Crazy Rich Asian (2018) was a phenomenal success. The romantic comedy topped the box office on the first week of its release by racking up $25.2 million at North American theatres alone, easily accomplishing the best result for its genre in 6 years (Barnes). What was different about this movie was that not only had the film been the first Hollywood studio movie to be produced in 25 years to feature an all-Asian cast, it did something no conventional Hollywood romantic comedy had ever done: it gave a voice to many types of Asian women. The last movie to do so had been The Joy Luck Club (1993), which was released by Disney in limited theatres located in areas where Asian Americans made up a significant part of its population: Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York. In contrast, Crazy Rich Asians received worldwide recognition and grossed a total of $239 million against a production budget of merely $30 million, once again proving the absolute power of diversity (Barnes).
The film follows a young NYU Economics professor named Rachel Chu as she visits Singapore to attend her boyfriend, Nick Young’s cousin’s wedding. Rachel quickly realizes the Young family’s distinguished reputation in Singapore, and that Nick Young is heralded as one of the most eligible bachelors in the country. In the blink of an eye, Rachel is thrust into the spotlight by a society of jealous socialites, and through a parade of opinionated relatives, she finds that her identity as an Asian American is why Eleanor Young, mother of Nick Young, would never approve of their relationship. She is, in Eleanor’s words, not kaki lang. A Hokkien term which can be roughly translated as “one of us.” In a culture that is fiercely protective of their own due to decades of colonization and discrimination, Rachel’s westernized presence is seen as a threat to the Chinese traditional values Eleanor tried so hard to uphold alone.
The review I’m going to review is titled “Crazy Rich Asians shows us desire — and power — through women’s eyes”. It’s published by Vox, an American news website noted for its explanatory journalism, on Aug. 28, 2018. The review is written by Anna North, a senior reporter at Vox. A former journalist at Jezebel, Buzzfeed, and The New York Times, North’s work currently focuses on gender issues like reproductive rights, workplace discrimination, LGBTQ rights, feminity, masculinity, and more. She is also the author of 3 novels: America Pacifica (2011), The Life and Death of Sophie Stark (2015), and Outlawed (2021). She started an editorial board project called “This Week In Hate” at the New York Times which tracks hate crimes and harassment since the 2016 election. One of her favorite pieces of work is a story she wrote to expose the “woke” fashion label Prabal Gurung whose actions contradict his feminist claims. In my opinion, she has more than sufficient credentials to review Crazy Rich Asians in the context of the female/male gaze.
In North’s piece about Crazy Rich Asians, she champions the film for breaking new grounds by letting female characters ogle man and not the other way around. I absolutely share her excitement in this since the looking is actually done in a respectful and endearing manner that does not objectify the subjects. North opens the article by giving an example of how the film celebrates the female gaze: Rachel Chu is in bed admiring her hunky boyfriend’s body. Then, she pulls her glasses away in a cartoonish gesture and says, “Hubba hubba.” (North) North notes that this scene, while fleeting, is monumental because it doesn’t just showcase female desire - though that in itself is already unusual - it also shows Rachel taking on an active role. Her desire is displayed significant enough to drive the action forward. This is in direct contradiction with Mulvey’s theory that pleasure in looking has been split between male/active and female/inactive (808). Mulvey also says that women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, and their appearance is almost always coded for erotic impact and viewed as an “element of the spectacle” to signify male desire (809). In this scene, a woman’s desire is the one being pronounced instead.
North proceeds to mention that the film had accomplished a rarity in American popular culture: depicting Asian men as desirable and sexy. And it is the women who take the active role of noticing them this time. North is right - more of then than not, Asian men are characterized as scrawny, desexualized, and socially inhibited nerds. Director Jon M. Chu doesn’t just encourage the viewers to gawk at the men - we watch the women watching the men too (North). As evidenced by the “hubba hubba” scene and the way Rachel appraises Nick in a handsome white suit later in the film and tells him that he should wear it more often - again, a dialogue that is traditionally assigned to a man - the power of commanding the stage has been given to women. In traditional cinema, Mulvey posits that the male gaze looks while the female body is looked at (North). Thus, Crazy Rich Asians has become more than just a traditional piece of cinema that objectifies women for erotic purposes.
