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Thursday, April 21, 2022
Often invisible, Michelle Yeoh shines spotlight on Asian immigrant women with ‘Everything’
CANVAS Arts: Michelle Yeoh was adamant about one script change before committing to “Everything Everywhere All At Once.”
The main character’s name had to go. She was named Michelle as a love letter to her from the directors.
4 comments:
Elly Lieu Wolhardt
said...
Asian immigrant women deserve to have voices heard and their stories told. While I have not watched Everything Everywhere All At Once yet, it is certainly on my list of movies that I will be watching as soon as I have the time to. This interview with Michelle Yeoh speaking on such a powerful movie that ran its course of production during a time where hate crimes against Asians in the United States is ever increasing is extremely powerful. She is a very successful Asian and female actor, and yet, she specifies that her experience playing “an aging Asian woman” is a new one–across the board, especially in entertainment, women are not allowed to age. They are only allowed to be young and beautiful, or extremely old. The in between does not exist. This movie is not only representational, it is genre-bending and sheds another light on our Asian mother figures in our lives. This interview has certainly made me want to watch this film even more!
I haven't seen Everything yet, and I really want to, but now I especially want to see it for the representation, Michelle Yeoh, and the fact that i's not just another adaptation or remake. The fact that it's an original idea about an older Asian woman who, like they said, is often forgotten is something really special. When you go to the market or you're in the living room with an auntie on the floor cleaning vegetables in the lime green strainer, I don't know how to describe that it's a really special moment and the idea that they're forgotten about isn't something I want to perpetuate anymore. It's great to see your life being represented and if anything I will always get emotional watching movies with Asian characters just because it's a part of my home and my life that I don't get much anymore. It makes me miss my family.
I’m going to see this today and I’m really excited! I think it’s so important that actors with a platform advocate for their communities, so when Michelle Yeoh was adamant that the main character’s name be changed from her own, I was so interested. She said, “I’m like ‘No, no, no’ because I believe this person, this character that you’ve written so rich, deserves a voice of her own. She is the voice of those mothers, aunties, grandmothers that you pass by in Chinatown or in the supermarket that you don’t even give a second glance to. Then you just take her for granted, she’s never had a voice.” The story of Asian immigrant women is really important right now as we come out of a pandemic and into a new realization of how anti-Asian racism is so insidious and blatant in American society. I am so happy that Yeoh is back in popular film so quickly after her appearances in Crazy Rich Asians and the recent Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings. I am just so excited to see this movie!
I adored “Everything Everywhere All At Once”. I thought it was a very innovative story; it felt very new even when it hinged on plot lines we have seen over and over again. The way it presented the story was funny and clever and sad, and it makes me so excited to see the movie and its stars getting the attention they deserve. I don’t remember the last time I had seen something so bold and unapologetic, much less when it came to stories with leading people of color. It felt special, and I’m hoping that due to its financial success more studies are willing to take a risk on stories that are “more out there”. I feel like there is this idea that movies or media have to lay out everything for the audience, but I think this proves that it doesn’t have to be that way. Audiences can take in something else if you let them.
4 comments:
Asian immigrant women deserve to have voices heard and their stories told. While I have not watched Everything Everywhere All At Once yet, it is certainly on my list of movies that I will be watching as soon as I have the time to. This interview with Michelle Yeoh speaking on such a powerful movie that ran its course of production during a time where hate crimes against Asians in the United States is ever increasing is extremely powerful. She is a very successful Asian and female actor, and yet, she specifies that her experience playing “an aging Asian woman” is a new one–across the board, especially in entertainment, women are not allowed to age. They are only allowed to be young and beautiful, or extremely old. The in between does not exist. This movie is not only representational, it is genre-bending and sheds another light on our Asian mother figures in our lives. This interview has certainly made me want to watch this film even more!
I haven't seen Everything yet, and I really want to, but now I especially want to see it for the representation, Michelle Yeoh, and the fact that i's not just another adaptation or remake. The fact that it's an original idea about an older Asian woman who, like they said, is often forgotten is something really special. When you go to the market or you're in the living room with an auntie on the floor cleaning vegetables in the lime green strainer, I don't know how to describe that it's a really special moment and the idea that they're forgotten about isn't something I want to perpetuate anymore. It's great to see your life being represented and if anything I will always get emotional watching movies with Asian characters just because it's a part of my home and my life that I don't get much anymore. It makes me miss my family.
I’m going to see this today and I’m really excited! I think it’s so important that actors with a platform advocate for their communities, so when Michelle Yeoh was adamant that the main character’s name be changed from her own, I was so interested. She said, “I’m like ‘No, no, no’ because I believe this person, this character that you’ve written so rich, deserves a voice of her own. She is the voice of those mothers, aunties, grandmothers that you pass by in Chinatown or in the supermarket that you don’t even give a second glance to. Then you just take her for granted, she’s never had a voice.” The story of Asian immigrant women is really important right now as we come out of a pandemic and into a new realization of how anti-Asian racism is so insidious and blatant in American society. I am so happy that Yeoh is back in popular film so quickly after her appearances in Crazy Rich Asians and the recent Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings. I am just so excited to see this movie!
I adored “Everything Everywhere All At Once”. I thought it was a very innovative story; it felt very new even when it hinged on plot lines we have seen over and over again. The way it presented the story was funny and clever and sad, and it makes me so excited to see the movie and its stars getting the attention they deserve. I don’t remember the last time I had seen something so bold and unapologetic, much less when it came to stories with leading people of color. It felt special, and I’m hoping that due to its financial success more studies are willing to take a risk on stories that are “more out there”. I feel like there is this idea that movies or media have to lay out everything for the audience, but I think this proves that it doesn’t have to be that way. Audiences can take in something else if you let them.
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