Fans fight to save 'Into the Badlands'

Into the Badlands has been cancelled, and with the series' demise, dies one of the strongest portrayals of Asian men on American television 

While sitcoms like Fresh Off the Boat, the Mindy Project and Master of None were winning over fans with inoffensive laughs, Daniel Wu, who stars in Into the Badlands, was challenging viewers to change their perception of Asian men created by a century of stereotyping.

Wu let fans know in a tweet announcing the second half premiere of Season 3, which will air March 24, that the show that he helped create has been cancelled by AMC. 

thatdanielwuGood news always comes with bad news. First the good: #IntoTheBadlands returns. The final episodes premiere on @AMC_TV on March 24. The bad: after these 8 episodes air that will be the end of the show. The bad is obviously a lot worse than the good, especially for all of you who have supported with so much passion over the past three seasons. Thank you for your support. We always had you in mind while making this as we wanted to give you the best martial arts action show to ever appear on tv and I think we achieved that. But that wouldn’t have been possible without you! So thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

AMC didn't give a reason for the cancellation. The network recently declared the cancellation of the adventure series duringthe Television Critics Association winter press tour, However, after the series debut season, viewership had been dropping.

Fans are upset that AMC didn't promote the show as well as it could. In terms of media coverage, the martial arts epic received very little attention. 

Those same fans of the series that takes place in dystopian America are not taking Badlands' demise sitting down. Led by superfan CoolGuyJ, he wants fans to use social media to bring attention to the show in hopes that another network like SyFy or streamers Netflix, Amazon, Hulu or some other streaming service.

It might seem like a long shot, but the strategy of an uprising of fans has worked before, most notably by Star Trek fans who gave the series another two seasons, The Mindy Project and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, both of which got picked up by Hulu.

 

Besides Wu, who has been overlooked as a romantic lead because of his prowess as a badass fighter, Into the Badlands features a diverse cast, provides strong roles for women and the best - bar none - martial arts sequences on television, thanks to its Hong Kong stuntmen and legendary fight choreographer Huan-Chiu Ku.

Watch this fight where Wu, as Sunny, fights off the bad guys with a ladder and typewriter -- ala Jackie Chan.

Cast members took to social media to express their sentiments. 

Teressa Liane (who played Angelica) starred in the very first three episodes of season one)
wrote on Twitter: ”#IntoTheBadlands I had such an amazing time working on this show and I’m sure it’ll be a super-charged, kickass final season! Big love to you all!”

Lewis Tan (Gaius Chau) tweeted: “The final battle. The final season. I promise it will be bloody worth the wait. The epic TWO-night premiere begins March 24 on AMC. We love you all and we made history with this groundbreaking show.

“I am sad but also at the same time grateful and honoured to be part of a martial art legacy. We put everything into this season and raised the bar high.”

With the cancellation of Into the Badlands, the Asian American community has a lot to lose. As a kid, I had to go to Chinatown and J-town to watch Asian male heroes in the theater. Because of Into thte Badlands, young Asian American youngsters could see and identify with heroes who don't take crap from anyone, defend the weak and uphold honor, who most importantly look like them.

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AAPI advocates protest deportation of Southeast Asians

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The Feb. 27 press conference protesting the deportations took place on the Capitol steps.

A coalition of Asian American agencies and immigrant organizations in collaboration with the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus denounced Donald Trump’s deportation of refugees and long-term lawful permanent residents who resettled in the U.S. after fleeing conflict in Southeast Asia.

Currently, more than 14,000 Southeast Asian Americans have been given an order of removal since 1998. The majority of these individuals resettled in the United States as refugees after the Vietnam War. 

“As this Administration continues to terrorize immigrant and refugee communities, it is crucial that our elected leaders not only speak out against the Administration’s sweeping anti-immigrant agenda but also do everything in their power to put in place real protections for our communities," said Phi Nguyen, litigation director at Asian Americans Advancing Justice | Atlanta.