Then, as if to further corroborate her theory, North supplies us with another example. A crucial one at that. Rachel accidentally spills some wine on Nick’s shirt, and he goes up to his room to change. He strips, and we’re given a view of the defined muscles on his torso. Eleanor enters and suggests that he puts on the blue one. When he’s done changing, he asks, “How does this look?” Her response is simple: “Perfect.” I’m with North when she notes that by pronouncing Nick perfect, Eleanor is demonstrating the power of the female gaze. In fact, I would concur that Eleanor’s gaze has been positioned as the one that truly matters in the movie, as North has pointed out. At that moment, she decides how Nick should present himself to his family and friends. This control she wields extends beyond her son’s choice of wardrobe - she literally has a certain degree of control over all the characters in the movie for her roles as a mother, mother-in-law, and the respectable head of the Young family. That’s why everyone in the movie - including the male characters - look to her for their every move.
North’s proposition of “the female gaze” is in stark contrast with Laura Mulvey’s theory of “the male gaze” that is sadly still prevalent in many films these days. The male gaze refers to the male point of view the camera and cinematography of a film invite us to identify with. It doesn’t necessarily need to have any direct connections with objectifying women, but we all know that it often ends up that way. As Mulvey notes, women are traditionally displayed on the screen for two functions: as erotic object for the characters within the screen story, and as an erotic object for the spectator (809). North supplements this by saying men are always the ones doing the looking, the ones who desire rather than the ones desired. The spectators are usually asked to identify with the male protagonist as he “controls events coincides with the active power of the erotic look” (Mulvey 810). Crazy Rich Asians, as emphasized by North, doesn’t play into that. Women in the film take notice of the men and pronounce their desire openly on screen. Another example from the film I can think of that supports North’s theory of the female gaze is the 2-minute screen time that is given to delivering Astrid Leong’s first entrance into the narrative. Not once does the camera linger on any part of Gemma Chan’s body longer than necessary. It is more preoccupied with establishing who she is as a person through the looks of other women (every pair of eyes in the room are literally turned toward her the second she enters the room with her sleeveless silk dress and Audrey Hepburn-esque sunglasses) than the objectifying purpose she might serve. The entire montage of her walking into the room and picking out a pair of $1.2 million earrings at her leisure situates her as the female protagonist who is “free to command the stage” on which she “articulates the look and creates action” (810). And the best thing is that she is aware of the absolute power she holds but doesn’t seem to be bothered by it or has any intention to abuse it like men usually are inclined to do. In this instance, the “satisfying sense of omnipotence” is given not to a man, but a woman (810).
North elaborates on the definition of the female gaze: “an active female point of view represented on screen, either through the perspective of a female filmmaker or female characters.” She posits that while the male gaze reduces women to helpless sexual objects, the female gaze turns them into the protagonists (North). Since the director of the film is a man, we can only examine if the film does tell its stories through the eyes of female characters. I think just by beginning the story from Eleanor’s point of view where she deals in succession with racism and sexism is a telling sign that this movie is, indeed, going to be about women. Going back to the car ride scene with Astrid and Michael, the camera could have focused on Michael’s face as he speaks, but instead, it blurs him out and sharpens Astrid’s face in the background, essentially demanding the audience to watch her scrutinizing him with anger and sympathize with her when she cries. Even when Michael speaks, the camera zooms out to include both of them clearly in the frame as if it’s crucial that we also get to see how Astrid reacts to his words. In this case, the man is the one who’s being “cut up” and “despatialized” while the woman is “a figure in a landscape” who demands presence in space (Mulvey 812). North then gives a famous example of the female gaze from a scene in Season 4 of Game of Thrones in which Daenerys Targaryen invites swordsman Daario Naharis to disrobe, and sits back and watches as he does. The scene draws explicitly on female arousal, and I think it’s definitely something that should be depicted more often in mainstream media. I can’t even remember when I’ve ever seen the camera regarding a man in an erotic context on screen through a woman’s eyes. The lack of scenes like this feels as if it’s hinting at male arousal being natural and attractive, but female arousal is shameful and inappropriate.
All in all, we are invited in Crazy Rich Asians to assume the female characters’ subjectivity more than we do with the male characters (North). To substantiate North’s positive take on the female gaze, Vulture reports that the Film Society at Lincoln Center studied 36 films in 2018 and came to the conclusion that the female gaze is “emotional and intimate”, and “it sees people as people.” (Telfer) What’s more, it seeks to empathize rather than to objectify (Telfer). As her review comes to an end, North quotes Bustle’s reporter Mia Mercado who says that Asian and Asian American women in American films have always been presented through limited stereotypical modes: they are either peripheral, hypersexual, or really good with knives. I feel like my experience as an Asian woman who grew up consuming Hollywood movies can vouch for Mercado’s words. Then, North concludes that Crazy Rich Asians makes the female characters central to the story by giving them the power to look and appraise the male characters. That’s what North means when she says that Crazy Rich Asians is groundbreaking for women - it tells the story through a woman’s point of view. The women are the audience’s surrogates, the diegetic storyteller than that of a spectacle (North).
