Skip to main content

New top story from Time: Constance Wu and Jenny Han on the Power of Inclusive Storytelling

https://ift.tt/3wFvLCm

In conversation with senior editor Lucy Feldman as part of TIME’s “Uplifting AAPI Voices” summit, actor Constance Wu and To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before author Jenny Han discussed their groundbreaking work both in front of and behind the camera, the need for nuanced Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) representation and their love for a good rom-com.

TIME: When the film adaptations of Crazy Rich Asians and To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before first came out, there was a whole generation of Asian Americans who had never seen ourselves reflected like that. What did those films mean to you? And how did they change things?
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

Wu: I was in a unique position, having that happen to me with two big-profile projects: first there was Fresh Off the Boat, which was seeing yourself represented on network American TV. That was something that really hadn’t happened in a long time. Crazy Rich Asians was on a bigger scale. People used to say, “Oh, well, she can’t carry a show. She can’t carry a movie.” But that’s why it was hard for Asian Americans—they couldn’t carry a show or movie because nobody had ever let them. With Crazy Rich Asians, with To All the Boys, with Minari or The Farewell, we are truly seeing that it’s not the lack of talent. It’s been the lack of opportunity.

Han: I’ve been in the publishing space for a long time now, and I’ve been a part of many firsts. It’s exciting. At the same time, you’re hoping at a certain point [that] you’re not going to be the first to do something—that we are moving beyond just the need for representation.

Read more: Watch TIME’s First-Ever ‘Uplifting AAPI Voices’ Summit Featuring Senator Mazie Hirono, Constance Wu, Prabal Gurung and More

Jenny, you ended up working with the one production company that didn’t insist that Lara Jean be played by a white teen. When you look back on that, does it feel far away? Or does it feel like an ongoing battle?

Han: I think the conversation has moved very quickly. I mean, this was 2014; not that long ago. Those were really hard conversations to have, because there was no vocabulary. With To All the Boys, I was nervous up until we started shooting … [I] had to hold the line in terms of saying, “No, I’m not going to do that.” That was its own challenge.

Wu: It’s a hard topic to broach because people often get defensive, and think you’re accusing them of racism. Sometimes people will be like, “I just can’t see an Asian American as the lead of a romantic movie.” There’s a lack of imagination of the types of faces and bodies we think are worthy of love; of course, an Asian-American man can be a sex symbol or an object of affection. But why does it always have to be somebody with six-pack abs? If you look at white actors, there are plenty of movies where the white nerd becomes the romantic lead. I don’t really desire six-pack abs. I desire pizza.

So often when we talk about representation in media, people go to a place of, “We need to tell really serious stories.” And those are important, but so is joy. What draws you both to the rom-com genre?

Han: This is what I like to watch. I think for a long time if you saw a book about a person of color, it was always going to be a story of sorrow and about their struggle with being a person of color. Sometimes you’re walking around, you go, “Oh, I want something light for the beach.” You weren’t really seeing those options. And I was really intentional with To All the Boys about wanting to do some thing that was really where [Lara Jean’s] identity wasn’t the point of the whole story—it wasn’t having to justify her being Asian. And having the imagination to say an all-American girl looks so many different ways.

Read more: To All the Boys Author Jenny Han Gives Her Best Love Advice

Wu: Love is the greatest thing in the world. And so is laughter. In any of my projects, I think if something is really deep or dramatic, I always try to make sure I find the levity in it. Same thing if something is really comedic and light: I always try to make sure I find the depth that it springs from, because otherwise it’s just like cotton candy.

Are there narratives that we need to get better at telling? Are there specific stories that you’d love to see more of in Hollywood?

Han: I think just a wider expanse of stories; having that bigger palette to draw from. I think that we’ve really proven that we can do well, so I hope that people will take more chances on stories that we’re not seeing as much.

It feels like sometimes there’s a fine line between representation and tokenism where, in a better world, Asian-American creatives would be able to just do work that feels most authentic to them and be embraced for that. How do you navigate that?

Wu: For me, avoiding tokenism … has been looking for roles where the character doesn’t only exist as a means to tell somebody else’s story. They need to have families, joys, sorrows, loves, enemies all depicted within the narrative. The second you give a token character other qualities, then they’re human— they cease being tokens because they are fully realized.

