"Crazy Rich Asians" has been a big hit in the theaters over the past few weeks. Similar to "Black Panther," where (almost) everyone cast is the same race, it's empowering Asian people to be who they are, but unlike "Black Panther," where the people of Wakanda come together as a community, "Crazy Rich Asians" enables the culture of being disrespectful to people of other races.
Nick Young is the main character in the movie, and in the movie, he's dating a beautiful American woman by the name of Rachel Chu. (Nick is American-Asian and Rachel is American, although she appears to be of Asian descent). Rachel is working in New York City and while Nick and Rachel are on a date together and eating dessert, Nick receives a call from his mother inviting him to a wedding in Singapore and in turn, invites Rachel to come along with him, where his entire family, immediate and extended, live. As Rachel is being introduced to Nick's family, I can't help but notice how negatively Rachel is being treated. While Nick's family is happy to meet Rachel, it is particularly offensive to me how Nick's family, particularly his mother, makes Rachel feel like she isn't good enough for Nick. They make Rachel feel like an outsider, an outcast. It's not fair to a woman meeting her significant other's family to feel excluded.
SEE ALSO: It's OK If My Significant Other Doesn't Meet My Parents, It's My Life, Not Theirs
Secondly, when they're at the extended family's home and making dumplings, Nick's grandmother is very rude to Nick's mother, and perhaps this is why Nick's mother treated Rachel negatively, but no woman who is being introduced to her significant other's family should ever have to feel this way. Not only that, Nick's mother felt like she could judge the sh*t out of both Nick and Rachel while both of them were away.
Thirdly, when Rachel finds a dead fish on her hotel bed and the word "golddigger" written on the glass, it's a result of Rachel being shamed by the younger women in Nick's family for being with him. I get it, you're jealous because you wish you had a man who was as handsome as Nick and comes from as wealthy a family as he does. You just want to feel better about yourselves by trying to tear her down. The sad reality is, many girls STILL do this to each other. If I were Nick, I'd want to cuss out every woman who talks sh*t about my significant other.
Lastly, I'm offended by the ultimatum that Nick's family threw at him, where it is to choose his family and lose his relationship with Rachel or to choose his relationship with Rachel and lose his family. There are two major problems with this. The first one is that a loving family will support the decision for Nick to continue his relationship with a woman whom he dearly loves, and for him to explore opportunities and grow as a person, and by Nick's family not opting to do that, they're not showing the support that Nick deserves, and secondly, his family displays itself as a rather arrogant family, where they matter more than Nick's significant other. The thing is, both of them matter, and Nick can't really spend the rest of his life with the family since he's a grown man. No man should feel negative about his family because it believes itself to be more important than his significant other. In a successful relationship, neither side should take it personally when the man has a planned activity with one or the other.
Yes, I understand that this movie was designed to display the clash Asian and American culture, but I think it exposed the real problems with a culture where the immediate and extended family act both controlling and judgmental. Yes, Rachel lied about her family where her father wasn't really in her life, so she didn't open up to Nick about what really happened, and how could she really do so? It's a sensitive topic, and it's a ridiculous violation of privacy by Nick's mother to do a private investigation of Rachel's past. Rachel's father was a toxic man whom her mother left, and it was something she had obviously moved on from until Nick's mother decided to stir the pot with her. It made Rachel mad, and I can't fault Nick for walking away and trying to win her back. How can you trust a family member who will willingly investigate your significant other behind both your back and her back?
However, I'm glad that not only did Rachel stay loyal to Nick, but Nick followed his heart and decided to spend the rest of his life with Rachel in New York, happily ever after.
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