I cried a little when I saw this on Instagram yesterday – the cover of the new issue of Entertainment Weekly, featuring Constance Wu and Henry Golding, the stars of Crazy Rich Asians, based on the first book in Kevin Kwan’s bestselling series. You know, the one I’ve been bitching at you for 4 years to read? You have 9 months before the movie comes out. After Black Panther, CRA is my most anticipated movie of 2018. Earlier this week it was announced that the film will be released on August 17. As I mentioned, this a very auspicious date. And now, we’re getting, via EW, a first look at the movie.
But before we get to that, if you’ll excuse my earnestness for a moment, please know what it means to me personally to see this image, this image in particular, on the cover of a North American English language pop culture magazine: two Asians, dressed beautifully but not “traditionally”, smiling, and one wearing a crown. It’s a major f-cking deal. Because I can’t remember it happening. That’s how seldom it happens. This is the cover that will be staring back at people in the bookstore, at the airport, at the grocery, at the newsstand, in the subway all over Canada and the United States for the next week. It says to people that Asians are also part of the entertainment industry. That their stories are valuable too. It says, specifically to Asians, that they have a point of connection, finally.
I wrote the other day, when the movie’s release date was announced, Crazy Rich Asians has everything to do with identity, the CHOICE of identity. That being Asian in art can be more than one identity. It’s a point that Constance Wu makes as well in her interview with EW. The Asians in CRA are not in period costume. These are contemporary people with contemporary experiences.
Contemporary Asians with contemporary experiences – not unlike the ones you know in your lives, your friends, your colleagues, your family. Only… way better dressed. And with a lot more money.
Because, let’s not get it twisted, that’s also what Crazy Rich Asians is about too: the excess, the drama, the filthy rich problems of the filthy rich, and the CLOTHES.
THEY SHOWED US ARAMINTA’S WEDDING DRESS!!!
Also… Peik Lin (Awkwafina!) wears dog pyjamas!!!
Jesus Michelle Yeoh looks exactly how I pictured Eleanor. Exactly.
Click here to read more about the Crazy Rich Asians movie. But I do have one complaint. This cover, the cover itself:
Constance and Henry are not named on the cover. And it bothers me because, as I just noted, this magazine will be at the drug store, at the supermarket, in the faces of people who probably don’t recognise them. So, if we’re talking about identity, why couldn’t they be identified?
