Hollywood Industry and Imaginary Communications & Media Essay

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Hollywood Industry and Imaginary
Introduction
The “Crazy Rich Asians” is an American romantic comedy-drama production of 2018 directed by Jon Chu. This movie is based on the novel by Kevin Kwan written in 2013. The movie screenplay is by Peter Chiarelli and Adele Lim. The film is about an American professor who travels to visit her boyfriend’s family. However, she became surprised at discovering that they fall amongst the richest families in Singapore. Criticisms marred the production of the film on the ground that the film failed to cast other Singaporean ethnic groups as characters in the movie such as Malay as well as actors of Indian origin. The movie is considered as the first Hollywood film that incorporates an all-Asian cast within the last 25 years and has a very strong performance (King, 2016).
The Hollywood perspective tends to invest a lot in ensuring the creation of hype within their movie productions (Gray, 2010). This concept is evident in all their trailers, previews as well as movie campaigns. In commercialization of the movies, the use of advertisements, trailers, and previews helps in introducing the content and intended meaning of the script. Most of the promotions play the role of creating the contextual meaning of various texts and introducing the audience to the content of real texts. Promotions are advertisements that give the audience a foretaste of the coming movies, therefore, creating a rich expectation among fans (Goldsmith et al., 2010).
The movie the “Crazy Rich Asians” presents enormous effects of cultural forces at play. In the historical and cultural context, there is a portrayal of the influence of Asian culture as well as the impact of the global box office. The movie’s design inclines towards being a hit within the global movie industry (Sio, 2018). The movie overrides some aspects of fantasy in representing the Asian-American culture and the aspect of the family`s opulence in Singapore versus family relationships. The film is inspired by Kevin Kwan’s book series that represents the Asian community on the global platform. The film represents the Asian diversity on screen with a romantic comedy that appeals to the general audience. The main character Rachel Chu is an economics professor from the middle-class who happens to travel to Singapore and meets her Singapore born boyfriend. The Movie presents Rachel as the feminine with a self-reliant character (Sio, 2018).
Commercial contexts
The movie “Crazy Rich Asians” offers some unique quality brand that is crucial in the building of a box office hit. In the first instance, it creates a new sub-genre that deeply satisfies the consumer’s narrow needs, and then lastly it leads to an authentic brand purpose. The uniqueness of the film makes it take a central figure within the Hollywood theatrical field. This is since the film features an all-Asian cast that is English speaking (Sio, 2018). The story of the wealthy minority in Singapore is exhibited not as weaknesses but as strength. Such a perspective enables the producers of the film to set it apart from other competitors. The movie has been classified as a sub-category or sub-genre since its brand is very much different and appears unique, therefore, carves out distinctiveness owing to its unique value proposition within the film industry. In this case, the producer of the film dominates the competition owing to the focus on a battlefield with zero competitors, whereby they focus on the world of Asian super-rich (Gray, 2010).
The film leverages the diversity in race and culture that makes it possible for the building of inherent competitive advantage. The adaptation of the movie by the producers made it have a wide appeal to the masses. In this case, they discovered that most of the audience that read the novel was from the white origin and in their 20s or 30s, especially young women. The major attraction that enabled the commercial success of the film was the Asian-American community (Sio, 2018). In this case, the cutting edge in this film focuses on making a small target group extremely happy rather than reaching a large group with mild content. The Crazy Rich Asians brought diversity into the movie industry. In this case, the movie encourages viewers from all walks of life to provide diversity in storytelling.
Marketing
The posters are articulately used for commercial purposes, for instance, in the scene that shows Rachel and Nick having a loving embrace with a background full of the colorful array as well as animals. The overall tone and campaign of the movie are depicted in this scene since it hints at family love and the instances that control their emotions within the family life. The use of trailer depicts a dilemma on the male character on which woman to support and give attention. Such creates a romantic fairy tale movie having a predominantly Asian-American cast (Gray, 2010). The trailer helps in normalizing characters that are not of white origin through glittering locations as well as lead actors.
Further, the screening of the film by Warner Bros in advance before its official release was so much help in building the buzz around the movie (Gray, 2010). On the television cast, there is a revelation of other definitions of success which is beyond just numbers. Repeatedly, the cast of the movie through television channels directly impacts the lives of fans, especially from Asian origin. In this case, the story not only represents the plight of Americans or Asia-Americans but represents millions of people. The movie manages to develop the aspect of remarkable power by bringing out the aspect of reconciliation between east and west as pertains to families, practices, and beliefs (Grainge, 2008).
