Recently, Michelle Yeoh, who has been invincible all the way in life, has once again set a new universe record!
She first won the 29th Screen Actors Guild Awards for Best Actress in a Film for Evelyn in "Instantaneous Universe", becoming the first Asian actress born in the history of the award. Then she won the "Best Lead" award at the Independent Spirit of American Film Awards, which began this year by merging Best Actress with Best Actor, and Michelle Yeoh was the first person to win this award.
This is really full of expectations for her next Oscar statuette!
"Instantaneous Universe" received 11 Oscar nominations, and Michelle Yeoh became the first Asian actress to receive an Oscar nomination and the first Chinese actress to receive an Oscar nomination.
There is no doubt that this is the era when Chinese actors shine the most in Hollywood and European and American films, and it is also the era in which they are most seen.
"This award is not only given to me, but to every girl like me. Thank you for giving us a place, we need to be seen, we need to be heard. On the Screen Actors Guild Award podium, although Michelle Yeoh was so nervous and excited that she burst into foul language, she still did not forget to tell the world the message she most wanted to convey in her acceptance speech.
This is not the first time Michelle Yeoh has mentioned "needing to be seen" when presenting the award. When Michelle Yeoh won the Golden Globe Award for Actress, she said in a red carpet interview full of emotion: "I have been working for so many years, but looking at my peers, I can't help but have some regrets." Now I finally feel what it's like to be seen. ”
Also touching is Wu Hanzhang, a 94-year-old Chinese actor who played "father-in-law" in "Instantaneous Universe". Wu Hanzhang has been struggling in Hollywood for 70 years, but he can almost always play an Asian supporting role in works with white protagonists. In his acceptance speech, he confessed: "Back then, the producer said that Asian actors were not good and did not sell well. See what we do now? ”
The old man is really brave and really inspirational! In 2022, Wu Hanzhang also left his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, becoming the oldest recipient to receive this honor, and also made history.
Asian actors have broken into Hollywood, if you start from Huang Liu Shuang, it has been a hundred years, and it is not until less than ten years in the past that the faces of Asian actors have begun to gradually get rid of stereotypes and gazes, becoming more diverse and richer.
If you want to go back to the road of Asian actors to Hollywood, Huang Liu Shuang can be said to be the first person to deserve. As early as 1919, Huang Liushuang, whose ancestral home is Guangdong, China, was born in Los Angeles, USA, and got her first film role, playing the mistress of an unknown British woman in "Red Lantern", when she was only 14 years old.
Soon, she emerged in the European and American film industry with her infinite charm. With films such as "The Sea Passes" and "The Thief of Baghdad", she became a Chinese actress who was in the limelight at that time.
Her oriental beauty and charm were amazed by Westerners, and her hairstyle and clothing were once imitated by Western girls.
Gemma Chan, a recently very popular Chinese actor, also paid tribute to Huang Liu Shuang at the Met Gala a few years ago.
But Hollywood at that time had a strong stereotype of Asians. Huang Liushuang soon discovered that almost all of the roles she could obtain were witches, maids, mistresses, prostitutes, etc., and they were always arranged to die a tragic death in the end.
Not only that, but she was even rejected from the role of a Chinese woman for an extremely ridiculous reason when she auditioned for "The Earth": saying that she was "too Chinese" to play "Chinese".
Rejecting Huang Liushuang's film The Earth, based on Pearl Buck's Pulitzer Prize novel, depicts the life of a rural Chinese couple, but the protagonists are all played by white people.
Hollywood "whitewashing" has a long history. In 2017, Scarlett Johansson played the heroine Suko Kusanagi in "Ghost in the Shell", which was also extremely controversial.
What happened to Huang Liu Shuang clearly reflects the situation of Asian and Chinese actors at that time: they may have admirable beauty and talent, but they are only objects of gaze, selection and even "demonization", and the role they can play has never been limited to the East imagined by Westerners.
Fast forward a few decades. Liu Yuling and Michelle Yeoh were born in the 90s. From "007: Tomorrow's Empire", "Thunderbolt", "Kill Bill" to "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", they can be said to have "played" a world in Hollywood.
But to a large extent, their popularity can be understood as Asian actors changing from one stereotype to another - they can no longer be miserable and miserable and weak Oriental women, but because they can fight and brave enough, they have become the "Oriental women" adored by Westerners.
And this situation really ushered in a groundbreaking change, or have to mention the "American version of the small era" "Crazy Rich Asians" in 2018.
Although this movie has a good reputation in China, it is a phenomenal blockbuster in Hollywood. The all-Asian lineup, not a martial arts film, tells the story of a group of Asian characters with their own personalities, their own intentions, and their own flesh and blood, sweeping the $238 million box office and nominating for many mainstream awards, which is a myth created by "Crazy Rich Asians".
1993's "Joy Luck Club" was also an extremely important film that pioneered the power of Asian Americans in Hollywood, but unfortunately, it did not lead a larger wave.
After "Crazy Rich Asians", Asian actors began to really have a chance to strike in all directions.
In 2019, the Chinese-Korean mixed Awkwafina became the first Asian actress of the Golden Globe Awards with a small-cost production film "Don't Tell Her" about family love; Korean actor Sandra Wu became the first Asian-American host and Asian TV queen at the Golden Globes. In 2020, Liu Yifei starred in "Mulan", becoming Disney's first Asian "princess"; The South Korean film "Parasite" won the Oscar for Best Picture; Marvel and the DC Universe are also beginning to see more and more Asian superheroes.
Asians are finally starting to be seen and appreciated more. As Michelle Yeoh, Awkwafina and Wu Hanzhang have all said in interviews, they now have more auditions than ever before, and "many scripts no longer depict Asian race." Asians can do anything. ”
This is also the message of "Instantaneous Universe": all female/Asian characters can be diverse, and they are definitely more than just a symbol.
Asian-American actors are finally starting to have the opportunity to cast any role on screen. At the same time, as if an echo of history, in October 2022, Huang Liushuang's portrait landed on the US currency as part of the "Outstanding American Women Minting Program".
And we certainly expect them to be seen more and shine on every stage.
Source: INS, Weibo, Douban, video screenshots