RELATED: Senators seek end of deportations

The organizations taking part in a press conference Tuesday (Feb. 27) in Washington D.C., included Asian Americans Advancing Justice, Southeast Asia Resource Action Center, Southeast Asian Freedom Network, and the Vietnamese Anti-Deportation Network representing refugees from Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam.

Some of these refugees became involved in criminal activity after being relocated into struggling neighborhoods. After two decades, many have already served their sentences, started families, and rejoined society before Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) began trying to deport these individuals. 

These immigrant and refugees are facing a large increase in ICE’s detention and deportation efforts, including the agency’s continued overspending to detain more individuals than annually appropriated.

Since the start of Trump’s Administration, deportations of Southeast Asian Americans have drastically increased. Deportations of Cambodian Americans increased by 279% between 2017 and 2018, and Vietnamese Americans saw a 68% increase in the same timeframe.

Additionally, the Administration has unilaterally reinterpreted the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the United States and Vietnam to allow the US to deport pre-95 Vietnamese Americans, a clear deviation from previous interpretations of the MOU. The Administration has also placed visa sanctions on Laos to pressure the country to accept individuals awaiting removal.

“Southeast Asian communities have been devastated by the relentless attacks and rampant ICE arrests within our neighborhoods," said Sina Sam, community organizer with Khmer Anti-deportation Advocacy Group and the Southeast Asian Freedom Network

"The recent death of Mr. Sophorn San after his deportation to Cambodia in December, along with ICE’s intent to deport another 200 Cambodian Americans this year, have placed our communities in an extreme state of duress.

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In case you missed it: Scenes from the Oscars

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Ashley Graham, Jason Momoa and Lisa Bonet on the Red Carpet of the Oscars.

Thanks to Crazy Rich Asians' success and the #OscarsSoWhite movement, there were more Asians seen at the Academy Awards Sunday night. 

RELATED: Asian and Asian American Oscar winners.

Here are some additional notes from the Academy Awards that you might not have seen answers why Crazy Rich Asians star Constance Wu wore a yellow gown, the most embarassing question of the night, and how director Jon M. Chu saw the evening.

Let's get straight to the embarrassing question first. Model Ashley Graham was interviewing Jason Momoa and his wife Lisa Bonet and things were going great until Graham asked Momoa to perform a "haka move."

The Aquaman star was taken aback and looked to his wife as if to ask, "Really? Did she just ask me to do a haka?"

The haka is a Maori war dance traditionally used on the battlefield to intimidate the enemy, as well as when groups came together as a gesture of greeting or honor.

At the premiere of Aquaman, Momoa did perform a haka with Maori members of the cast because the film used a lot of Maori elements. Other Polynesian groups have adopted the  tradition and adapted it to their culture. The haka was a way for the Maori cast members to launch the movie. Momoa is of Hawaiian descent.

“I gotta get a haka move,” Graham asked Momoa.

“I gotta get like one haka move, like come on,” she continued insisted, as Momoa had that moment of disbelief.

However, Bonet was not having it. She was seen putting her hand up and shaking her head in as if to say it was not appropriate.

Good sport Momoa eventually gave in and gave a half-hearted haka face with his tongue stuck out. By then the interview was over and Bonet pulled on Momoa and was seen giving an eye-roll at the ignorant request from Graham.

The Internet didn't take kindly to the insensitivity of the moment.

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Constance Wu look smashing in her yellow gown. Her choice of color wasn't just to stand out from the crowd. She wanted to make a statement based on the moving letter CRA director Jon M. Chu wrote to Cold Play for the permission of using their song "Yellow" for the movie.

She wrote in an Instagram post:

"I chose this color because it made me happy and also was inspired by @jonmchu‘s moving letter to @coldplay about our movie’s closing song cover of “Yellow” in @crazyrichasians,"

Chu asked the band Cold Play why the song Yellow meant so much to him because while growing up, "yellow" was used as a racist slur to demean East Asians. But, upon hearing the song "Yellow" it was the first time the color was associated with beauty.

