Asian Representation In Hollywood Is Changing....

Has Asian representation in Hollywood actually gotten worse over the years? Simu Leu set the internet on fire and we got to talk about it and run some numbers. I'll tell you this right off the bat. Asian representation in New York's food scene is not hurting. We got the urban hawker stalls right here. They're a little bit expensive, but let me check them out. All right, overall you got some Singaporean hawker stall style food. Some of these spots are actually from Singapore [snorts] and Malaysia. So that's how you know it's kind of legit. I'm not going to lie, the pricing is kind of crazy. For six sauté skewers, it's 20 bucks. But, uh, let me see if I want to get anything. Everybody, I just ended up getting some Malaysian quay, which is like a steamed rice cake dessert. This is the pondon with a little steamed rice at the bottom. You can see it. All right. Anyways, let's talk about Simulu and what he said because this post on threads went viral. Hey, let's just read it. He says, "Put some Asians in literally anything right now. The amount of backslide in our representation on screen is effing appalling. Studios think we're risky. But look at Manari. Farewell past lives. Everything everywhere all at once. Crazy rich Shangqi. Now I think that this is him just you know saying how he feels. But this next part is the most important. Says no Asian actor has ever lost a studio even $100 million. But a white dude will lose 200 million twice and roll right next into the lead role. We are fighting a deeply prejudiced system and most days it sucks. Wo is uh Ronnie Changeng's like favorite dessert. Besides all the feeling that was put into that tweet, I think you got to look at the facts. Let's see if there was any real Asian-led movies that actually were huge bombs. as in they super disappointed people. And you will actually see if you go back in history that Asian leads did not lead to a bomb. Let's just take a look. Okay, I'm not going to lie. When Simu said that some white dude could lose $200 million for his studio twice in a row, I feel like he was referring to someone specific. So although he did not name names, I'm just going to go ahead and look up a name. Taylor Kish. Taylor Kish was in two huge box office flops in the same year, 2012, and he still got in the movies right after that. And before I go any further, I think for the people who are like, "Oh, uh, Simu, is he good representation?" I'm like, "Dude, the guy is tall, buff, he's straight, he drinks boba, and he talks about Asian issues." Like, what more do you want? You want him to what? Sing, too. this close to walking [music and singing] over. Damn, I wish I'd have told you. Don't [music] give up when you're halfway down the [singing] road. There's so much more inside you than [music] you know when [singing] everything is telling you it's over. [music] All right, I'm not going to lie. I actually do like that song. And you can even ask my brother David. I actually actually know the lyrics. Listen, whether or not you personally like Simu or his movies that he's in, I mean, you got to give him credit, dude. He speaks up about this and he is in a position where a lot of people would probably tell him, "Hey, Simu, don't tweet that." But he goes ahead and does it anyways, which I appreciate. But first of all, let's talk about what Simu said because he said that the industry says that Asians are risky to put as the lead. But that's not what history shows because history shows that there are really no big major catastrophic movie flops with Asians as the lead. And obviously Simu can say this because Shani was a big bet. You know, Marvel spent $100 million making that movie. And guess what? It was a success. So he can say that versus these other movies which are like Joker, Hellboy, The Goldfinch, Haunted Mansion, Wonder Woman 1984, Robin Hood, The Wrinkle in Time, King Arthur, Legend of the Sword, Black Adam, which is the closest you get to a Asian le movie, which is The Rock, 355, Amsterdam, The Last Duel, Westside Story, Dark Phoenix, Monster, Fantastic 4, Monster Trucks. There's even way bigger movie flops that lost studios hundreds of millions of dollars because they were just really bad movies. Now, we all know when a movie flops, it's not only because of the lead actor, but often the lead actor is supposed to be part of the draw. So, the truth is that even when Asians don't meet the expectations, their flops aren't that bad. Most recently, you could look at Love Hurts with Kiwan or Afraid with John Cho, which they didn't do that great, but honestly, both those movies costed like nothing to make for the studio. So, uh, really the studio wasn't at a big loss. I mean, they only costed like $15 million to make versus obviously action movies are hundred plus million to make. So, judging by