The Overseas Born Chinese behind it are making money, having fun and being non-PC. Best of all, the OBCs are juz doing what British people from the Indian sub-continent have done: appropriate the term “Asians”.
So let’s cheer them, not jeer at them.
The KPKBing by ang moh tua kees like Kirsten Han
film does the same sort of erasure of ethnic minorities that Hollywood does with white people*
a self-professed Malay Muslim atheist (I kid u not)
“Alfian Sa’at, a prominent Singaporean author, who writes in English and Malay, said in a scathing Facebook post that the film featured “East Asian people purporting to speak for all Asians,” adding that he hoped it would “go away quietly.”
FB post
from a political scientist Ian Chong from the National University of Singapore who said the film
represents the worst of Singapore. It erases minorities, the poor and marginalized. All you get are rich, privileged ethnic Chinese.
and finally from a usually sensible Bharati Jagdish
Let’s acknowledge that a movie like Crazy Rich Asians is not and cannot be a definitive depiction of what and who we are
Read more at https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/commentary/crazy-rich-asians-single-story-cannot-complete-narrative-10621448
had me laughing my head off at the pretentiousness of these and many other S’poreans. Worse were the Pussies branch of the Tamil Tigers KPKBing about the oppression of the Tamils here: as though the judiciary and legal professions are not all Tamil affairs with token participation from Chinese etc
——————-
“Asians” means either Indians or Chinese: no one else in Asia is “Asian”
In the UK “British Asians” is another term for people from the Indian sub-continent: Chinese etc not included. They won that right by sheer weight of numbers.
Many yrs ago, a BBC radio “Play of Week” was trialed as a an Ancient Greek comedy with an all-Asian cast. There wasn’t a voice that wasn’t from the sub-continent.
And things have not changed. Recently there was a BBC online article on social attitudes of “British Asians”. All the examples cited were “Mamas”.
Now the Overseas Born Chinese (especially the ABCs) are playing the same game: only Chinese are American Asians. And our very own Tessa Wong is guilty of agreeing with the other OBCs: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-45179503
I have to say that I agree with Calvin Cheng (getting to be a habit**)
A film with the title CRAZY RICH Asians can’t really be trying to hard to be representative of whatnot.
So give the film, the marketing team, the producers, director, writer (More on him soon), actors and production team a break.
Especially as they could have made film in KL, Taipei, any mega city in China, Bangkok, any major Canadian city, San Franciso or LA, not S’pore. Instead, S’pore is getting a great tourist brochure for free: not me but NY Times film critic
More than Rom Com and Bling
[T]he film soars to life, a buoyant, glittering, thoroughly charming romantic comedy. The story of a Chinese-American economics professor who meets her boyfriend’s wealthy family in cosmopolitan Singapore does not reinvent the rom-com. But it uses that formula so gracefully that the movie feels fresh, largely thanks to its flawlessly-cast Asian, Asian-American and Anglo-Asian actors. Beneath its glamorous surface, the film is also thoughtful about ethnic identity, and the push and pull of class and culture: nouveau riche versus old money, personal fulfillment versus duty to family.
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20180815-film-review-does-crazy-rich-asians-live-up-to-the-hype
Let’s give the OBCs behind the movie three cheers for making money, lots of money by doing stuff that is not politically correct. And for putting the noses of the local ang moh tua kees, local and foreign PC folk and local Tamil supremacists out of joint.
*Her ang moh kaki wrote
Critics in city where hit film is set complain that it leaves out minorities and is ‘simplistic’
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/aug/21/where-are-the-brown-people-crazy-rich-asians-draws-tepid-response-in-singapore
**PM talked cock and When being a minister turns from a calling into a job for life
Thoughts of a Cynical Investor 