Withering sights for the (Asian) girl next door
I tallied up everything I watched in the last 2 years and counted how many lead actors looked like me
I scrolled by some images earlier this spring that stopped me in my tracks. At first the carousel of images delighted me because it was a sneaky (paparazzi) peek of the cast and crew on set for Emerald Fennel’s new film adaptation of Wuthering Heights. I am a fan of both the Brontë novel and Fennel’s work, so I studied closer.
The photos, posted by gossip account deuxmoi, are what you might expect from a period piece set in the Yorkshire Moors: a messy mopped handsome leading man (Jacob Elordi) and an equally inoffensive leading woman (Margot Robbie).
Photos by Terry Blackburn, Splash News
But what stopped me wasn’t them. What halted me was the outline of a third woman in the foreground. In two photos she either has her back turned or is covered by a parasol. But another photo, you can see a profile of her face. I know this actor. A quick Google confirms it is the tremendously talented Hong Chau (The Whale, The Menu, Downsizing, Inherent Vice).
I went through a bunch of emotions at once. They all collided into one another, like too many people trying to board a jammed subway car at the same time.
“That’s different!” “Yay!” “Look at her!” “Look at us!” (to mean, Asian women), “We are getting closer! Closer to the center of period pieces!”
Then, that familiar frustration bubbled up into my throat like heartburn. Chau, in her illustrious filmography is playing Ellen “Nelly” Dean, the housekeeper. It rushed to my mind that Daisy Edgar Jones was just cast as Elinor Dashwood in the new adaptation of Sense & Sensibility. Staring at my IG feed, I am in high school again, being told I can play Spice Girls with the cool kids, but Ginger, Sporty, Baby and Posh have already been taken. (I was allowed to be Scary or the pregnant friend from Spiceworld).
Don’t even get me started that Naoko Mori is Japanese and Scary Spice/ Mel B is well, a Black woman.
Ok, wait. Maybe I shouldn’t be too irked by Fennel’s choice to cast Chau. Nelly Dean is a substantial role. She narrates most of the damn thing. She’s an all-seeing, uh, seer. Confidante. That’s something right? Still, I feel shortchanged. Or more that: if we’re going to shake up ethnicity in roles, why not take it all the way to the top of the food chain? It’s “go big or go home,” not “go just far enough to check your diversity box and call it a day.”
I set my phone down, and do what I normally do after I feel this weird push/pull conflict inside of “we’re making progress, chill the fuck out” / “get fucking mad.”
I understand that Austen, Brontë & co, did not write about Asia and Asian culture, and therefore their leading women shan’t be Asian. I understand that Asian folk weren’t populous in Northern rural England in the 18th century (and if some were, they were not being written about). In the 2011 adaptation of Wuthering Heights (fyi, there have been about 14 across tv and film) it made the news that James Howson, a somewhat unknown actor from Leeds would be the first Black actor to play Heathcliff. That version, directed by Andrea Arnold, is stunning by the way. That should not have come as a surprise though. In Brontë’s text Heathcliff is described as dark-haired and skinned, and a "Lascar," which is a 19th-century term for Indian sailors.
But, I’m not looking to be thrown a bone here. I don’t need an ancestral easter egg hidden in Brontë’s pages to make me nod my head and say, “Ah, well, he heralded from Indian shores, so, anyone, erm, dark, makes sense.” I am talking about a modern swap just for the sake of representation. A curve ball of a casting choice. Sure, you want me to say it? A Little Mermaid moment. Skin on Snow White that isn’t white as snow. Why? Why go against a text that was written 178 years ago just to see an Asian woman ride a wild horse next to a Mr. Darcy-type? Because fourteen adaptations later, I think we’ve earned it. I think we’re ready, aren’t we?
The Nelly Dean casting choice is a reminder of our place. That we’re inching closer, but at a sloth-like pace. I want to see myself as Catherine, as frustrating as a “heroine” she is (if you can even call her one). I already see my subservient face in other films, the over-protective matriarch, the struggling laundromat owner, the best friend helping the leading lady get the guy. I’m tired of being the wing woman. The woman giving the pedicures. The woman dressed up like an exotic vase covered in birds and bamboo. It’s hard when you love a genre like period films, something so specific to the colonial epicenter of the world. Another place we’re not permitted to be, unless you’re a housekeeper.
