Minions are a joke. Seriously– The Minions have fallen under the comedy genre ever since its founding. And on July 1st, millions flooded the theaters to enjoy the story of banana-loving, kung-fu learning, creatures fighting the Chinese Zodiac. The audience giggles at the ridiculous scenes before them, but what they don’t think about is the deeper meaning behind the over-use of Chinese culture in this film. “Minions: Rise of Gru,” grossed a whopping 869.6 million USD yet despite the overbearing “Chinese concept,” just how many actual Chinese people did the cast feature? One. With, “Minions: Rise of Gru,” more than octupling the earnings of the Chinese casted, “Everything Everywhere All At Once”, one can’t help but wonder: “What about orientalism continues to sell more than the stories of authentic Asian experiences?”
In, “Minions: Rise of Gru,” Chinese culture was polished down to the digestible concepts of dragons and kung-fu. On the other hand, “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” dealt with the hard issues of struggling with Asian American identity and the bittersweet familial ties that come with it. It is the hard topics like these that audiences wish to avoid whilst consuming media. But regardless, these are the topics that must be discussed when creating films with diverse casts. The stories of people of color will contain innate hardship and when these “un-entertaining” elements of cultural stories are avoided, a truly diverse story is lost.
Lacking Lockers