Recently, the film industry has been majorly representing ethnic groups, unlike before. By now, you’ve probably heard a lot about the all-asian cast movie, Crazy Rich Asians, the all African-American cast movie, Black Panther, and the all Latinx voice cast movie, Coco.

The impact of these movies are tremendous, as it taps directly into the human connection, because certain ethnic groups that were underrepresented in the film industry are now being shown, giving more for certain audiences to relate and connect to.

As a Korean myself, seeing Asian roles being played by actual Asian people, as well as seeing so many people enjoy the actual movie made me glad.

A while ago, a Hollywood casting director tweeted that “Asians are a challenge to cast because most casting directors feel as though they’re not very expressive…” This statement caused an outrage in the Asian community, and led to the birth of the hashtag #ExpressiveAsians. The all-asian cast in Crazy Rich Asians seems to be a perfect counter to this claim.

Some people agree that Crazy Rich Asians was very impactful in terms of the cast, but feel that the characters were stereotyped, and are still waiting for a movie with more realistic Asian roles, where they are portrayed as people and not as stereotypes. It is true that the movie does not represent all Asians, but there is nothing wrong with that!

People seem to overlook the fact that in the end, it is just a movie. One movie cannot show everything about an entire ethnic group.

The different cultures and diversity in general shown in the movie is more than enough, considering the fact that the movie took place in a country two-thirds the size of New York City.

Even still, members of the audience are able to personally relate to the movie, whether it be the different names the characters are called, the stereotypes they are defined by in society, and the culture as a whole.

Hopefully, more films will be made accurately representing minorities, leading to a better instilled sense of pride within communities for who they are, instead of feeling excluded and underrepresented in media.

<Nichole Kim/ Cleveland HS 10th>