"For the first time in my life, it described the color in the most beautiful, magical ways I had ever heard: the color of the stars, her skin, the love. It was an incredible image of attraction and aspiration that it made me rethink my own self image," the letter continued. It immediately became an anthem for me and my friends and gave us a new sense of pride we never felt before. We could reclaim the color for ourselves and it has stuck with me for the majority of my life," Chu added.

Cold Play immediately gave permission for the song's use in the film. It was at the end of the movie as the credits rolled and sung in Mandarin by Katherine Ho.

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Speaking Jon M. Chu ... here are some posts from the Chinese American director, Awkwafina, Gemma Chan and Constance Wu taken at the awards ceremony or immediately after.

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Advertisers crazy over the rich Asian American market

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Liberty Mutual has been running this ad since 2015 featuring actress Midori Francis and her car named 'Brad.'

Have you noticed the number of Asian Americans on television lately? State Farm is launching a new ad campaign targeted at the Asian American market.

Two TV spots have been planned as part of the insurance company's campaign. The new campaign will run in English and across Asian print and digital platforms, “with the intent of generating positive associations that reach a wide demographic of Asian Americans,” a release said.

Whether it's insurance, automobiles, credit cards, homes, fashion, legal advice, financial planning, or smart phones, marketers direct their pitches to the most likely consumers. Advertising agencies are not making a big deal out of inclusion, they're simply practicing good business sense.

The buying power of Asian Americans has reached $986 billion in 2017, and is projected to hit $1.3 trillion by 2022, according to Nielsen. Asians Americans are the least likely group to be promoted to managers in America, according to the Harvard Business Review. That sad misunderstanding or ignorance may be changing. 

Truth is, marketers, those people trying to sell you a product or a service, do extensive studies and make decisions based on data. Marketing to Asian Americans is targetting an audience most likely to buy or use your product.

While Nielsen has been touting the Asian American market the last few years, few advertisers have been slow to grasp reality. Certainly, until Crazy Rich Asians' hugely profitable box office, Hollywood basically ignored Asian Americans either as talent or as an audience.

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Nissan teamed up with Star Wars: The Last Jedi, riffing off of actress Kelly Marie Tran's portrayal of heroine Rose Rico with this Asian American daughter learning how to drive.

Claritas, LLC®, a marketing leader that helps companies find and win their best customers, just unveiled a new report, "The Asian American Market Report." This report provides never-before-available insight into the buying behavior of Asian Americans, which can provide a key advantage to marketers who want to target this lucrative consumer segment.

“We are always looking for ways to build meaningful relationships with multicultural consumers though cultural insights,” said State Farm advertising director Ed Gold in a statement. “This creative work strikes a balance of providing information while recognizing and respecting cultural nuances.”

Asian Americans today represent the fastest-growing population segment in the United States, with 84 percent growth since 2000. Numbering over 19 million in 2019, the Asian American population is expected to continue to explode. In fact, the U.S. Asian population will add a projected 1,323 new members every day from 2019 to 2024. Compare this to the traditional majority “white” population, which is expected to lose 165 members every day in the next five years.

The fast-growing Asian American consumer segment has impressive buying power, with average household income of $116,319. That’s 36 percent greater than overall average U.S. household income. A whopping 24 percent of Asian households will earn $150,000 or more this year.

Asian American households also spend 21 percent more annually on consumer goods and services than the average U.S. household. They spend:

• Around $100 per month on entertainment – 45 percent more than the average U.S. household
• Around $3,000 annually on apparel – 15 percent more than the average U.S. household
• Roughly $5,000 annually on food at home – about 6 percent more than the average U.S. household
• Almost $12,000 annually on transportation, including new cars and trucks – around 10 percent more than the average U.S. household

“The face of America is evolving, and marketers need to recognize how population and demographic changes in the United States will affect their business success in the coming years,” said Karthik Iyer, COO at Claritas. “Claritas can help marketers understand exactly how to target specific customer segments such as Asian Americans – often with amazing results.”

For instance, one food producer wanted to increase sales for a product line it believed would appeal to U.S. Hispanic and Asian communities. It turned to the Claritas company Geoscape for data that would help its retailers identify the most likely buyers and deliver the right inventory and message to those consumers based on which specific multicultural communities shopped at each store. The result? Sales grew 300 percent in just one year.

