As crazy as the movie is, insiders said it’s only shocking because it “explodes” the image of what many think Asian women should be. Rather than portray them as the “delicate lotus flower” viewers are used to, or conforming to a “model minority” stereotype, the film depicts the desires of the Asian-American friend group. And their sweaty, exhausted and sometimes “ugly” states of disorder are exposed. Ultimately, it’s authentic, said Connie Wun, co-founder of AAPI Women Lead, a nonprofit organization.
“It shows the different ways we assert our power,” Wun said. “We also have these experiences. We are not pristine. We are ugly. We are dirty. We are messy. We are confused or conflicted. And we are much more robust than the conventional world would like to pigeonhole us.”
Yuen added that the very existence of an Asian-American comedy is critical to the Hollywood landscape, as it is a genre that has previously been inaccessible to Asian-Americans, particularly women.
“We probably associate raunchy humor with white men because they have the power to be anything. They can be correct, they can be obscene, they can be anything,” Yuen said.
But not everyone has seen the film as powerful. Adele Lim, who directed the film, recently answered to a tweet from a reviewer who claimed the film “objectifies men, targets whites,” joking that it needed the phrase “on a T-shirt.”
Yuen noted that such comments are not surprising, citing the backlash the 2022 film “Turning Red,” which also featured an Asian woman as the lead, received from many white male viewers.
“Asian women having their own desires and expressing them openly and freely is something that makes people uncomfortable because we should only be the butt of dirty jokes, objects of desire,” she said. “We cannot be subject to our own needs.”
Wun similarly noted that when Asian women fight the tropes others have created for them, they are often met with anger. The jokes in the film are not about whiteness, but about the strength of Asian women, she said. For example, in one early scene, a white boy on the playground announces that “the slide is off limits for ching chongs…” before he is punched in the face by a young Lolo.
“He is trying to counter a patriarchy. It’s trying to counter sexism. And misogyny. He’s not here targeting white men. We don’t have time for that,” Wun said.
With its sexual jokes and all, Yuen said the film could mark the beginning of a new phase in Asian-American cinema.
“We are in an era where Asian women are trying to show the world that they can be anything under the sun,” Yuen said. “They just need the opportunity. I think ‘Joy Ride’ is another foray into a genre that has been forbidden to us. We are not within Hollywood’s imagination that it could be us.”
