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Text Review on Crazy Rich Asians

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The work that I want to examine is an American romantic comedy-drama called Crazy Rich Asians. This movie is an adaption of the eponymous novel written by Singaporean-American author Kevin Kwan.

The movie follows Rachel Chu (Wu), a deep-rooted American-born Chinese (so-called “banana”) economics professor who appears to be an Asian but is an American inside. Racheal’s boyfriend Nick Young (Golding) brought her from New York City to his hometown, Singapore, for his best friend’s wedding, and she expects to spend the summer getting to know Nick better. Before their departure, Rachel’s mother tries to impart to her daughter the importance of tradition, while she and her mother have a very nontraditional mother-daughter relationship for Chinese families indeed. From this scene, we can see the juxtaposition of American and Chinese traditions in an authentic immigrant family. In Singapore, Rachael finds out that Nick is from an unbelievably wealthy family, which Nick didn’t inform her. In such an upper social class like Nick’s, people regard wealth, pride, and prestige as the determinants of their identity in the society, therefore, they are constantly entangled in fierce competition. Because of his distinguished family background, Nick Young is one of the most eligible bachelors in his country, thus, every single woman in his social class is especially jealous of Rachel. Rachael is othered by Nick’s family and friends that she is not only gossiped and threatened by the rich “sisters” in a luxurious beach party, but also is she severely examined and blamed by Nick’s mother. All these factors of cultural collision, othering, and rigid hierarchy in the society contribute to Racheal’s deep feeling of unbelonging as well as isolation in Singapore. However, Racheal, as a Chinese descendant as well as a rational professor with both Asian and American values in her mind, tries to break through the cultural norms and to be her best and unique self.

Happily, at the end of the story, Racheal successfully settled the confliction and difficulties with Nick’s family, and they finally entered the marriage hall with their persistence and faith in love. Although the plot of this movie is quite similar to that of the typical Cinderella kind of story, the internal meanings and values behind it are really noteworthy.

The Game

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In my fictional TV show “Game of Thrones” specifically the first season we are introduced to the medieval world and the seven kingdoms, where socioeconomic classes, race, and gender play huge roles in the making of this fantastic TV series. Family ties and hierarchy are the name of the game in this show, for instance the Lannister’s are one of the high class powerful families, while the Starks of winter fell are important figures but not necessarily high class.

One of the biggest factors in this show is your socioeconomic class and where you belong on the totem pole of power. This can relate back to the beginning of the semester when we learned about the concept of othering and people depicting themselves as the “one” amongst everyone else. The Lannister’s are a high class family and have a way of forcing their way into power by using their name, money, and societal standing. They used this power to infiltrate their way into the thrown and become the royal family of Kings Landing through threatening and killing who they needed to.

I think the creator in this TV series was trying to portray really just what the world was like back during that time period. They went into great detail about the dynamic of how the civilizations and classes and races all interacted with each other. It really makes you think about how different our world is today compared to then, as only white males were really the only people who had any say about what their entire families were involved with when it came to society. The creators of this show were able to perfectly describe and depict what life was like when it came to injustice as well when Lord Stark was wrongfully executed by King Joffrey in the first season.