Following on from your discussions and reflections today, write a Portfolio Post that explores your thinking.
Do you agree with any of the perspectives shared so far? Why/not? Try to write it in full and include your ideas from your last homework.
In the trailer of the movie ‘Crazy Rich Asians’, I feel that the true Asian culture is not represented accurately as it only focuses on rich, educated, large families in Singapore with its two main characters being very ‘white’ culturally as they have grown up overseas. The trailer displays Singaporean specialities such as food courts but it is evident that for the female protagonist, it is almost touristic as she has never lived in Singapore before. I think the film is quite significant in terms of the fact that they only had Asian actors/actresses and it was visually different from most international movies. However, I feel that the actual representation of the Asian culture is not very accurate as the entire setting of the movie just did not feel very local. The movie has also almost ‘villainised’ some of the traditional Asian values such as families, which is subjective and really does not portray the Asian culture as a whole, making it easy for viewers to have misconceptions about such values without understanding the reason behind it.
However, the overall review of the movie was astonishingly positive, with many people claiming that they ‘saw themselves on-screen’ and that it was ‘spot-on’. I was very surprised by this as it is completely different to what I think, which got me to consider the possibility and source of other opinions. It strikes me that although I identify myself as Asian, there are so many other Asian people out there that may be completely different to me with different values and background, and I guess it is okay to have different opinions about your own culture as everyone perceives and understands their culture in their own unique way. Although I feel very passionate about claiming that the film is inaccurate, I can never know the truth as I am only speaking from my point of view and the values I talked about are mostly Chinese, making my perspective seem quite limited to others but completely valid for me and those who agree with me. Nevertheless, I do think it is a great leap to put forward films like such to present the Asian race more on screens for people to feel connected to, however, it is difficult to say if its representation is accurate or not as everyone would perceive it in a different way.
