‘Avengers: Doomsday’ Star Simu Liu Rages Over Apparent “Backslide” In Hollywood’s Asian Representation: “Studios Think We’re ‘Risky'”
Stop the presses! Avengers: Dooomsday star Simu Liu is on yet another identity performative, politics-fueled tear against Hollywood, his pearl-clutching this time around centered on his belief that the American film industry has allowed an unacceptable “backslide” in its Asian representation.
The silver screen Shang-Chi aired his representation-related grievances on November 23rd, his thoughts prompted by a Threads post calling for Hollywood to “put more Asian men in romantic lead roles”, as argued based on four-specific cases: Freakier Friday star Manny Jacinto’s recent reveal that his role in the Disney sequel led to more offers for “dad roles” rather than more romantic ones, Cowboy Bebop lead John Cho’s 2023 lamentation to the Television Critics Association that his starring in the TV series Selfie did not result in more rom-com offers, Avatar: The Last Airbender actor Daniel Dae Kim’s likewise criticism that he’s “still waiting to play a romantic lead“, and Worth the Wait producer Rachel Tan’s disappointment in the fact that the film’s financiers initially “gave me a list of white guys we could cast” and told her “if we could give one of the roles to them, we could get funded.”
Sharing the post to his own followers, Liu subsequently roared, “put some asians in literally anything right now. The amount of backslide in our representation onscreen is f**king [sic] appalling.”
“Studios think we’re ‘risky’. Minari, Farewell, Past Lives, Everything Everywhere All At Once, Crazy Rich Asians, Shang-Chi. Every single one a financial success. No Asian actor has ever lost a studio even close to 100 million dollars, but a white dude will lose 200 million TWICE, and roll right into the next tentpole lead. We’re fighting a deeply prejudiced system. And most days it SUCKS.”
As noted above, this is far from the first time Liu has sought to soapbox (and spotlight himself while doing so) on 2021-era identity politics, with past hits including the criticism that he “thought playing a guy that gets beaten up by a main character was the pinnacle” for Asian actors until he starred in Shang-Chi, disingenuously reading of Disney CEO Bob Chapek’s comment that Shang-Chi‘s then-novel 45-day theatrical window would be an “interesting experiment” as being about an Asian-led film, and, who could forget, the televised excoriation of an entrepreneuring Canadian bubble tea company for ‘cultural appropriation‘ over its founders’ lacking Asian ethnicity.
And like all those times before, while Liu’s self-aggrandizing chest-beating does have some basis in reality, his actual claims are far more disingenuous than he presents.
Given just the general and unfortunate history of racism in America, the truth of the matter is that while there have been numerous exceptions, the reality is that Hollywood has avoided casting Asians, and Asian men in particular, in leading romantic roles.
Seriously, think about it: Off the top of your head, prior to let’s say 2018 and the breakout success of Crazy Rich Asians, how many exclusively romantic-oriented roles have been filled by Asians?
If we’re being intellectually honest, the answer is ‘Not a lot’ – And I say that as someone of Filipino heritage who can only really think of Michelle Krusiec in 2004’s Saving Face and Vincent Rodriguez III in the 2015 TV series Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.
But to act like Hollywood has suddenly and so decisively turned on Asian actors as a whole is almost beyond parody, as even looking at the examples cited by both Liu and the Thread user whose post caught his attention, there’s active, ongoing change on the matter across the entire industry.
For example, the aforementioned Jacinto served as the main, Sith-aligned antagonist in The Acolyte, a Disney-produced, live-action entry in the massive Star Wars franchise, and is set to star in the upcoming romantic-comedy Love Language as its male lead.
Lana Condor, who readers may recognize best as Lara Jean from All The Boys I Loved Before series or the impeccably cast Jubilee in X-Men: Apocalypse, is currently set to appear in several upcoming thriller outings, the long-awaited Acme vs. Coyote, and serve as the female protagonist of the rom-com Whodunnit
And though he doesn’t have any specific romantic roles lined up, Steven Yeun has spent recent years as a constant presence in American media, starring in such projects as Love Me, Beef, Mickey 17, Nope, and The Humans, as well as serving as lead voice actor for Amazon’s wildly popular Invincible adaptatation.
Ultimately, while these are just three actors out of a wide-ranging scene of Asian actors in Hollywood, the fact of the matter still stands that Asians are seeing more and more role-diverse representation as time marches on.
Was the past less-than-ideal in its treatment of Asian actors? No doubt. Could things always be better? Asolutely.
But neither of those wounds are as immediately worrying and septic as Liu is making them out to be – and the fact that he refuses to engage with reality and at least acknowledge this progress speaks more to his own intellectual dishonesty than anything else.
NEXT: Marvel’s ‘Shang-Chi ‘Star Simu Liu Reportedly Refusing To Sign “Offensive” ‘Master Of Kung Fu’ Comic
