It’s ABOUT DAMN TIME the rich peeps got some screen time around these parts.
Comedian Ronny Chieng appeared on “The Colbert Report” last week to chat about “Crazy Rich Asians,” which was released in theaters on Wednesday. Host Stephen Colbert asked what the movie means to him as an Asian performer.
And, well, it means a lot to Chieng. Ya know, as a fierce advocate for the “underrepresented.”
“It’s a real honor to be part of telling a story of the more underrepresented in Hollywood today. Of course I’m talking about ... rich people,” said Chieng, who plays the image-obsessed Eddie Cheng in the film. “I’m sick and tired of these token rich people showing up occasionally in a Marvel movie.”
The “Daily Show” correspondent went on to jokingly question the audience about the last time they saw rich people on the big screen.
“When was the last time we had a movie about ourselves, the top 1 percent? ‘Wolf of Wall Street’? That’s like two years ago,” he said. “More rich people movies, please.”
You heard the man! Someone please cast a rich person in a film for once.
Of course Chieng has spoken out elsewhere about the film’s true meaning for Asians, who rarely see themselves cast as leads in Hollywood ― let alone in a movie with an almost completely Asian cast.
“The point of showing different perspectives is not diversity for diversity’s sake,” Chieng said in a Facebook post last year. “But when you tell authentic stories you show people that no matter how alien someone’s background might seem to you, we all have shared common human experiences.”
Because the film also tells a cross-cultural story about Asian-Americans and Singaporeans, “Crazy Rich Asians” carries a special significance for Chieng. The comedian, who’s lived in Malaysia, Singapore and Australia as well as the U.S., wrote that he’s always resided “between two worlds.”
“It is difficult to put into words what it means to be part of a culturally significant project that so specifically showcases the intersection between these two Asian diasporas in a hip, funny and elegant way,” he said.