This weekend I watched To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before which is a Netflix original film.Watching the movie made me think of our in class discussion of Crazy Rich Asians, which premiered the same week as To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before. I thought that it was interesting that both movies both featured an Asian American cast but one movie (Crazy Rich Asians) got more attention than the other.
Many of the films that we watch and discuss in class have to do with Asian American representation in media. I found To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before to be a refreshing movie to watch because it was a movie that featured an Asian American lead that did not focus on racial issues surrounding the Asian American community. The film did shed light on the fact that the main character was obviously a different race (they do this by including a scene where one of the Asian actresses explains to a non-Asian actor that she is drinking a Korean yogurt drink that is commonly given to Korean kids as a snack) but it was a brief moment that didn’t distract from the plot line.
Seeing a Asian American actress play a role that is typically played by an American actress reminded me of the in class screening of Better Luck Tomorrow which was also a movie about a high school experience. While the plot in Better Luck Tomorrow centered around their experiences as Asian Americans in high school (which is different from the high school love story of To All the Boys I’ve Loved), both movies casted Asians in roles that were not typically given to Asian actors such as main lead, head cheerleader, and the jock.