'Minari' director Isaac Lee Chung and Steven Yeun.
OPINION
I'm still a little disturbed that Hollywood seems more prepared to embrace Asians if they aren't American, but can't hold American artists who are of Asian descent in the same high esteem.
This is the second consecutive year that the Oscars went to an Asian film director. South Korean director Bong Joon-ho won best director and best picture last year for the Korean language Parasite.
Don't get me wrong. I have no argument for the extremely talented Chloe Zhao winning the Best Director Oscar. Hopefully, her success will spill over on Asian American directors, writers, producers and actors.
Despite being born and raised in China, Zhao has made three films that are quintessentially American. Besides Nomadland, she also helmed The Rider and Songs By Brother Taught Me, all taking place in the American West.
In her art, she has been able to capture slices of America most people would never encounter if not for her movies. By mixing nonprofessional actors with real actors, she has been able to show the souls of their characters and the locales where the stories take place.
But -- for me, she was my second choice. I was rooting for Isaac Lee Chung to win the director's prize. I know, just by being nominated, Chung has reached an achievement no other Asian American has reached.
His story and direction on Minari was detailed and nuanced and he did it all minus the star power of Oscar-winner Frances McDormand and the big studio support of Disney, which is considerable.
Chung had an uphill climb to get his movie made. Minari went against all the Hollywood rules for a successful movie featuring Asian Americans: A Korean immigrant family? Dialogue mostly spoken in Korean? No real bad guys? No martial arts? No sex scenes? No violence?
After being a Hollywood outsider at the start of his career, Chung is starting to view Hollywood with a different lens. Viewing filmmaking as art can be spiritually fulfilling but what good is art if no one sees it? His previous feature, Munyurangabo, was made in Rwanda and in a Rwandan dialect. It was critically acclaimed and became film festival favorite. But still: Outside looking in.
Steven Yeun is a star, but has not yet reached the legend-level of McDormand whose previous Oscars were for 1998's Fargo and Three Billboards Outside Ebbings, Missouri in 2018. Her name alone could carry a movie.
Yeun's depiction of the father in Minari is restrained, underplayed. There is plenty of conflict and emotion, but it is mostly played out in Yeun's face and body language. I think (A gut feeling. I have no data to back this up.) an Asian or Asian American can better see the wave emotions building up behind the Yeun's mask than viewers of other ethnicities.
It is easier to be outwardly emotional: shouting, sobbing, acting hysterically,throwing things around a room, making black and white choices. That's easily interpreted by western eyes. That's acting from a Hollywood point of view.
To me, Yeun's performance was more difficult because audiences didn't know him as well as they know legendary actor Anthony Hopkins. You know what to expect from Hopkins, who won the Best Actor Oscar for his role in The Father. Despite playing different characters in the roles he plays, he still is Anthony Hopkins, with that British accent (which Americans adore too much, by the way), the world-weary eyes, every motion calculated.
On the other hand, Yeun -- despite his popularity among The Walking Dead fans -- is a blank slate to most audiences. Where does one start? To most viewers, he just goes through the motions of delivering the words given to him. But he speaks volumes: a tightening in the jaw; a seed of doubt in the eyes; a posture of resignation or steel resolve. It is harder to see the struggles he's going through because -- well, because he's Asian and his culture and the way he was raised told him not to reveal his emotions, but in ways so subtle, he shows us he's on an emotional roller coaster.
And as a final push for the Academy voter, there's that lingering flicker of doubt: He's an American actor playing a foreigner. Voting for and Asian American -- either Chung or Yeun -- would be making a political statement in this era of anti-Asian sentiment. (The same reasoning applies to pre-telecast favorite Chadwick Boseman because of the Black Lives Matter movement.)
Picking Hopkins, a British citizen and well-known acting quantity, and for that matter, Chinese citizen Chloe Zhao (or Bong Joon-ho) is safer than making the tougher -- but more controversial -- choice. By voting for Joon-ho or Zhao, Hollywood can show their preference towards diversity by picking foreigners, but at the same time, not upset the apple cart for what they perceive (incorrectly, by the way) is their primary audience -- Whites in America. This inoffensive decision is a way of putting Asian American in their nonthreatening place -- in line, but not at the front.
Of course, not everyone agrees with me. In fact, I may be in the minority. Most of the reaction for the wins by Asians and Asian Americans were greeted with high praise and jubilation.
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