My own review of this movie is of the same essence as North’s. I think one of the most celebrated aspects of this film is the tribute it delivers to single mothers and independent women. The harmful stereotypes of Asian women as submissive, reserved, and sexualized objects are nowhere to be seen in the film. In their places are assertive and well-rounded characters. Rachel’s exchanges with her college friend, Goh Peik Lin, and Nick Young’s cousin, Astrid Leong, demonstrate compassion and empathy that we rarely see when Asian women interact on screen.
The film succeeds in reinterpreting women in a way that uplifts them as complex, resilient, and resolutely human individuals. While the heroine of the book swallows the vicious bullying she receives, this Rachel is forthright and feisty (Jansen). There is a horrifying scene where Nick’s jealous female acquaintances had gutted a fish and lay it on her bed for Rachel to find. Nasty words are scrawled onto the glass above the bed in pink lipstick: “Catch this, you gold-digging b------.” She could have very well bottled up these traumatizing events and comments, but she chooses instead to discuss it with Nick right after the trip. One of the most touching moments is shared between Rachel and Astrid after they bury the gutted fish and sit together by the beach, far away from the socialites who are committed to a society that pits women against one another. The pair bond over rejection, one from her boyfriend’s family and the other from her philandering husband, and connect as women who had been damaged by sexist social games (Jansen). This is reminiscent of that time actress Constance Wu told the media that pitting her against her female co-stars in Hustlers “helps the patriarchy stay in power” (Barr).
The most empowering part of the movie has got to be the scene where Astrid Leong dumps her husband, Michael Teo, after he has the audacity to blame her for “pushing” him to cheat. Astrid is acutely aware of how many of the socialites think that she is essentially marrying down when she announces her marriage to a middle-class businessman, but Astrid ultimately ignores those noises out of love for her husband. She will routinely hide the expensive jewelry she buys with her own money all over the house just so he won’t feel ashamed for not being able to conform to the traditional ideology that men must be the breadwinner of the house. During the car ride to her cousin’s wedding, Astrid confronts Michael about his affair. Not only does he not appear guilty for having been caught, but he also becomes infuriated when he sees that Astrid accepted his confession without losing her composure and turning into a madwoman. Taking that to mean she doesn’t actually love him, he accuses Astrid of only caring about her family’s and her own polished reputations (totally not true) and neglecting to realize Michael is reminded every minute of his life that he is not on the same elevated status as them. Astrid recognizes his attempt to victim blame and calls him out. When the wedding is over, Astrid returns to the apartment to let Michael know that she will proceed with a divorce. He again tries to provoke her by saying that it’s not his fault that their marriage didn’t work out. Having enough of it, Astrid meets his eyes resolutely and responds with utter grace: “The problem with our marriage isn’t our family’s money, it’s that you’re a coward. You gave up on us. And I just realize that it’s not my job to make you feel like a man. I can’t make you something you’re not.” With that, the film celebrates all women out there by telling them that they are in no way responsible for a man’s feeling of emasculation and his fragile sense of manhood.
And if those examples are not enough to substantiate this film’s celebration of women, discussing another pivotal and memorable scene in the movie orchestrated by our two principal characters, Rachel Chu and Eleanor Young, should do it. Michelle Yeoh specifically told the director that she refused to play a stock villainous tiger mom from the novel the film was adapted from. Thus, the mahjong scene is written as a critical impetus toward her eventual redemption as the antagonist to the story. By tossing out an eight of bamboo, her winning tile, for Eleanor to win the game, she establishes that she is actually the one in control of the situation. She demonstrates her wits when she says that she knows Nick’s mother has ensured there will be a lose-lose outcome if Nick chooses either woman. If Nick marries Rachel, he’ll lose his family, but choosing his family might mean he’ll resent Eleanor forever for making him give up on Rachel. Unlike so many other movies where the male protagonist dictates the choices his girlfriend makes, Rachel decides to choose for Nick by refusing his proposal, but before she leaves, she needs Eleanor to know about it.