So what is the best way to reach Asian Americans? LinkedIn is a good place to start, given that Asian Americans are two times more likely than average to use the platform. So are mobile-related social media strategies, given that Asian Americans are 23 percent more likely than the average U.S. household to access social media on their smartphones.

“At Claritas, we help companies find and cost-effectively connect with their best customers by digging deep into the buying and media usage behaviors of specific U.S. population segments – whether those are based on demographics, media usage, cultural or other factors,” Iyer said.

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Xfinity used an Asian American family to promote its Internet service.

While the marketing numbers may be encouraging, it is important that we don't fall into the trap of stereotyping all Asian Americans as crazy rich, or part of the annoying "model minority." Other studies have shown the AAPI community having the largest gap between those that have a lot to spend and those who barely eke by.

Marketing to the Asian American community is crazy complicated. The most common  mistake advertisers make is to assume that Asian Americans are a homogenous demographic. 

There are almost two-dozen Asian cultural and language subgroups in the AAPI community; when someone's family comes to the U.S. divides AAPIs even further. You can't market to a first-generation immigrant the same way to an Asian American whose family is several generations U.S. citizens; and then there are generational differences between older AAPI's clinging to tradition and Gen X and Millennials.

So ... when Gerbers, makers of baby food, picked its Spokesbaby of the Year, Kairi Yang from Hickory, North Carolina. was it simply coincidence that the infant happened to be Hmong American? Or was there another motive in play, considering the growing Asian American community and its demographics showing that Asian Americans tend to be younger than the rest of their fellow Americans and more likely to be raising young families.

GERBER

Expect to see lots of Kairy Yang in Gerber advertising and on its website this year.

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Gerber picks Hmong American baby as this year's spokesbaby

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This is the photoof Baby Kairi  that grabbed the judge's attention.

Baby Kairi doesn't know what all the fuss is about. She doesn't care she's made some history. All she cares about is that she is loved and fed and all she has to do is smile or laugh.

Today, Gerber announced an adorable new addition to the Gerber family with the winner of its ninth annual Photo Search. Baby Kairi from Hickory, North Carolina intrigued the judging panel with her delicate expression and the look of wonder in her eyes.

"As soon as we saw her photo, we fell in love with Kairi's expressive eyes and angelic face, looking toward the future and being excited for all that it holds," said Bill Partyka, President and CEO, Gerber. "We believe that every baby is a Gerber baby, and this year, are thrilled to recognize Kairi as the new face of Gerber."

Kairi was chosen as this year's Spokesbaby among a record-breaking 544,000 entries on Instagram. As the face of Gerber for the year, Kairi will be featured on Gerber's social media channels and her family will receive $50,000.

Kairi is the first Gerber baby of Hmong descent. The Hmong people are an ethnic group from East and Southeast Asia.

“Hmong in our eyes is all about the close bonds we have with our relatives during life and afterlife,” Kairi’s mother, Ying Vue, told Today. The new spokesbaby shares a home with her parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. Her family plans to teach her to read and write in the Hmong language.

“Being surrounded by all her family has been a very positive influence on Kairi’s life, especially when it comes to preserving our culture and tradition,” added her mom, who is a native of Thailand.

GERBER / VUE

Baby Kairi will ghave a strong sense of her Hmong heritage, according to her parents Ying Vue and Peter Yang.

"When we first found out Kairi won, we were speechless and couldn't believe it. We are beyond thrilled that our sweet Kairi is Gerber's 2019 Spokesbaby," said Kairi's mom, Ying Vue. "Kairi's personality is larger than life, and she always maintains a spunky attitude. We hope Kairi's one-of-a-kind, entertaining personality and vibrant facial expressions radiate positivity around the world, just like she does in our home every single day!"

Launched in 2010, Photo Search was inspired by the countless photos received over the years of parents who see their little ones in Gerber's iconic baby logo, which features the original Gerber baby, Ann Turner Cook.

