It seemed like everyone in the world saw Crazy Rich Asians this past week and that number now includes Chrissy Teigen. The film is the first American movie to have an almost entirely Asian cast since The Joy Luck Club, which was released in 1993. There was a lot said about the importance of representation in media around the movie’s release, and apparently it really is very important: the movie has made over $76 million domestically since its release, according to Box Office Mojo.
Some of that money has come out of Teigen’s pocket. Teigen’s mother is Thai, and according to her post, her daughter Luna found someone really important to identify with up on the screen. Yes, she took her daughter Luna to a movie rated PG-13. Usually, I’d object to babies in a movie theater, but that little girl is just so darn cute. I mean, look at her fancy dress!
Teigen shared the picture of she and Luna looking with wonder at the wedding dress from the movie behind glass, and she captioned it:
What can I really say about this movie that hasn’t been said by absolutely everyone who has seen it. I’ve been excited to see this since production was announced but I could have never imagined how wonderful it would be. I planned on seeing it, making a few jokes about how it checked all the boxes for me (CRAZY ☑️ RICH ☑️ ASIAN ☑️) but the feeling I got during the credits, watching John dance with my little black asian mashup baby bear luna tunes, was a feeling I haven’t had at the end of any other movies. Luna, aside from being blown away by the general movie-going experience (yep she’s 13 now, time flies) looked up at @constancewu’s mother and yelled “yāy!” (“Grandma” in thai) because she saw someone who looked like her yāy. Someone beautiful and aspirational. It was something that simple that made my heart just…warm. That made me happy. It made me happy to see this over the top story done from so many angles, some I could totally understand because of my own confusing Asian American upbringing. I loved it all, from the quieter moments of talking around the table of sacrifice and past hardships to the spectacle of the bachelor party. Finding that I could cry watching the most over the top aisle walk on the planet.
You never know how much you miss being represented on screen until you actually see what it’s like to be represented. And represented by all different types of characters with all different types of personalities, just like any other great movie.
Also aside from all that, it’s just colorful, fun and big as f*ck.God I love a rom com. God I loved it all. Thank you guys for making this movie.
I love the idea of Luna being able to see her grandmother on screen, and also this point Teigen made later:
also so many people are going to try to recreate the aisle walk and it’s going to go terribly wrong and I cannot wait for the videos
— christine teigen (@chrissyteigen) August 26, 2018
If you haven’t seen the film, the wedding scene is so ridiculously over-the-top that everyone in the theater started laughing as it was happening—but they were crying by the end of the I Dos.
Teigen’s post was met with a few stupid comments, one of which she highlighted:
please folks. tweet when you see a movie with a majority-white cast !!! it’s important to help get more white movies made!!!!! pic.twitter.com/sIXk31KXjg
— christine teigen (@chrissyteigen) August 27, 2018
Yes, Teigen’s dad is white, but she doesn’t really need to be cheerleading movies with all-white casts. Those are doing just fine. In fact, “crazy rich white people” could be the tagline for about half the TV and movie shows that regularly get made.