You might as well call this month “Asian August”: On Wednesday, “ Crazy Rich Asians,” the first Hollywood movie in 25 years with an all-Asian cast, was released in theaters ― but it’s not the only Asian-led movie we have to look forward to in the coming weeks.
Later this month, “Searching,” an indie thriller centered on an Asian-American family hits theaters. (It also stars John Cho, your criminally underrated pretend boyfriend.) And next week, Netflix is set to release “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before,” a rom-com with an Asian-American teen as the lead.
Clearly, Asian-Americans are killing it in film ― and that’s a welcome change given how bleak Asian representation in media has been up to this point: According to a 2016 diversity study, Asian actors nabbed only 3.9 percent of speaking roles in film, a stark contrast from the 73.7 percent white actors receive.
Maybe rom-coms like “Crazy Rich Asians” aren’t generally your cup of tea, but it’s still worth celebrating a movie that puts Asian and Asian-American stories at the forefront in a nuanced, heartfelt way.
With that in mind, we’ve gathered up 21 tweets that capture how sweet this pop culture moment is for Asian-Americans, and how important it is to build on this momentum.
PS is it just me? Or is it REALLY FUCKIN’ cool to be Asian right now?!!!! 💪😎🤜
— Jon M. Chu (@jonmchu) August 15, 2018
Watching #CrazyRichAsians with my parents is an experience I’d never trade for anything else – seeing them literally on the edge of their seats made the wait worth it.
— ᴀʟᴛᴏɴ ᴡᴀɴɢ (@altonwang) August 15, 2018
Perhaps I'm the token Asian friend but all my non-asian friends want to watch Crazy Rich Asians with me... but there can only be one.
— natalie tran [bring them here] (@natalietran) August 15, 2018
Who will it be?
I'm the fucking Bachelor.
Crazy Rich Asians currently has a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and that's nice because if there is one thing we love more than anything else, it's an A+
— irene choi (@irenechoi) August 11, 2018
In 2018, we've gotten to see Mindy Kaling as an interdimensional being and heist team member, Sandra Oh as an Mi5 operative, and Constance Wu as a college professor in love. #RepresentationMatters #CrazyRichAsians
— Yanick Saila-Ngita (@wunderkind87) August 15, 2018
Crazy Rich Asians beating a Mark Wahlberg film at the box office is vengeance.
— E. Alex Jung (@e_alexjung) August 14, 2018
Why am I #ProudToBeAsian? I'm #ProudToBeAsian because all of my life, I've been told to hide my food, speak louder, hold my tongue, go back where I came from, break out of my box and now I literally DGAF what you have to say if you're not coming with respect for me and my people.
— Jeff Yang (@originalspin) August 8, 2018
y’all say representation doesn’t matter but let me tell you if it wasn’t for mulan i probably would have never learned to embrace the asian side of my ethnicity. her movie helped me embrace myself and my culture and i will never forgot how important she is to me.
— miss honeybunchesofoats🏳️🌈 (@healbtch) August 12, 2018
Crazy Rich Asians cements that this feels like a moment, and I wanted to celebrate it making this shirt featuring badass women. Thank you @IamSandraOh, @MindyKaling, @ConstanceWu, @AliWong, @LucyLiu (among others) for making history and paving the way for all of us. ❤ pic.twitter.com/flY2n7GKlh
— Jaime Woo (@jaimewoo) August 13, 2018
Hello, if you cannot afford to see Crazy Rich Asians opening weekend because you are actually a very poor Asian, DM me a pic of your ticket receipt and I will Venmo you the cost of the ticket. Honor system, you better be broke. I’ll stop doing this when I decide to.
— Joel Kim Booster (@ihatejoelkim) August 11, 2018
going to see crazy rich asians 100 times (bc as my mom always told me, a 99 doesn't get you into college)
— Mina Kimes (@minakimes) August 15, 2018
Today I sold a network TV drama set in Hawai'i whose LEAD (not supporting) characters are ALL Asian/Pacific Islander/hapa. Thank you, #CrazyRichAsians, for opening today on the big screens. We're coming for your small screens too. This is just the beginning. #AsianAugust
— Lisa Takeuchi Cullen (@LisaCullen) August 16, 2018
crazy broke asians but we pay $ for representation #cra pic.twitter.com/SIi8POCc0i
— dan q. dao (@danqdao) August 16, 2018
Can we make #AsianAugust a real thing? Just every year, let’s get some quality Asian content in every medium for a whole month. And slowly, we take over the rest of the calendar year....
— Fruit Burst Gemini (@heneenya) August 9, 2018
So, okay, I watched @CrazyRichMovie yesterday, & I was fighting tears the whole time. I'd expected it to be meaningful, fun, joyful, but I hadn't at all expected what amounted to a lifetime of sorrow & longing, an onslaught of feelings I hadn't even known I was suppressing.
— R.O. Kwon (@rokwon) August 16, 2018
As an Asian-American kid growing up in the 70s - now... Lemme say just how wonderful it feels to see this on screen vs. what I grew up on (and was told by the media how they thought of me). Representation matters. I'm thankful for all the artists paving the way. #CrazyRichAsians pic.twitter.com/CeWzUfQCYk
— Gary King (@grking) August 15, 2018
Crazy Rich Asians is important. Representation matters. Not just for actors but for everyone who wants to see someone that looks like them in a big Hollywood movie. I hope this movie smashes records & shows young Asian Americans they can be the heroes of their own story. /end
— Erika Ishii (@erikaishii) August 16, 2018
It’s hard to be BOLD. It’s easier to sit quietly in the shade and let the past be the present, and not shake the ground. Thank you to the @CrazyRichMovie team for being BOLD and SHAKING the effing ground! @ConstanceWu @jonmchu ❤️👊🏾 https://t.co/xuAdGXo903
— Will Yun Lee (@WillYunLee) August 16, 2018
As I celebrate/support @CrazyRichMovie this wk as the 1st major studio film to have an all AsianAm cast in 25 yrs, let’s also recognize that our community wasn’t dormant during that time. I wanna also celebrate the amazing progress that happened in those 25 yrs leading to now.
— philipwang (@philipwang) August 14, 2018
I will definitely be supporting ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ today and i have nothing smart to say about it. There’s a gang of Asians in the movie so i fucks with it!
— dummie (@dumbfoundead) August 15, 2018