USKA WELCH

Each year, Photo Search continues to grow bigger. Seeing how the world has embraced the welcoming of each Spokesbaby, Gerber is planning to launch Photo Search globally ahead of its 10th anniversary to continue celebrating babies from all communities.

Gerber's commitment to do Anything for Baby, which ensures all babies get off to the best start possible, continues commemorating babies and toddlers of all ages and backgrounds.

Kairi is not the first Asian American baby given this honor. In 2016, picked Isla Isla Welch for her fantastic hair and captivating smile. Now at 3 ½ years old, Isla lives in Troy, Michigan, with her mom, dad, big sister (Nora), baby brother (Jack) and family cat Finnegan.

Kairi's photos and additional information about Photo Search 2018 and Gerber can be found by visiting Gerber's Facebook Page or Gerber's Spokesbaby website.
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Mysterious Filipina super hero to debut in Marvel universe

The Asian superheroes as the Agents of Atlas. 

Marvel plans to introduce a new set of Asian superheros in an upcoming storyline.The War of the Realms.

While characters like Crescent, Luna Snow, Aero, and Sword Master are making their first appearance in a comic, they’ve previously premiered on other platforms. They will be joined by Wave, a mysterious new hero from the Philippines. Marvel has been on her character so her abilities are still unknown but fans speculate -- because of her name -- her powers involves water.

Debuting in May 2019 is a new host of Asian heroes prepared to defend the world against (yet another) alien invasion, according to a press release.

Amadeus Cho, the Chinese Hulk, rallies his band of Asian heroes into the new Agents of Atlas -- including Shang-Chi, Silk, Jimmy Woo along with new heroes Crescent, Io, and Luna Snow -- to defend the Pacific Rim against the intergalactic threat.

Wave “is sure to play a pivotal role in the new team’s desperate bid to defend Asia from Malekith’s fiery allies,” according to CBR.com. Hopefully, all this mystery surrounding her character only means there will be a lot of in-universe build-up to her character.

The publisher teases that when the titular War of the Realms begins, "no corner of the Marvel Universe will be untouched" and that "all hell will break loose" involving War of the Realms will see not only Asgard, but also Alfheim, Heven, Jotunheim, Muspelheim, Niffleheim, Nidavellir, Svartalfheim and Vanaheim all fall to Malekith the Accursed and his army. Eventually, Malekith turns his attention to Earth.

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UCLA Diversity Report: Hollywood representation improving but still have a long way to go

Despite slight gains, especially among women, Hollywood is still falling short in representing what America looks like, circa 2019, according to UCLA's annual report card on the entertainment industry's progress on inclusion.

Wonder Woman took moviegoers by storm in 2017, taking in more than $820 million in ticket sales worldwide. And Patty Jenkins’ role as director of the blockbuster was part of a positive — if possibly short-lived — trend for women directors that year.

Counting each year’s 200 top-grossing films, the number of women directors nearly doubled from 2016 to 2017, according to the newest UCLA Hollywood Diversity Report, The report by the UCLA College Division of Social Science. was published the same day as the Academy Award telecast.

Even with the doubing of the representation of women directors, the annual record was still poor: There were just 21 women directors among the 167 English-language films from 2017’s top 200, or just 12.6 percent of the total. 

Surprisingly, early analysis of 2018’s top movies indicates the increase was just a one-year blip despite the box office success and social impact of hits Crazy Rich Asians and Black Panther.

The 2016-2017 report examined 12 different job titles among the creators, directors and top-billed cast of the top movies for 2017 as well as 1,316 broadcast television, cable and digital shows from the 2016–17 programming season. It found that behind the scenes and in front of the camera, advances for people of color and women remain fairly incremental, if not stubbornly static — and found that minorities and women remain mostly underrepresented compared with their share of the population overall.

“For six years the Hollywood Diversity Report has objectively taken stock of where the entertainment industry stands on racial and gender diversity, knowing that there can be no reform without a reckoning,” said Darnell Hunt, the report’s co-lead author and dean of the UCLA College Division of Social Sciences.

