Countless articles and social media posts have circulated the internet since Crazy Rich Asians debuted in theaters on August 15. The production has been praised for being the first Hollywood hit to feature a predominately Asian cast in more than two decades (the last being The Joy Luck Club in 1993). Now, Chrissy Teigen is throwing in her two cents.
"What can I really say about this movie that hasn't been said by absolutely everyone who has seen it," she wrote in a heartfelt post on Instagram Sunday night.
"I planned on seeing it, making a few jokes about how it checked all the boxes for me (CRAZY RICH ASIAN) but the feeling I got during the credits, watching John dance with my little black asian mashup baby bear luna tunes, was a feeling I haven't had at the end of any other movies," she continued. "Luna, aside from being blown away by the general movie-going experience (yep she's 13 now, time flies) looked up at @constancewu's mother and yelled 'yāy!' ('Grandma' in thai) because she saw someone who looked like her yāy. Someone beautiful and aspirational. It was something that simple that made my heart just...warm."
AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT
In addition to the "over the top" moments, Teigen said she loved how the film embraced character diversity by depicting people "with all different types of personalities, just like any other great movie."
Representation in film doesn't just feel right; it's also incredibly lucrative. Since its debut, Crazy Rich Asians has been the No. 1 film for two weeks in a row domestically and has raked in an impressive $76.8 million so far. Most of that money came from weekend viewers (the film made $34 million in its first five days and another $25 million over its second weekend).
Crazy Rich Asians is just the latest film to prove that casting people of color in lead roles fills theater seats. Over the past few years, films like Girls Trip, Black Panther, and A Wrinkle in Time have broken box office records and even encouraged the Academy to create a category for the best, most popular picture of the year. One day, diverse films will, hopefully, be the norm rather than the exception, and the days of white-washed stories will be a thing of the past.