Photo by Liam Daniel/Netflix
But wait. Who is this? Enter, the next season of Bridgerton, which is premiering next year. Shonda Rhimes cast the “ton’s” next “diamond,” (aka the leading lady) as Yerin Ha. Here’s a teaser clip:
For those that aren’t familiar, each season of this “Regency drama,” (based on Julia Quinn’s novels) revolves around an unmarried child of the Bridgerton family. Now, here’s the Shonda twist: almost every love interest (except Colin Bridgerton), is a person of color. There’s been a bit of debate about the casting, not necessarily for casting some actors as non-white compared to the original book, but for casting many. And yet, critics were still unhappy. In 2021, Carolyn Hinds of The Observer questioned if her show was progressive enough. Hinds wondered what’s the point of “color-blind casting,” if race is barely addressed in the script.
“Having Black people in the main cast is all well and good because, historically, they should be there. But the problem in Bridgerton comes when the characters’ race is practically ignored for almost the entire show, except for a few vague references in their dialogue—using words like “us” and “them.” It’s disingenuous to say their race doesn’t matter in this world, when the most prominent and numerous people are white.”
I had heard a bit about “color-blind casting,” before but it wasn’t until this interview in the Tufts University Magazine, Tufts Now, where I heard about “color-concious casting.” Actor Maurice Emmanuel Parent reflects on Bridgerton after this question:
“Have you watched Bridgerton? Do you consider it color-blind or color-conscious?
I think [Bridgerton producer] Shonda Rhimes was quoted as saying that she just loved these English high-drama novels, but she never saw anyone in them who looked like her. So she wrote one where we were in it. For me, it's color-conscious. If the only Black man had been the handsome duke who was wooing everybody, then you might be playing with the idea that Black men are very sexualized and always tempting white women. But the cast is very mixed, at all class levels, and everyone is equal in the storytelling.”
I see both sides to Hinds’ and Parent’s arguments. But really, it’s Rhimes’ that cuts like a bullet through all of the chatter:
“She just loved these English high-drama novels, but she never saw anyone in them who looked like her.”
That’s all I needed to hear. Rhimes saw a gap that needed to be filled. She remembered the girl that felt like she was too fringe to be in the lead. So, she dedicated her life to creating shows and scripts that changed the status-vanilla quo. And, not that money is everything but her net worth is $250 million. I wouldn’t call that fringe, I’d call that our world cheering her on through viewership saying: I want this too. It’s me, at 38-years-old crying happy tears seeing Benedict Bridgerton falling in love with a woman who would 100% be confused for me at a New England Hannaford grocery store.
Me at my eighth grade semi-formal. I had asked the hair stylist to give me something Victorian/English after I had gorged on movies like Emma and Ever After.
Luckily, I won’t have to wait until 2026 for The Summer I Turned Pretty. This July 16th (which also happens to be my birthday, thank you Prime Video), marks the release of the first two episodes of the final season of this wildly popular teen drama. It’s based on The Summer Series, written by Jenny Han who is responsible for an array of YA smash hits, including To All The Boys I Loved Before (and adapted into a hit film).
TSITP, as the fans call it, stars Lola Tung, an American actress with Chinese and Swedish roots. Similarly to Bridgerton, her race isn’t part of the plot. It’s not a “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” situation. She’s just what I’ve always wanted to be: The girl next door who gets the guy.
I would love to interview Jenny Han for a million reasons, but mostly because this week I just discovered the original cover of her book released in 2009:
So in this case it’s the show’s own author making the ultimate casting call. Han, who is Korean-American, said this in an interview in 2022:
“These are all the same characters. And they have the same essence to them, but how would I see them as they are in 2020-2021? And so I thought it was just a really great opportunity to expand that out, and have this story in the show feel more modern and of this moment.”
She goes on to tell the interviewer that for a long time, people weren’t interested in stories about Asian American main characters, but now they’re looking for more diversity.
Woof. There’s so much to unpack in that last line. I wonder how much resistance Rhimes and Han have met in their careers, especially as women, in Hollywood. How many times have they been told their very own characters and creations weren’t “accurate,” or tested well in screenings.
