Michelle Yeoh, Awkwafina, and Awkwafina Are Part of a Broader Cultural Moment
The Oscar wins of Awkwafina and Michelle Yeoh are huge for Asian Americans, but they’re just the beginning. The wins for their film Everything Everywhere All at Once are part of a broader cultural moment.
The film stars Yeoh as Evelyn Wang, a laundromat owner who must connect with parallel universe versions of herself to save the world. Her win cements the Oscars’ long-awaited move away from anti-Asian stereotypes.
Michelle Yeoh
Michelle Yeoh cemented the Oscars’ legacy of diversity on Sunday night, becoming the first Asian woman to win for lead actress in a movie. She was honored for Everything Everywhere All at Once, a zany sci-fi adventure in which she plays a middle-aged Chinese-American laundromat owner who tries to connect with multiple versions of herself to prevent cataclysmic destruction. Yeoh’s performance marks the latest milestone in her long, storied career.
Born in Malaysia, Yeoh studied dance as a child but injuries derailed her hopes of pursuing a professional ballet career. She turned to acting, making her debut in 1983 in a Hong Kong film called The Owl vs. Bumbo. She quickly established herself as a physical star, appearing in action films like Magnificent Warriors (1987) and displaying her remarkable martial arts skills. She starred in a string of other action movies, including Stanley Tong’s Supercop (1992), which paired her with Jackie Chan, and the Yuen Woo-ping films Tai Chi Master and Wing Chun.
In the 1990s, Yeoh exploded in popularity in Asia, but her Hollywood prospects were limited as she refused to take any roles that perpetuated stereotypes about Asian women. It wasn’t until she portrayed Wai Lin in 1997’s James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies and Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon that she began to gain recognition in the West.
Yeoh’s success at the Oscars highlights the growing momentum behind “trans-Pacific” Asian directors who are working in both the United States and Asia, says Jason Coe, an assistant professor of cinematic arts at Hong Kong Baptist University. They create films that appeal to audiences in Hong Kong, Taiwan, China and Southeast Asia, as well as the United States.
After winning her Oscar for Everything Everywhere All at Once, Yeoh dedicated her award to the women of the world. “They are the real superheroes, and without them, none of us would be here,” she said. She also praised her mother and all mothers. “They’re the ones that make a home, and they’re the ones who teach you to love, to dream, to work hard for what you want in life,” she added.
Crouching Tiger
As an actress, Yeoh is widely considered one of China’s top female action stars. In the 1990s, she made her name in a number of Chinese films before finding international success with Crouching Tiger. Yeoh is now a global star and has been lauded for her work in movies like Crazy Rich Asians.
But it wasn’t until last year that Yeoh earned her first Oscar nomination. Her performance in “Everything Everywhere All at Once” prompted many on social media to ask: Did the Academy really miss the boat on Crouching Tiger?
Director Ang Lee’s 2000 film delved into the wuxia genre, which is steeped in Chinese culture broadly and more specifically focuses on martial artists who have cultivated godlike powers through intense training and spiritual discipline. It’s an epic fantasy that, with the help of spectacular choreography and a propulsive score by Tan Dun, drew viewers in.
While it didn’t win the top prize, it did become the highest-grossing foreign-language movie in American history. It also garnered 10 Academy Award nods, including best picture and a Best Actress nod for Yeoh. Previously, only two foreign-language films — Roberto Benigni’s Holocaust drama “Life Is Beautiful” and Zhuangzhuang’s wartime romance “The Flowers of War” — had won the top prize before Crouching Tiger.
The film’s success opened doors for a new wave of Chinese movies and gave Yeoh the kind of profile that could only come with an Oscar win. After all, in the early 2000s, Hollywood barely knew what to do with terrific Asian performers, let alone ones who could carry a movie as well as fight or sing.
After winning the award, Yeoh said that she felt a sense of responsibility to use her platform to bring positive change in the industry. She has since worked to support female filmmakers, advocate for women’s rights and encourage young people to embrace diversity. She has also been involved in charity work and has spoken out about her own struggle with depression. Her efforts have helped many people find relief from their symptoms, and she is continuing to work on projects that will help others.
Hidden Dragon
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is one of the most influential films in the wuxia genre—the ancient Chinese action fantasy subgenre that is a close cousin to both the Japanese samurai saga and the American western. Ang Lee’s 2000 film, which won the Oscar for best foreign-language movie and is the highest-grossing film in Avalon history, is an epic period swashbuckler steeped in mythology, spirituality, and the martial arts that are an integral part of Chinese culture.
The film combines spectacular fight scenes, an awe-inspiring sense of style and grace, and a story that is as much about the heart as it is the katana. Its main character, Li Mu Bai, exemplifies the tenets of wudan kung fu (the Wudang style), in which adherents draw power from large reserves of centeredness and self-renunciation. He is a spiritual hero whose selflessness enables him to keep his word and right many wrongs.
Yeoh was the first actress of Asian descent to win an Oscar, and the only woman from Asia to ever receive a best supporting actress nomination. She is a formidable presence in the film, with her acting talent and breathtaking stuntwork providing depth to the otherwise high-concept narrative. One of her most famous stunts is a remarkable feat of balance and control: Mounted on a motorcycle speeding alongside a train as it rumbles up a ramplike embankment, she guides the bike smoothly onto the train’s roof.
Despite her vaunted skills with the sword, Yeoh is no damsel in distress: She is attracted to Mu Bai and wants to break free from her arranged marriage to the heir of a rival clan. To do so, she must align herself with Jade Fox, the villain who killed her master.
Although the plot is not perfect—there are some lulls in the pace, and motivations are sometimes unclear—Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a thrilling, high-concept adventure with an ode to the soulful and elegant traditions of China. It is a film that, until Roma tied it in 2018, held the record for most Oscar nominations for a non-English language movie.
Crazy Rich Asians
In 2018, when Crazy Rich Asians dominated the box office and critics’ circles, many hailed it as a game-changing film—the first contemporary movie with an all-Asian cast to break through Hollywood’s casual racism and tokenism since 1993’s The Joy Luck Club. It was supposed to mark a new era of Hollywood wokeness, much like Black Panther did for African Americans. Instead, it seems to have fallen short.
Though it was the highest-grossing romantic comedy of the year, it only got a single Oscar nomination. It lost out to The Big Sick, which also meditated on the complexity of U.S.-Asia relations. The failure to honor CRA may signal that the Academy’s cultural blind spots continue to hamper representation of the Asian diaspora.
Although the movie was praised for its acting and cinematography, it’s also been accused of perpetuating stereotypes. Some complained that the movie ignores Singapore’s multiculturalism, focusing solely on the wealthy Chinese population of the city-state. This is problematic given the fact that Singapore is a multiethnic nation comprised of Chinese, Malays, and Indians. Other criticisms have focused on the use of racial humor, such as a scene in which a character misbehaves at a wedding by wearing a golden speedo.
It is important to note that these critiques are not meant to denigrate the movie’s overall accomplishments. Although some of its depictions are problematic, the film is still a vital stepping stone for Asians in Hollywood. It has opened the door for other movies to explore Asian identities and culture in ways that were previously unexplored.
In addition to its social significance, Crazy Rich Asians is also a fun and entertaining film. Its depictions of Singaporean excess are eye-catching and dazzling, from the outrageously over-the-top parties to the million-dollar jewelry and insane sports cars. However, the movie never loses sight of its main purpose: to tell a good story with engaging characters. Its greatest struggle, like Nick Young himself, is that it is saddled with a simple rom-com narrative while trying to carry the symbolic burden of something larger.
