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PERSPECTIVEAs told to: Alexandra English. Photography: Instagram/@warukattaI’ll never forget meeting with
modelling agencies in New
York – who usually had a total of
one Chinese model on their
books – and being told, ‘We
aren’t looking for another Asian.’
Modelling really opened my
eyes to the lack of diversity in
media, and then I started noticing
it in all pop culture. Once you
realise it, you can’t ignore it.
The majority of people on
earth are Asian, yet we have
always been a minority in
popular culture. Growing up,
the only actress I remember
who looked like me was Lucy
Liu. I definitely don’t remember seeing any Asian models.
There were a lot of male martial-arts masters – no-one that
I could relate to.
You could say I found success as a model because people
saw beyond my non-whiteness and believed in me. I definitely
feel the pressure as one of the few Asian models who openly
speaks about our representation – or lack thereof – in the
general media. I don’t want other people of Asian heritage to
feel like they don’t exist in the world because they’re not seeing
accurate depictions of themselves in pop culture; and I don’t
want to see our culture being used as a sprinkle of decoration
on an otherwise whitewashed film. One thing that inevitably
comes up in conversation with first- and second-generation
Asian people living in Western countries is about how our
culture has either been misrepresented or erased from
Hollywood altogether: traditionally Asian roles have been
rewritten for white actors wearing yellow face.
Despite our multicultural society, it’s still such a battle for
Asians to be represented on-screen, which is why the film
adaptations of two novels – Kevin Kwan’sCrazy Rich Asians
and Jenny Han’sTo All The Boys I’ve Loved Before– have been
so widely celebrated.Crazy Rich Asiansis the first Hollywood
film with an all-Asian cast in 25 years [since 1993’sThe Joy Luck
Club], andTo All The Boys I’ve Loved Before has a female Asianlead. I don’t know why it’s taken
us until now to start seeing Asians
in major roles – ones that aren’t
the stereotypical know-it-all geek,
the kung-fu master or the
mysterious geisha – but it feels like
change is finally happening. As
the director ofCrazy Rich Asians,
Jon M Chu, said, “It’s not a movie.
It’s a movement.” We can finally
watch these films and think,
‘These characters really do look
and act like I do.’
Constance Wu – star of
Crazy Rich Asians– wrote an
open letter about the
significance of the film, which
has since been quoted over and over. She wrote: ‘My friend
Ava DuVernay says, ‘I work in an industry that really has no
regard for my voice and the voice of people like me and so,
what do I do? Keep knocking on that door or build your own
house?’ My dear Asian-American friends, we are building
our own damn houses. We got the tools, the ability and we
definitely got the style.’
I want to use my platform to build our house; to support and
advance Asian representation in Western pop culture, and
I want to see it flourish. Our generation, Asian or not, needs to
fight for inclusivity. Everyone needs to see these films, and not
only that, to see the relevance of them. Start to notice when our
culture has been misrepresented and speak up about it. We
also need non-Asian culture consumers to speak up so that
those at the top of the industry hierarchy will accept us as being
no different from themselves. The media needs to represent the
people who consume it, and that is all of us.
There is a movement happening. And as long as we have
people like Kwan – who turned down a huge pay cheque
from Netflix so he could reach wider audiences in the cinema- championing our representation, and actors and actresses
like Wu imploring us to build our own houses, next time a film
with an all-Asian cast appears in a Western cinema, we can
finally call it normalisation rather than cause for celebration.E
Model Fernanda Ly is on a mission
to fight for inclusivity“I DON’T
WANT
PEOPLE
OF ASIAN
HERITAGE
TO FEEL LIKE
THEY DON’T
EXIST IN THE
WORLD”