2018's box office results reaffirm that audiences do demand diverse content. For example, Crazy Rich Asians has earned more than $285 million globally, and Black Panther has earned more than $1.3 billion in addition to seven Academy Award nominations, including the first-ever best picture nod for a superhero film.

“Every year the data have shown that film and television content that feature diverse casts typically make more money and enjoy higher ratings and audience engagement,” Hunt said. “We feel confident our partners in Hollywood today see the value of diversity in ways that they did not before we began sharing our report.”

According to the report, women’s representation among actors in three types of TV content — scripted broadcast, cable and digital programming — is inching closer to women’s 50 percent share of the population overall.

“We’ve seen modest advances when it comes to movies and films,” said Ana-Christina Ramon, director of research and civic engagement for the Division of Social Sciences, and the report’s other lead author. “But deep-seated power systems — dominated by white male decision-makers at the highest levels — are hard to break. The kind of structural change necessary for a new order of business in the film industry has yet to happen, and pushing for it will require sustained vigilance and awareness.”

The report found, those whose casts were 31 to 40 percent minority actors earned the most at the box office. And films with at least 51 percent minority actors earned the greatest return on investment, because they generally cost less to make than other top films but still performed well at the box office.

Among the top 200 films of 2017 were blockbuster hits Wonder Woman (which was a boundary-breaking movie for women in front and behind the camera), Star Wars: The Last Jedi (which centered around Star Wars' first Asian American hero played by Kelly Marie Tran), and The Big Sick, (the romantic comedy that preceded Crazy Rich Asians and which starred Kumail Nanjiani). 

'The Big Sick' helped improve with an Indian American lead romantic interest helped boost representation in 2017.

Perhaps what opened the eyes of Hollywood's studio heads, the report also found that minority ticket buyers accounted for the majority of ticket sales for five of the top 10 grossing films.

Among white, black and Asian American TV viewers, ratings for broadcast scripted programs were highest when the shows’ casts were made up of between 31 and 40 percent minority actors. Among Latino households and viewers ages 18 to 49, the broadcast scripted shows that had the highest ratings were those with casts that had between 11 and 20 percent minority actors.

The report noted that the ever-broadening landscape for TV-related programming created by Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and other streaming services has created a tailwind for gender and racial diversity.

“It’s clear the increased number of original programs alone has helped grow the share of the pie for minorities and women,” Hunt said.

Among the report’s other findings:

Gains for women and minorities in film and television:

• The number of minority actors with lead roles in films increased from 13.9 percent in 2016 to 19.8 percent in 2017. But that’s a large difference from their share of the overall population, which is about 40 percent minority.
• Women held 32.9 percent of lead acting roles in movies, up from 31.2 percent in 2016, but still far short of their share of 50 percent of the overall population.
• Minorities held 21.3 percent of lead acting roles in scripted digital programming, a significant leap from the 12.9 percent tracked in last year’s report.
• Just 9.4 percent of show creators for scripted broadcast programs were minorities, up from 7.1 percent the prior season.
• The number of minority actors with lead roles in broadcast scripted shows increased to 21.5 percent from 18.7 percent.
• Women’s share of lead roles in broadcast scripted shows increased to 39.7 percent, from 35.7 percent in 2015–16.
• Women were 34.8 percent of the show creators for scripted digital programs, up slightly from 2015–16 at 31.5 percent

GRAPHIC BY UCLA

The status quo:

• The number of minority actors with lead roles in films increased from 13.9 percent in 2016 to 19.8 percent in 2017. But that’s a large difference from their share of the overall population, which is about 40 percent minority.
• Women held 32.9 percent of lead acting roles in movies, up from 31.2 percent in 2016, but still far short of their share of 50 percent of the overall population.
• Minorities held 21.3 percent of lead acting roles in scripted digital programming, a significant leap from the 12.9 percent tracked in last year’s report.
• Just 9.4 percent of show creators for scripted broadcast programs were minorities, up from 7.1 percent the prior season.
• The number of minority actors with lead roles in broadcast scripted shows increased to 21.5 percent from 18.7 percent.
• Women’s share of lead roles in broadcast scripted shows increased to 39.7 percent, from 35.7 percent in 2015–16.
• Women were 34.8 percent of the show creators for scripted digital programs, up slightly from 2015–16 at 31.5 percent.