One thing recently I’ve come across a lot is people trying to offer me parts where I play super suit-y, business lawyer-y type people. And it’s funny because I’ve never played anything like that, so I don’t understand why somebody would think that works for me. And then I’ll read those scripts, and I’m like, wow, I, I don’t know how to say this line. Whereas I have this other show coming out called Solos, where the first line of the script was, “Can you smell my vagina?” I was like, Oh, yeah, see, that line I know how to say.

You’ve both triumphed in industries notoriously difficult for people of color to really succeed in. What is your advice to the next generation?

Han: Follow your passions, and tell the stories that you want to tell. If the passion is there, and creativity, then the audience will find it. I think one of the challenges of being a creator of color [is] that everything ends up being about your minority status in a way. And I’m always happy to talk about that. But I think you want to be at a point where you’re just talking about the craft and the art and the stories.

Wu: Really make sure you nurture the things that don’t have to do with business … your connections to art, to nature, to poetry; the things that actually feed your soul. That’s the well from which your work springs. If that well is dry, the work starts to suffer. At the end of the day, the reason when we were kids that we were moved by a book or a movie was because it came from that place in someone’s heart. Forget about hustling, and just do the things that really warm your heart.

A version of this story appeared in the June 7 issue of TIME magazine

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

L Taraval Improvement Project Update

L Taraval Improvement Project Update By Sevilla Mann Roundtable at the Community Parklet Shares Project Updates  This past week, the SFMTA hosted a media roundtable discussing updates about the L Taraval Improvement Project at the community parklet located in front of the The Rolling Out Café  on Taraval St.   Segment B construction began in February 2022 and is scheduled to be completed Fall 2024. Sewer and water infrastructure work is currently taking place. Future work includes track work, overhead line work, the construction of new boarding islands and streetscape improvements.    On hand to answer questions and provide updates was District Four Supervisor Gordon Mar, SFMTA Board Director Sharon Lai and Director of Transportation Jefferey Tumlin.   The Roundtable  Supervisor Mar opened the discussion by highlighting the many benefits that the local community will receive with the planned infrastructure upgrades along the corridor. These benefits include:   Replacing sew

FOX NEWS: Cincinnati zoo renames sloth habitat after late 1-year-old who loved sloths The sloth habitat at Ohio's Cincinnati Zoo will be named after a toddler who recently passed away.

Cincinnati zoo renames sloth habitat after late 1-year-old who loved sloths The sloth habitat at Ohio's Cincinnati Zoo will be named after a toddler who recently passed away. via FOX NEWS https://ift.tt/3DLAshi

IPL 2020 | KKR, SRH search for first win to get off the mark https://ift.tt/333a9nc

Having suffered defeats in their opening games, the Kolkata Knight Riders and Sunrisers Hyderabad will lock horns on Saturday at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi. While Kolkata faced a tough 49-run loss to defending champions Mumbai Indians, the Sunrisers suffered a monumental batting collapse against Royal Challengers Bangalore, losing the game by 10 runs.

FOX NEWS: Decadent double chocolate mint cookies for National Chocolate Day National Chocolate Day on Oct. 28th calls for a serious dose of chocolate.

Decadent double chocolate mint cookies for National Chocolate Day National Chocolate Day on Oct. 28th calls for a serious dose of chocolate. via FOX NEWS https://ift.tt/3nEJxSB

Muni’s Equity Toolkit Helps Essential Employees Get to Work

Muni’s Equity Toolkit Helps Essential Employees Get to Work By Mariana Maguire The latest data from SFMTA’s new  Equity Toolkit  shows that Muni service changes are helping people in neighborhoods identified by our  Muni Service Equity Strategy  access more jobs and support the city’s recovery.   In winter 2020, we launched the  SFMTA Equity Toolkit  to understand how service decisions are affecting neighborhoods where there is likely a high prevalence of essential workers who rely predominantly on Muni to get to their essential jobs. Our goal is to make better service decisions based on the trends and impacts we see in the Equity Toolkit.   Recently, the greatest increases in access to jobs via Muni have been in Hunters Point and Western Addition. The Hunters Point neighborhood saw the largest gains from the addition of the  15 Bayview-Hunters Point Express , as demonstrated in the table below. Thanks to the return of key Muni lines and increased frequencies on connector routes, I