The various responses from the audiences concerning the text and the content of the movie present solid differences especially in theoretical perspectives. In this case, most of the spectators fall into elaborate correspondence with narrative as well as visual operations of the movie. This makes the movie/audience interaction to be more appealing universally sealing it off from many aspects of social contingencies. In this film, there are many responses that over-looks textual control, especially on cultural grounds. This is for the different audiences represent the differences in reception based on social dynamics. For instance, the television cast of this film is presented as a predisposition of the audience on the grounds of class, race as well as an occupation (Klinger, 1989). Promotional aspects make it easier for the audience to access the content in different formats since it presents different elements of the movie. In this case, the formats may appropriate social dimension, economic and political dimensions. It is possible for the promotional aspect to recognize the effect of social domains on viewing and how the inter-content network affects the circulation of the film as a commodity (Carlson and Corliss, 2011).
The crazy rich Asians film dominates the social media amidst questions of identity that currently floods the film industry. The film manages to satisfy massive expectations within the Hollywood movie industry. The movie delivers regarding laughter, romance as well as bringing new identity in a range of representations. The movie succeeds in the expansion of the understanding of the operations of the Asians regarding work, religion, and play. The characters are represented as charming, intelligent, and gorgeous and complex, which one can easily identify with. Everybody wants to identify with characters that resemble them and see how they overcome life dilemmas through wise choices. The movie off-loads the aspect of “model minority” through the inclusion and representation of Asian families as petty (Gray, 2010).
Cultural Context
The movie Crazy Rich Asians is a film that is rich in family issues, heritage as well as romance. This romantic comedy provides a turning point for the Hollywood film industry since its inception. This is since the film gives the audience some level of reprieve from the “white-only” dominance in the whole genre. Such layer of diversity makes the movie special since it is a western-produced film with the dominance of Asian cast from start to the end. The film identifies with specific life experiences that point towards Asian-American heritage while incorporating the theme of family love skillfully. The theme of love in a family is developed through the celebration of femininity through female friendships. Some of the aspects of the film such as bright color, elegant cinematography, editing, and costumes help in creating a graceful as well as the feminine world. The movie represents so well, the world of the romantic comedy genre owing to the use of familiar characters to resonate emotions of audiences from Asian and Asian-American origin (Beeton, 2008).
The film uses the rom-com aspect ideally and gracefully to refresh the audience of diverse origin (Gray, 2010). In its entirety, the film is very much thought concerning the ethnic identity as well as the struggle between class and culture. In this case, there is an elaborate development of the struggle between personal fulfillment and duties to our families. There is the elevation of heroines in the character of Rachel that makes viewers relate to her easily. At the same time, the characters, Wu and Golding affirm their characters in a natural way that makes the film to stay grounded in reality of occurrence amidst portrayal of opulence lifestyle. In the whole drama, there is no weak performance since the feminine characters are well used to break the heroine obstacles that are common in the Asian culture. At the same time, the whole cast is free of any form of ethnic stereotypes.
Further, there is a good display of the small emotional scenes between the family members. For instance, in the scene just before Rachel leaves for Singapore, the mother moves her daughter’s face in her hands and explains her encounter in New York as Chinese to be very different from the encounter with the traditional family abroad as a Chinese-American. The use of both the extravagant and emotional scenes brings about the historical context of cultural differences strongly.
To capture the attention of the outside market, the inclusion of appropriate costumes such as jewelry deems appropriate. However, the ability of the film to represent the existing tension within the Asian experience by portraying the differences in identifying with either mainland Asia or the diaspora is very key in representing the cultural context. In the movie, Rachel represents that group of Asians that are not the dominant culture. In Singapore, she finds herself surrounded by those who resemble her. However, the background of her upbringing makes her feel incomplete within the culture. The setting of the movie in cosmopolitan Singapore reveals that Asian does not represent a monolithic identity. This serves as a good example of the nexus to numerous Asian experiences (Klinger, 1989).
To attract a good segment of the market, the film incorporates different aspects of a romantic-comedy alongside giving a commentary on societal classes. For instance, the background from which Rachel is from can be referred to as a working-class. On the other side, her college mates Lin, who happens to be a native Singapore is portrayed as a nouveau riche. The cultural contexts present Asians as having different accents due to the influence of different values from varied countries. The major aim of the film is to educate their audience, especially the non-Asian viewers. The whole motive is the portrayal of the class gradations as it appears within the society in Singapore alongside the family and individual tensions as previously discussed. The film avoids showing some common stereotypical experiences as the case with many productions. Instead, they elevate the Asian women`s experiences as it should be across generations. The aspect of filial piety and love is shown through Eleanor, who happens to be the mother-in-law and always considers others interests first contrary to traditional sense where elders came first. This shows a great and rich heritage amongst the Asian traditions.
There is the representation of family ties in Singapore as one marred by conflict of individualism, economic as well as socially. There is a clear depiction of the aspect of shame, honor alongside individualism within a single extended billionaire family. There is a power play between the west and Eastern values as portrayed by Rachel and Eleanor. In this case, there is a clear description of the existing cultural conflicts within the diaspora communities. However, there is a surprising scene in the movie that associates Christianity with wealth, status and power within Singapore (Gray, 2010). There is an apparent discrepancy between opulent lifestyles and the Christian virtues. In this case, the movie relates Asian Christians with American Christians by the str...