Name 20 of your favorite Asian hollywood stars
I'll wait...
When I was about 13, I found myself in the office of a casting agent in downtown Toronto. When I was a toddler, my parents got me into modeling. I was mainly in Sears catalogs but my biggest claim to baby-fame was a two second spot in a McDonald’s commercial. I have a few other first memories as the fog of childhood amnesia began to lift, and one of them includes an Oreo commercial audition (which I don’t get). I was somewhere between 4 and 6 years old and I faintly recall looking over at these kids beside me, wondering who might beat me. Out of the gate, I was sizing up and being sized.
The fantasy of getting paid to smile at a camera, tapped my shoulder again in my early teenage years. I was in the thick of the hardest years of bullying. For whatever reason, my cuteness eroded when my age hit double digits. My teeth gapped, the front set drifting further from the bottom. My hair slinked bluntly on my neck, not an ounce of bounce. My scoliosis was carving out a new posture for me, and my body was doing what it does to most other pre-teens: tortures it.
After I had dipped my toes into what would be the beginning of an obsession with celebrity culture, I started favoring a life that was “anywhere but here.” I recalled my luck in booking gigs when I was a child so I unsnapped my head gear, unbuckled my back brace, found some pink eyeshadow, and asked my dad about getting an agent again.
He felt hesitant, likely worried that my unplucked eyebrows might forever frown if turned away. After telling him I was old enough to take rejection, he exhaled a long Dad-sigh and said, “If its your dream, let’s go for it.” I slightly remember him telling me if I ever felt uncomfortable that I’d promise we’d stop right away. He called up some agencies in the city and one followed up.
I grabbed my favorite top, a quarter length pale pink knit with a boatneck. I put that on with a mid-shin length skirt, pearlescent with multi-colored polyester fibers. I also packed a nice set of under garments which was more like my dance leotard, because the agency wanted to see if I had the body for swimsuit and underwear catalogs.
The exact details of the audition are blurry, but some moments come into sharp focus like a sudden, deep papercut. I do remember telling myself to stop being so shaky when I was showing the woman my “walk” in my dance onesie. I remember feeling confident that I made her laugh. Then I’m back in my pink sweater with my dad on the opposite end of a desk with headshots of models splayed everywhere. I feel weird that this person just saw me in my underwear and now we’re waiting for the summary of her thoughts. There was a man in a suit there too. It didn’t matter if he saw my body or not, because they must have discussed it together. He was the one who spoke the words that ended my pursuit of modeling and acting:
“Courtney is not thin enough for runway and there isn’t any demand for Asian girls her age.”
I always thought I was pretty normal size, but hearing it said by a complete stranger who’s business it was to “know these things” felt final. It’s my naivety that makes me more pissed than anything. If you can call it luck, I didn’t concentrate too much on their words about not being the right weight. There was a more looming issue that I couldn’t diet myself out of, “No demand for Asian girls my age.”
I knew there weren’t any girls who looked like me on tv, but I thought maybe someone might take a chance on me and I could be the first. “You’re wrong, Lucy Liu and Mulan,” some school friends would remind me.
My confidence rattled shakily onward. I started to gobble up any sort of praise that I looked like my (Irish) mother when the light was right. I didn’t ask my Chinese grandparents about their life in China but I became obsessed with my mother’s mother and her gold shamrocks. I turned to dark corners of the internet about eye surgery to give me a bigger eye. After I told one friend about the surgery, she pointed out, “But you already have a bit of lid, so I think you’re good.”
A lot of friends (and strangers) have been reaching out to me, asking how they could help after I wrote about the attack on Asian women this past week. My first reaction is to clarify this: Even though the headline makes me out to be shaking in my boots, I am not, in fact, looking over my shoulder every time I step outside. I don’t need an escort to Mazda to help fix my keys even though I do consider that offer deeply sweet.
So, friends and neighbors who want to help: is there an answer I can give you? I’m not really sure. None come to mind that are practical, that’s for sure.
I wish I could tell you to meet in the lobby of that agent’s office 22 years ago and tell me to keep going. I wish I could tell you to meet me at the playground where a boy pushed and gave me a concussion, tell him that my name isn’t ching-chong. I wish I could tell you to slap the stares off every man as they slobber the words “exotic,” and “where are you really from,” in my direction.
But, I can’t. Listening will have to do the trick for now. (also because I personally give zero fucks on how many Asian social media influencers anyone follows, but that’s just me).
Know that I really am an optimist, no matter what this week has branded me.
On that note, I’ll give you a ten name head start:
As always, thank you.
Coco.
You are extraordinary. Radiant. Brilliant. Unstoppable. Grace. A Gorgeous Creative Masterpiece.