More than that, she upends Eleanor’s stiff impression of her by explaining that she did it because she understands the importance of family, something Eleanor suspects a “banana” like her won’t know, and when Nick finds a proper match in the future, it will be because of her - a “poor, raised by a single mother, low-class immigrant nobody”. With this monumental move, Rachel presents herself as a strong, formidable, and courageous woman. Instead of packing up and fleeing as the novel originally goes, Rachel stands her ground this time and engineers a showdown with Eleanor to let her know that she’ll not stay silent and let anyone tell her about her worth and destiny. Ultimately, the ending of the film where Nick proposes to Rachel once again with Eleanor’s ring shows that the mother has changed her mind and accepted Rachel as part of the family. It is also a comment on how Eleanor is finally subverting the socially mandated role as the wife of a powerful and conservative man (a controlling patriarchal presence who never once made an appearance in the movie) (Jansen). She acknowledges the hardships she had to go through to get where she is today but knows that it’s not fair to put another woman through it just because she did.
If we are to take a step back and look at North’s observations about the female gaze in Crazy Rich Asians in a larger context, we would realize that she is not the only one who is noticing its growing presence in popular culture. Many film critics have taken notice of the increasingly prevalent female gaze in cinema and television shows such as The Handmaid’s Tale, Marvel’s Jessica Jones, and Portrait of a Lady on Fire. The way it seeks to dismantle the patriarchal and phallocentric notion that women exist to symbolize a lack of penis or is the “male other” is revolutionary (Mulvey 803). I’m frankly sick of hearing actresses or models getting asked to strike uncomfortable and suggestive poses that are clearly done to satisfy the male desire. To counter that, the female gaze “conceives a new language of desire” that does not objectify neither men nor women to satisfy anyone’s perverse needs. There are feminist values that attach themselves to this theoretical term as well. Ginette Vincendeau, a professor of film studies at King’s College London, said this about the female gaze she detected in Celine Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire: “There’s more of an equal power relation between the person depicted and the person depicting, which is to me a feminist gesture.” (Smith) Since the female gaze is often present in movies directed by women or stories told by female protagonists, I would say that the female gaze is in itself feminist. It’s about telling women’s stories through their emotions and experiences rather than close-ups of their naked bodies solely intended to evoke erotic pleasure. Of course, a film can be written about sex and women’s bodies, but does a man really need to be the one who tells it? I think a woman is more than capable of sharing stories about their own bodies, and this is where the female gaze comes in.
There is also a larger implication of North’s piece on Crazy Rich Asians. It acknowledges the film’s emphasis on the female characters and validates their autonomy with the female gaze. North is basically affirming that stories about Asian women are worthy to be told, and we have the box office figures to back her up. The marginalization and stereotyping of Asian women in Hollywood have long since established a skewed perception of the Asian communities in American society. In a response to counter that, North’s note of the female gaze in Crazy Rich Asians signals that power and desire can be given to Asian and Asian American women in cinema, and the product can still sell. I hope Crazy Rich Asians is the precursor to many more diverse movies to come that are told from a woman's perspective. I want to hear the female experience in coming-of-age stories, love stories, tragedies, comedies. The female gaze bestows power on women to actively look, appraise, evaluate everything, especially men in an erotic context. It is a proud declaration that women’s voices matter and could serve to counter the imbalance of them being more looked-at than the ones doing the looking in popular culture.
Bibliography
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Barr, Sabrina. "Constance Wu Says Pitting Women Against Each Other ‘Helps The Patriarchy Stay In Power’". The Independent, 2019, https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/women/constance-wu-jennifer-lopez-hustlers-women-patriarchy-female-characters-a9098886.html.
Jansen, Chiu-Ti. "‘Crazy Rich Asians’ Tries To Debunk Stereotypes—And Mostly Succeeds". Observer, 2018, https://observer.com/2018/08/crazy-rich-asians-attempts-to-tackle-stereotypes-of-women-and-wealth/.
North, Anna. "Crazy Rich Asians Shows Us Desire — And Power — Through Women’S Eyes". Vox, 2018, https://www.vox.com/2018/8/27/17763742/crazy-rich-asians-michelle-yeoh-constance-wu.
Smith, Gwendolyn. "Like A Natural Woman: How The Female Gaze Is Finally Bringing Real Life To The Screen". The Guardian, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2020/feb/22/the-female-gaze-brings-a-welcome-touch-of-reality-to-art.
Telfer, Tori. "How Do We Define The Female Gaze In 2018?". Vulture, 2018, https://www.vulture.com/2018/08/how-do-we-define-the-female-gaze-in-2018.html.
Laura Mulvey, Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, Screen, Volume 16, Issue 3, Autumn 1975, Pages 803–816, https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/16.3.6