Crazy, rich, when Asian: Yellowface ambivalence and mockery in Crazy Rich Asians

ABSTRACT

This essay takes a postcolonial approach to trouble the celebratory notion that Crazy Rich Asians is unequivocal progress for Asian/American media representation. Using textual analysis, the essay reads Asian subjectivities portrayed in the movie in the context of race relations in the United States, in Singapore, and between the United States and Asia. The essay concludes by discussing how yellowface mockery and ambivalence center whiteness in different ways for Asia-Asians and Asian Americans, and it argues for the continued relevance of yellowface theorizations for unpacking representations of Asian/American subjectivities in filmic texts that are produced by, for, and with Asians.

KEYWORDS:

• Asian representation
• Asian subjectivity
• whiteness
• yellowface
• transnational media

Acknowledgements

This essay has benefited immensely from the careful, thoughtful, and detailed feedback provided by Reviewer #2, for which I am deeply appreciative. I also wish to acknowledge Dr. Shuzhen Huang for her astute reading of all versions of the manuscript.