Mapping tropicality in the masculinities and femininities of global Singapore in Crazy Rich Asians

Abstract

The blockbuster film based on the acclaimed novel Crazy Rich Asians provides an alternative representational space to examine how masculinities, femininities, Chinese ethnicity and networks of economic power feature in the reproduction of the gendered body-in-space and body-as-space. In the reproduction of the gendered body in cartographic space, it is argued that in the film, the projection of temperate qualities avoids incorporation of Singapore’s natural environment into identity narratives of self. This resonates with wider debates about the state’s masculinist ambition to ensure the longevity of the country’s living standards, advanced economy and cultural products found only in the temperate world. In the reproduction of the temperate body-as-space in the tropics, the femininity of the strong mother and weak wife is embodied in food preparation processes which enact gendered boundaries that simultaneously ‘speak’ class and ethnicity by way of arousing feelings inside the body.

Keywords:

• Class reproduction
• Crazy Rich Asians
• femininity
• masculinity
• Singapore
• tropical

Acknowledgements

The author thanks three anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and Professors Mairtin Mac an Ghaill and Louise Edwards for comments on earlier versions of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

John Lowe

John Lowe researches Asian migration as well as ethnicity and gender in Singapore and Hong Kong. His work can be found in Asian Studies Review, Critical Asian Studies, Continuum, Journal of Gender Studies and Patterns of Prejudice.