This past summer, a new Netflix romantic-comedy, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, swept audiences across the world with its feel-good sentiments and family intricacies. The movie offers a closer look into the life of a non-majority, Asian-American female lead and her hilarious, yet endearing, predicaments. The movie, based on a novel written by Korean-American author Jenny Han, follows the story of Lara Jean Song Covey, a hapa (half Asian, half white) Korean-American teen. Lara Jean develops intensely passionate feelings for many boys throughout her life, writing each of them a love letter she never sends and spending days reading endless romance novels, engrossed in the fantastical ideal of a “happily ever after.” The story follows Lara Jean and Peter Kavinsky, played by Noah Centineo, as they develop genuine feelings for each other within the throes of a false relationship meant to save face with Lara Jean’s “real” love interest and Peter’s on-off girlfriend, Gen. It is sweet and endearing, and provides much needed representation to the Asian-American community through Lana Condor, the Vietnamese-American actress who portrays Covey, and her sisters, both of whom are portrayed by hapa actresses. Despite all of these positive attributes that were meant to be seen as progressive and sensitive of minoritized cultures, many people within the community Condor aimed to represent found issue with the dynamics of the movie.
The largest and most worrying complaint from primarily Asian-American audiences was the casting of Peter Kavinsky as Caucasian/White rather than Asian. Though this is accurate to the book, many referred to the problem of Asian-American men being desexualized, or not seen as appealing to majority women; they also claimed that the casting of Caucasian Centineo furthered the concept that only the White heroic could, and should, end up with even minoritized women. Some critics even took this “lack of representation” to be parallel to the issues concerning the casting of White/majority women in tandem with a Black male lead; arguing that Peter Kavinsky furthered the idea that White-washing is the only way for a film or plotline to be successful. This complaint is wholly problematic and, when politicized to the extent that some took it, can be, worryingly so, quite convincing.This is especially true when written by someone of a minoritized status. I read numerous blogs, articles, tweets, and lengthy social media posts concerning this “issue.” Many of them were authored by someone of an Asian heritage, claiming to fight for justice for their race/ethnicity. Many even turned to Han, blaming her for writing a White male lead into her story rather than an Asian one. Her response was that this was just the story that she wrote.
The most problematic factor of the complaints given is that of the exclusivity of relationships in minoritized communities. Asian-American people complaining and finding issue with an Asian woman dating a Caucasian man and politicizing it to make it an issue of race, the emasculation of Asian males, and the lack of racial awareness and sensitivity in mainstream media is wrong. First of all, the movie was accurate to what Han wrote in the book. Imagine bending the casting and making Peter Kavinsky into an Asian character; the world is happy, the audiences are appeased. What if that were to happen in reverse? The White-washing of an Asian character would be a mistake of gross proportions. However, because Kavinsky is originally White, turning him into an Asian character is something pressing enough to become an issue of political controversy. While it is understandable that minorities would want a person of color to play a leading role, to change the race of a character from the book’s plotline politicizes and problematizes a character where there originally was no racial statement to be made. Additionally, and perhaps most importantly, by fighting for Peter Kavinsky to be represented by an Asian male lead in congruence with Lana Condor’s portrayal of Lara Jean, a message is sent to people of color—Asian-American women in particular—that it is better, or even only possible, for people of a certain ethnicity to be romantically involved with people of the same ethnicity. While this problem of racial exclusivity, not only limited to romantic relationships, has been a problem for some time, this particular instance is frightening because of the nature of the accusations causing this problematic situation.
By causing controversy for representation, much of the Asian-American community is setting individuals of their ethnicity back, along with other people of minoritized communities. The problem here isn’t that of Han’s racial choice in creating her characters; the underlying error in our system is the mindset of limitation in space for racially minoritized and discriminated individuals in major motion pictures. To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before was meant to display an interracial relationship with all its nuances and “dysfunctionality” that people may be able to nitpick at, but it should also be one among the many stories representing Asian-American individuals in varying relationships of sexuality and diversity. The criticism surrounding the lack of an Asian male role is given under the assumption that there is no room for more than one narrative with an Asian-American role in general. That assumption is where we are going wrong, and that is the dysfunctionality that deserves critique and concern from our community, and the communities of other peoples of color. The push for Peter Kavinsky to be portrayed as an Asian-American character wouldn’t be existent if Crazy Rich Asians wasn’t the first major motion picture with a primarily Asian cast since The Joy Luck Club in 1993. There wouldn’t be a cause of fights and wars within communities if there were simply more minoritized individuals cast in major motion films and more representation in mainstream media. The problem was never Peter Kavinsky. The problem, however, was always the lack of exposure given to the Asian-American community in popularized media.
Despite all the criticism that was received in the wake of this film, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before was a lovely and poignant movie. It was relatable to me as an Asian-American female who never thought she’d see Yakult anywhere other than her fridge or next to the tofu in the Korean grocery store, and definitely not in a major motion picture. Besides being an adorable love story and a fun watch, it was a good reminder that although we have progressed greatly in our strides toward equity and inclusion, it never hurts to represent an ethnicity that may not already be present in media.