Lisa Terauchi remembered staring up at the screen in disbelief before her eyes blurred with tears. She looked around the theater and saw rows of people who shared her racial background swiping at their own shimmering eyes. The actors on screen in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings also shared her racial background. Every single one. Every hero, villain, and sidekick. This cinematic experience shouldn’t be so extraordinary, so newsworthy, so validating. But it is.
The representation that recent films like Shang-Chi and shows like Squid Game allowed the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community to experience—especially after a year of increased anti-Asian violence due to the COVID-19 pandemic—feels necessary, now more so than ever.
An analysis by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism found that anti-Asian hate crimes in the U.S. rose by 150 percent in 2020. Therefore, now that popular films and television series positively highlight Asian culture, AAPI see this as a win. Shang-Chi and Squid Game’s narratives are incredibly different: the former being about the very first Asian Marvel superhero confronting his villainous father, and the latter following impoverished people in South Korea who compete in death games for millions of dollars. Nonetheless, AAPI audiences watch proudly as this content is lauded.
But, perhaps the most excited people are the AAPI creatives in the film industry who believe this success will be the beginning of a golden age for Asian and Pacific Islanders (API) art and artists. They are ready to share the stories they thought would never succeed in Hollywood.
Growing up, negative AAPI representation in the media directly affected filmmaker Christina Yoon, who struggled with her identity as a Korean American and often felt othered. Yoon believes this was because Asians were stereotyped in popular films for as long as she could remember.
“We are all impacted even unconsciously by the media we consume,” Yoon said. The U.S. witnessed the validity of this claim during 2020, when, according to a study conducted by The American Journal of Public Health, former President Donald Trump’s constant referral to COVID-19 as the “China Virus” and “Wuhan Flu” contributed to the spike in anti-Asian violence.
Yoon explained that the stereotypical API depictions in Western media perpetuate the model minority myth, with AAPI expected to be polite, obedient, and academically successful. This stereotype subconsciously made Yoon hesitant to pursue a career in the arts. “I thought, ‘There is a specific way Asians have to be successful in America, and I need to have that kind of success. Otherwise, what value do I have? Who am I?’” Yoon confessed.
Yoon is not alone in these critiques. Hollywood’s treatment of Asian characters in the past has been problematic, if not deplorable. Films often depicted Asian men as desexualized and invisible nerds who do little more than make the white leading man look like the far-preferable choice of mate, like the character of Long Duk Dong (yes, that’s the actual name of the character) in Sixteen Candles. Asian women, however, are often depicted as the exact opposite: hypersexualized “dragon ladies” or “lotus blossoms,” who do little more than make the white leading man feel like a conqueror and savior of exotic lands, like in Miss Saigon. And then there is the blatant Yellowface, the act of a non-Asian actor playing an Asian character, as Mickey Rooney did in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
A study titled “The Prevalence and Portrayal of Asian and Pacific Islanders across 1,300 Popular Films” found that only 44 of those 1,300 films depicted an API actor in a lead or co-lead role. Of those 44, only six had API women in the leading role, and 14 starred Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who is half Samoan. When it comes down to it, the message in many of these films is that both Asian men and women are entirely disposable. API in cinema and television rarely—if ever—get to be the hero of the story.
This is why accurate representation is so crucial to AAPI creators like Yoon. “It’s such a negative experience when you don’t see yourself positively portrayed in the media,” Yoon said. She didn’t want to be associated with the stereotypes she saw.
Terauchi, a Japanese American, explained that she loved Shang-Chi because she connected with the characters, especially Awkwafina’s character, Katy, who is Chinese American. “My parents watch Japanese TV, but I can’t relate to it because I’m too Americanized,” Terauchi said. “That’s why films with Asian American actors like Shang-Chi feel so significant to me.”
“When I walked out of that theater,” Terauchi continued, “I felt confident in my identity. I have never felt so proud and powerful to be Asian American.”
However, filmmaker Selina Garcia pointed out that while Shang-Chi featured a strong ensemble of Asian actors, the story still heavily relied on martial arts, a pervasive stereotype about API that she wants to squash. Meanwhile, Squid Game, the popular Netflix series made in Korea, had complex characters and a script sans martial arts—something Garcia urges Hollywood to take notes on.
“Hollywood hasn’t allowed Asian Americans to have unique stories,” Garcia said. “I want AAPI to get content that is representative of all of us, that isn’t always an immigrant, racial trauma story, or martial arts movie. We aren’t a monolith, and those stories don’t speak for all of us.”
Even though there have been other successful API films in the past few years—Crazy Rich Asians, Parasite, and Minari come to mind—when there is Asian representation in the West, it tends to skew towards East Asians. Pacific Islanders, South Asians, and Southeast Asians are noticeably absent, rarely getting content dedicated to them.
“I’m Filipino, and I hardly ever see Southeast Asians in Western media,” Garcia said. “We need to show the full Asian diaspora.”
During the pandemic, Garcia, Yoon, and Terauchi were affected by anti-Asian racism, making them even more determined to represent AAPI. They all have different ideas about how they intend to uplift the community.
Garcia hopes to broaden the AAPI filmography by veering away from heavy material, like racial trauma stories altogether. She hopes to create comedies with characters of Asian descent during her career instead of focusing on the AAPI struggle.
Yoon also wants AAPI audiences to see themselves beyond the stereotypes. By mixing horror and drama with complex AAPI stories and characters, Yoon hopes that her films will be enjoyed by all, but especially appreciated by AAPI. She wants more AAPI to have a career in the arts so that Asians are represented on both sides of the camera. “I want to empower Asian audiences to expand their views of themselves and what they are capable of,” Yoon declared.
Terauchi, a performer, wants casting opportunities for AAPI, as many lead roles are still white-dominated. She wants API in executive positions who can make informed decisions about content. “Progress is happening, but we aren’t there yet,” she sighed.
Progress may be happening for marginalized communities, albeit slowly. “The Hollywood Diversity Report,” conducted by the UCLA Social Sciences Department, found that although people of color (POC) are still vastly underrepresented as writers and directors, POC in 2020 made up 39.7% of film leads compared to just 10.5% in 2011. However, since 2007, AAPI have only made up about 6% of roles in film and television. So, while there have been prominent films recently made for API audiences, the overall trend of Asian representation in Hollywood remains, unfortunately, somewhat stagnant. Representation for AAPI is lagging, and the community deserves more.
Regardless, for API across the diaspora, this feels like a turning point. The success that Shang-Chi and Squid Game have garnered is cause for celebration, especially after the violence that the pandemic amplified and a Hollywood history full of either offensive representation or none at all. API creatives are excited and, beyond anything else, hopeful that audiences will soon hear their stories. As Terauchi put it, “It’s about damn time we are being seen.”