as an ideological tool. We glean so much of our cultural understanding and consciousness from cinematic images. It doesn't seem far-fetched to think that, someday, a film will arrive that shocks us and makes us question Western hegemony's globalized structure, all while offering modes of resistance towards dismantling. Crazy Rich Asians succeeds in bolstering an entire network of difference, giving us no other option but to revel in an empire of ease.