Everything Everywhere All At Once’s success partially because it’s more palatable to straight white men

I’m very happy for Everything Everywhere All At Once’s success during awards season. Not only did the awards highlight and reward creativity, skill, and complex 3 dimensional roles, they also send a message that Asian American stories, and POC stories in general, are compelling and important. They also send the message that white Hollywood completely failed the likes of Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan by not recognizing their talent previously, continuously give way too many opportunities to mediocre white actors and filmmakers, and that Asian American and POC stories are not only compelling, they also make money. Parasite winning Best Picture in 2019 was a validating moment, but seeing an Asian American story win is even more validating. (I’m Asian American.) There is a big difference between Asian stories and Asian American stories. Bong Joon-ho (writer and director of Parasite) accurately called the Oscars a local awards show and not an international one, so it’s not that great an achievement, and not that validating. He also said “once you overcome the one-inch tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films.” I’d say he didn’t go far enough in his description. The Oscars and so many of the big US film awards have been local awards shows for white actors and filmmakers.

It’s important to remember that Asian American creativity and talent was always there. It was white Hollywood that failed to recognize…