And yet, as much as these two shows are giving me hope, I am still finding myself frustrated when I see images like the ones posted by deuxmoi. Is there progress that I’m just not seeing because of my inherent bias (aka a lifetime of experiencing racism)? When will I be satisfied?
There was only one thing left to do. I wanted to be sure I wasn’t making it up in my head that we still weren’t getting roles. So I did what memoirists do best, I researched myself.
It’s easy to do this, and pretty eye-opening. I exported my watch history in Prime Video and Netflix. I copied and pasted everything I watched between 2024-and today. I tallied up approximately 110 television shows and films that I viewed in the last one and a half years (I honestly thought it would be more).
Then—and this took a lot less time—I counted how many of those shows and films had Asian actors in leading roles.
Now, you probably already know this number will be low. But maybe, just maybe, it might shock you, that someone like me, who actively seeks to find representation, indie films, and tv shows with diverse casts might have more than nine shows tallied up at the end. I will highlight the ones where the actor plays a leading role below:
Past Lives – Greta Lee.
Expats – Ji-young Yoo (Korean American) co-lead.
The Wheel of Time – Kae Alexander (British-Japanese) and Priyanka Bose (Indian) co-lead.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith – Maya Erskine (Japanese-American) as the lead.
The Fall Guy – Stephanie Hsu (Chinese-American) supporting role.
Ghostbusters: Afterlife – Logan Kim (Korean-American) supporting.
Ronny Chieng: Love to Hate It - Comedy Special, I’m counting this as a leading role, I need it.
Killing Eve - Sandra Oh (Canadian/American/Korean) lead.
The Summer I Turned Pretty - Lola Tung (Chinese descent) lead.
I frantically went to Hulu and HBO next and snuck in a couple more:
Shogun — Vast majority of cast and crew, Japanese.
Interior Chinatown — Jimmy Yang (Chinese-American) lead.
Eleven. Now, I’m chasing a bigger rabbit here. I don’t want to only feel myself on screen among other Asian casts. That doesn’t reflect my life (especially now that I live in Maine). I loved Shogun and Everything, Everywhere All At Once and what it did for representation, in the market, but when you take away productions filmed in an Asian country, or employ all-Asian casts, the number goes back to four, maybe five if we’re splitting hairs.
Two weeks ago, I took my daughter on a road trip to Toronto and back. Halfway between Toronto and Portland, we camped in upstate New York, just a few miles outside of Albany. When I turned my car into the parking lot, two families on golf carts looked at me. The man driving yelled: “LOOK OUT! A Chinese woman driving!” They all (about 10 of them) burst into laughter.
I was mortified. A nausea swept through me. Everytime I felt othered in my life all roiled up at once. My daughter thankfully didn’t hear him and her excitement for arriving and jumping into the pool sidetracked my anger. But temporarily. That kind of thing doesn’t go away, it lingers. I spent the rest of the time on the campground on edge, worried I’d see them again. I was frustrated I couldn’t even stand up for myself, putting our safety first.
I drove home to Maine the next day and thought: If that man had grown up with Chinese women playing a fraction of the parts awarded to Alicia Silverstone, Liv Tyler, Michelle Pfieffer, Kate Winslet, Sandra Bullock, Meg Ryan, Julia Roberts, Uma Thurman, Geena Davis, Gwyneth Paltrow, Goldie Hawn, Winona Ryder, Renée Zellwegger, Keira Knieghtly, Jena Malone, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Rachel McAdams, or Demi Moore (just to name a few), maybe he wouldn’t be confused that yes, we drive, and yes we’re good at it.
For many, the trickle down effect of desire, self-acceptance, and ambition starts with seeing yourself in popular culture. For those who love and adore things like period pieces and pop stars, we’re not-so-patiently waiting to see ourselves mirrored from our place in reality. Just down the road, next door.
One more fun fact to tie it up for the die hards:
In the 1939 film adaptation of Wuthering Heights, Merle Oberon was cast as Cathy. Oberon was an Anglo-Indian woman born in Calcutta, who “passed” as white. A lot of this is detailed in the book by Mayukh Sen, Love, Queenie. The book explores how Oberon, born in India to a British father and an Indian mother, concealed her South Asian heritage to book work. It’s stunning and so completely understandable, the lengths she went to (including fabricating a Tasmanian birthplace and severing ties with her family) to make it as a film star.