The status quo:

• Among the directors of the English-language films from the 200 films, 12.6 percent were minorities, unchanged from 2016.
• Just 7.8 percent of the top films were written by minority writers, roughly equal to the 2016 figure.
• Minorities made up 16.5 percent of the creators of digital scripted shows, essentially unchanged.

Future reports from the Hollywood Diversity team at UCLA will focus on how the entertainment industry can adopt practices that are proven to increase inclusion of diverse talent, understand where such practices have been deployed and how they have factored into the creation of diverse content that diverse audiences demand.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Views From the Edge will take a deeper dive into television's diversitiy in a future posting.

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Asian American wins and notes at the Academy Awards

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ELIZABETH CHAI VASARTHELY & JIMMY CHIN.

Two Asian American directors won Oscars for their work for Free Solo, which won in the Best Feature Documentary category last night.

Behind every film is an army of technicians, artists and in the case of Free Solo, some daredevil cameramen for their shots of lex Honnold’s death-defying quest to perform a free solo (no harness or safety ropes) climb up El Capitan in Yosemite National Park.

Heading this army for Free Solo are co-directors lizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, two Asian Americans who dared to film the incredible feat. The first thing Vasarhelyi did was to thank "National Geographic" for hiring “women and people of color, they only help make the films better.”

Also nominated in the same category was Minding the Gap, the debut film from skateboarder Bing Liu.

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Ruth Carter won Best Costume Design for her work for Black Panther, but she gave a shoutout to Anthony Francisco, a Filipino American for Marvel's visual development team. Francisco got some of the inspiration for the costume of the Dora Milaje, the elite women warriors in Wakanda, from the indigenous tribes of the Philippines and samurai armor.

Francisco credits Carter as  "the only costume designer I know that mentions the Visual Development team at Marvel often. She even mentioned me by name. I don’t blame the people that assume she’s a costume designer. That’s usually how it works anyways, but in this case, it was a little different.”

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Anthony Francisco and the costume worn by Wakanda's elite warriors in 'Black Panther.'

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Bao won an Oscar for best animated short film. Director Domee Shi told The Chronicle ithat the touching 8-minute short is inspired by her own life growing up in Canada with Chinese parents."

"I'm an only child with Chinese parents, so I was very protected. I'd always been my mom's 'little dumpling,'" Shi told the Chronicle. "It was a challenge to put myself in my mom's shoes and try to understand things from her point of view, not just from the kid's perspective who's being smothered. That became the spark, to create a modern-day fairy tale with vibes of the Little Gingerbread Man (whose mother bakes him, only to have him run away), but do a Chinese version of it."

Director Domee Shi, left, and bao from the animated short of the same name.

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The Oscar for Best Documentary Short went to Period. End of Sentence, a documentary that tackles the stigma around menstruation in rural India. The film is directed by 25-year-old Iranian American filmmakers Melissa Berton and Rayka Zehtabchi, who, upon receiving her statuette, said, "I can’t believe a film about menstruation just won an Oscar!” 

“A period should end a sentence, not a girl’s education,” concluded Berton.

Producer Guneet Monga tweeted after her win: "We won! To every girl on earth, know that you are a goddess,"

The film was created by The Pad Project, an organization established by an inspired group of students at the Oakwood School in Los Angeles and their teacher, Melissa Berton. The 26-minute film follows girls and women in Hapur, Uttar Pradesh and their experience with the installation of a pad machine in their village.

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The filmmakers of 'Period. End of Sentence' accept their Academy Award.

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The cast of Crazy Rich Asians looked fantastic as they represented and presented awards in various categories. On stage as presenters were Awkwafina, Michelle Yeoh and Constance Wu.

Jason Momoa and Lisa Bonet are pretty in pink.

Jason Mamoa (Aquaman) apparently is comfortable in his masculinity because he wore a pink tuxedo, to match his wife Lisa Bonet's gown.

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