the numbers, SIMU is correct. There have not been any catastrophic Asian flops to say that Asians are truly risky. I have a hunch on one of the reasons, and I think it's that the expectations for Asians are higher. And this kind of oddly enough falls in line with like getting into elite institutions too. Like whether it's Harvard or Hollywood, I just feel like the expectations for Asians are higher to be honest. I mean, listen, like Asians are expected to outperform movies or else we don't get another shot. And the reason why Simu gets to say this is because Shangi was a financial success and he hasn't gotten a sequel yet. So, what's another possible reason why they would say Asians are risky? Or is that not really the reason? Well, I think that I guess you could throw out maybe depending on the story, oh, like middle America or the people who are not from the big cities won't get used to Asian faces. That's always a concern, right? Or maybe the studios are like, oh, well, look, they have all this uh Korean content that's very popular. They can see Asian faces in the Korean stuff like physical 100, K-pop demon hunters, you know, all the Kdramas. Why do we need and and you know, I do want to acknowledge first of all that having Asians having their alternative entertainment systems is pretty cool. You know, not every ethnicity or race has that available to them. Not every community has that available to them. So for East Asians between Japan, China, Korea and now India, I mean to be honest, obviously these are big groups, but they have a lot of media coming out from their country that is also very comparable to a lot of American media, right? Like I mean, think about it. Like if like the Philippines doesn't have the entertainment system built up like if you're from Nigeria, you're not going to get n pop or uh end dramas, right? Uh that are comparable at least in production. And I'm sure they have their own shows, but I would imagine they're not on the same level yet. And honestly, one other reason I think that's possible is the political climate right now. You know, uh you'd be surprised at how much influence the current administration or the president has for the vibe of the country, you know, and you can say whatever you want about politics. I'm not really going to make any comments in this video, but you would say that the climate right now is probably less uh leaning towards, I guess, minority stories. Or maybe during the past few years when everybody felt like everything got so woke and so left, then that's when all these Asian things popped up, right? And then people are like, "Oh, well, we're past that time now." Like, it's peaked, you know? We don't we can we can reel it back. Do I think that Asian representation needs to constantly linearly [snorts] uh increase at the same rate? No, I don't think it does. But I also think there's a ton of great Asian stories out there or stories that could use some of the great Asian talent that we actually do have. I [snorts] mean, my overall take is that Simu Leu is overall correct. Asians have not shown to be big box office nuclear bombs yet. Oh, hey, everybody's in line for something. But like, basically, let me rephrase that. Asian leads have not proven to be detrimental to the movie. Okay, let me repeat that. That there are way more box office failures by everybody else besides Asian faces. So, I do not think putting an Asian in the lead automatically deters everybody from watching a movie. It may deter some people, but not everybody. And honestly, there's plenty of successful movies that have been financial successes and beneficial to the whole studio system. Uh, you know, that had Asian faces at the lead, but also, you know, being a person who's from the YouTube world, I got to say, hey, there's, you know, pretty good Asian representation everywhere else on the internet as well, too. So, anyways, let me know in the comments down below what you think. Um, I think Simu calling it out is good. I think it's true. I think he was in the right. I think he is one of the few people that can honestly say it and it means something because if Simu is saying it and he got his own movie and it was a success, then why is he saying it? What's his incentive? He's not He's still in the industry. He probably didn't need to ruffle the feathers like he did, but he chose to. So, he's standing up for what he believes in, which you got to respect. So, anyways, leave it in the comments down below what you think the main issue is. Um, possibly the studio host studio system itself is just kind of I don't know going down now. So, they're [snorts] really looking for what they think is surefire hits. But maybe that wasn't always the case. Anyways, let me know in the comments down below. I'm in the middle of New York City holiday season. And until next time, I'm out. Peace.