Powered Scooters Charge City’s Transportation Recovery

Powered Scooters Charge City’s Transportation Recovery By Jason Hyde The SFMTA is releasing its next round of Powered Scooter Share permits on July 1. Scooters remain a sustainable mode of travel and a complement to Muni and public transit service as the city recovers from the pandemic and San Franciscans begin to travel more. The SFMTA’s Powered Scooter Share Program is essential in ensuring that shared scooter operations support the city’s economic recovery in a safe, sustainable, and equitable way.  The SFMTA received four submittals for the permit program and will issue permits to two operators : Spin and Lime. Permits will be in effect for a one-year term, with the option to extend for another year at the discretion of the SFMTA based on compliance with various program metrics. While the new permit program does not set a limit on the number of scooters each operator may deploy, it does limit the overall citywide fleet size at 10,000. Starting at a base of 2,000 scooters per

New top story from Time: 3 Killed in Northern California as Wildfires Force Thousands to Evacuate

https://ift.tt/34at2Uy (SAN FRANCISCO) — Northern California’s wine country was on fire again Monday as strong winds fanned flames in the already scorched region, destroying homes and prompting orders for nearly 70,000 people to evacuated. Meanwhile, three people died in a separate fire further north in the state. In Sonoma County, residents of the Oakmont Gardens senior living facility in Santa Rosa boarded brightly lit city buses in the darkness overnight, some wearing bathrobes and using walkers. They wore masks to protect against the coronavirus as orange flames marked the dark sky. The fire threat forced Adventist Health St. Helena hospital to suspend care and transfer all patients elsewhere. The fires that began Sunday in the famed Napa-Sonoma wine country about 45 miles (72 kilometers) north of San Francisco came as the region nears the third anniversary of deadly wildfires that erupted in 2017, including one that killed 22 people. Just a month ago, many of those

Traffic Collisions have Decreased on San Francisco’s Slow Streets

Traffic Collisions have Decreased on San Francisco’s Slow Streets By Julia Malmo   As a whole, Slow Streets are safer than they were before being designated Slow Streets  Streets that are part of the SFMTA’s  Slow Streets Program have become measurably safer since the program began in 2020, with the number of traffic crashes falling by almost half. On average, these corridors have seen a 48% drop in collisions following their designation as Slow Streets, compared with a 14% drop in collisions citywide over the same period. Slow Streets also are more welcoming for people who walk, bike and roll. Fewer than 1,000 vehicles per day use all but four of the current Slow Streets (20th Street, Minnesota Street, Noe Street, and Page Street).  The goal of the program is to create safe, shared streets that are comfortable and enjoyable for people of all ages and abilities, using any mode of transportation. We now can see how it’s doing in a new evaluation report . When the SFMTA Board appr

New top story from Time: How History Is Repeating Itself for Haitian Migrants Trying to Enter the U.S.

https://ift.tt/3upRk9U In the past 11 years alone, Haitians have suffered natural disasters, rising gang violence, outbreaks of cholera and COVID-19, and political instability, including the recent assassination of President Jovenel Moïse . The crises left many in the hemisphere’s poorest nation feeling they had no option but to leave—despite the difficulties they face in fleeing to other countries. In late September, Americans were confronted with the reality of those difficulties too. An estimated 15,000 people arrived in Del Rio, Texas, during the month, below a bridge connecting the city to Mexico’s Ciudad Acuña. A majority were Haitian nationals, migrants and asylum seekers who ended up living in tents or under tarps, in conditions similar to those in other camps that have formed along the U.S.-Mexico border in recent years. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Read more: Caught Between U.S. Policies and Instability at Home, Haitian Migrants in Tijuana Are in a State of L

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J कोरोना सकंट में TV सीरियल की शूटिंग शूरू, मास्क लगाकर पहुंचे स्टार्स- निया, पार्थ से लेकर रश्मि-PICS

कोरोना वायरस के चलते जारी लॉकडाउन में टीवी व फिल्मों की शूटिंग बंद थी। कोरोना के खतरे को देखते हुए तमाम सीरियल की शूटिंग रोक दी गई तो वहीं फिल्मों को रिलीज अटक गई। एंटरटेंमेंट इंडस्ट्री को कोरोना के चलते करोड़ों from टेलीविजन की खबरें | Television News in Hindi | TV Serials Update in Hindi – FilmiBeat Hindi http:/hindi.filmibeat.com/television/tv-shooting-starts-kasauti-zindagi-kay-naagin-nia-sharma-parth-samthaan-rashmi-desai-pics-090604.html?utm_source=/rss/filmibeat-hindi-television-fb.xml&utm_medium=23.11.231.156&utm_campaign=client-rss