@Consolation the Joy Luck Club movie exacerbated every single stereotype about Asian men and women to the Western world. Some reading material for you to understand:
https://slate.com/culture/2018/08/the-joy-luck-club-needs-to-be-forgiven-by-asian-americans.html
Well, that article seemed balanced, on first pass. I don’t see how one critiques one film and accepts another for the scenery and lush display of wealth, when there were issues, as well. Maybe you had to read Joy Luck before seeing the film. And accept that one sort of representation is just one slice. Many cultures have been complaining about their depictions, for decades.
Many of us are multicultural or lived among others, in this melting pot. We can recognize when something is that “slice.” Calling CRA a rom com isn’t a pass.
Actually, that is quite a balanced review article about JLC.
Saw CRA. It was cute, but not Oscar worthy. A few twists in the movie plot looked to me like they came straight outta Bollywood… And I was very disappointed to see relatively little food compared to what everyone was taking about. 
Awkwafina was outstanding.
@BunsenBurner haven’t watched CRA but I guess lack of “Oscar-worthyiness” mighty not be the most significant thing about the movie. Rather that an all-Asian cast could generate excitement and “profits”. Read that the lead of CRA, Constance Wu was thousands of $$$ in debt and struggling for a longtime before this and the “fresh off boat” break! https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/15/crazy-rich-asians-star-constance-wu-was-once-in-deep-debt.html
@lookingforward
I think Amy Tan’s books exploit the illusions Western culture had about Chinese culture and I don’t enjoy reading her books. To me, “Joy luck club” the movie is better than the book.
I didn’t like the “Joy Luck Club” for other reasons. The woman who drowned her infant in the bath was portrayed as a sympathetic character. That lost it for me. No matter how bad one’s life is, drowning an innocent babe is heinous and unforgivable.
Hard to follow a serious discussion about Joy Luck Club with this, but a few nights ago spouse and I watched To All The Boys I Loved Before, a new high-school rom com on Netflix. Notwithstanding that I am more or less over high school rom coms, this was a very high quality, thoroughly enjoyable addition to the genre. Plus it’s apparently the first such movie with an Asian (actually HAPA) protagonist.
(It’s not quite as notable as it would like to be in those terms. She attends high school in some mythical West Coast suburb, but I don’t remember seeing any other Asian kids besides her sisters. But at least the three sisters offer pretty nuanced, complex, and different versions of what it means to be an affluent HAPA kid.)
The young actors are great, and John Corbett plays the awfully nice dad.
@JHS D21 has been raving about that! We’re going to watch it together this week.
This is old (2008) but found “Express” on HBO yesterday…really good! Had never heard of it, but it’s the story of Ernie Davis, first black man to win the Heisman Trophy.
@ProfessorPlum168 , Sorry, but I really think you completely miss the point of the article, which argues AGAINST such criticisms of Joy Luck Club as unjustified.
BTW, I am willing to bet that I am possibly the only person in this discussion who saw Chan is Missing in a theater when it was first released. Maybe I’m wrong… B-)
I saw Chan is Missing in a theater but not in the first run…
@Consolation I also enjoyed Guernsey last week. And besides a small role in Wild and a few episodes of Nashville, I want to see other M. Huisman movies.
He is also in the TV series Treme–which I loved–and in Game of Thrones.
I just saw the preview of Operation FInale with Ben Kingsley, about the capture of Adolf Eichmann. I was on the edge of my seat!! Excellent film!
@Consolation no I didn’t miss anything. You are the one missing things. The article clearly states that because of all the discrimination in Hollywood, the misrepresentation of Asians as seen in movies by Westeners is clearly wrong because it was the only movie that Westeners could judge by. Imagine if the Color Purple was the only movie ever made depicting black people. The article clearly points out that the Asian world shunned Joy Luck Club because of all its kowtowing to how Westerners would want women to act and how men were portrayed as nothing. The article’s point was that now that CRA is here now, the wrongs that Joy Luck Club portrayed can finally be cast aside.
I could have pointed out dozens of articles showing the Asian critical side of things, but I chose to show an article that was somewhat balanced in belief.
Until more here have seen CRA, I’m holding back. But it is not, to my non-Asian mind, the film that will bring great further understanding of this culture.
@JHS I loved that movie so much and it’s refreshing to see an Asian teenage girl as the romantic lead and how modest the love story was portrayed. I also enjoyed Netflix’s The Kissing Booth. I didn’t think I’d like it as much as To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, but to my surprise, I did! It’s different than the Asian gal movie, but covers the same teenage angst theme. What I especially loved was that Molly Ringwald plays the mother of the hottie and he reminded me of Jake from Sixteen Candles!
@ProfessorPlum168 In what way did Joy Luck Club “misrepresent” Chinese immigrant women of that generation and their daughters? Be specific. Tell me what about their varied experiences as children and young women in China was “wrong.” Apparently you resent a feminist view in which men and their concerns are not front and center. I’m willing to bet big $$ that you wouldn’t have objected to a movie largely about Chinese MEN that as is the norm in most movies miserably failed the Bechdel Test.
Frankly, I think that CRA cannot in any way support the cultural weight that some people are trying to put on it. And the idea that the “culture” it shows is some wonderfully positive thing is ludicrous. You think that the shrieking, rich, jealous, scheming party girls in CRA are POSITIVE portrayals of Asian women, and the ones in JLC are not? Can you be serious?
I guess we will just have to agree to disagree.
@Consolation the book and the movie played up to the stereotypes that women should be docile flowers and that Asian men are evil and women could only be saved by white men. This is how Amy Tan made her money, playing up to the silly Western beliefs. Why do you think that Asian women are the most popular in match.com? Because of portrayals like this. The point you are also missing is that Asian men were portrayed as being a$$holes and worthless, that only white men were worthy of these women marrying, and this was literally the only all-Asian English speaking movie that Westeners saw over the last 25 years. As the article correctly pointed out, if there were other movies out there with a notable Asian cast, then this movie would just be a laughable POS movie that no one would care about.
@ProfessorPlum168 I have to respectfully disagree with your take on Joy Luck Club. People have to remember the book is set in the 1980s San Francisco (daughters were grown) with flashbacks to 1920-1940. I was pulled into the immigrant mother-American daughter relationships: The Tiger Mom, the Critical Mom, the Subservient Mom…all of those Asian stereotypes I completely related to them. I’ve watched JLC more than once and I know an author and director have nailed it when it’s made me cry and feel deeply each time. That’s how good Amy Tan got the family “auntie” relationships, the sense of duty and sacrifice and also the frustration of growing up a first gen and all the expectations pinned on you…she did it brilliantly. She even captured the envy and jealousy that sometimes exist among first gen Asian girls, that drive to be better than the other gal (“cousin”) and give your parents something to brag about. How Tan portrayed the family parties, the abundance of food (omg the crab scene!), several generations and of course mahjong were spot on. Lastly, Tan’s movie opened my eyes to seeing my mother differently. It forced me to see her hardships in leaving her family, her motherland in order to give us a better life. Instead of resenting her for not understanding me, I became sympathetic.
Now, CRA, while I liked the movie, I did not relate to these types of Asian characters. It didn’t detract from my enjoyment though. Is it realistic that mostly all the Asians in the movie spoke with an English accent? I come from humble beginnings, so the over the top expenditures were unreal to me and frankly a waste!
Yes the CRA movie showed Asian men to the Western world in a very positive light and there’s absolutely nothing wrong about that. And it’s about time. What is your point?