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Thursday, May 7, 2020
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com MICHIGAN IN COLOR
Wu schools Hollywood
with just representation
in ‘The Half of It’
CHERYN HONG
Managing MiC Editor
NETFLIX
An immigrant’s
Pursuit of ‘Happyness’
NOOR MOUGHNI
MiC Columnist
Read more at michigandaily.com
On May 1, Netflix released a bildungsro-
man film entitled “Half of It,” written and
directed by Alice Wu, who is known for her
previous film, “Saving Face,” which is also
known for its Asian-American and LGBTQ+
representation. The narrative of the film fol-
lows the “Cyrano de Bergerac” storyline, as
Ellie Chu (Leah Lewis) is a senior in high
school in the small rural town of Squaha-
mish, who runs an essay writing business.
She is approached by Paul Munsky (Daniel
Diemer), a kind-hearted football player, who
doesn’t have a way with words and requests
her help writing a love letter to popular
sweetheart, Aster Flores (Alexxis Lemire).
To be frank, Netflix has produced very
poor romantic films when carrying the goal
of representation, such as having a catfished
romance story with a plus-sized protagonist,
“Sierra Burgess is a Loser,” but I gave the
company a pass when “To All the Boys I’ve
Loved Before,” was released as it featured
the half-Asian character to be the one fought
for in a love story.
However, after watching Wu’s master-
piece, I have come to realize my affinity for
“To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” is shal-
low, as it is an ideallic, heterosexual, white-
washed fantasy in which I could relate to in
no manner, besides the small axes of similar-
ity between half of the protagonist’s ethnic-
ity and mine.
Asians are rarely seen on the movie screen
and when they are, they are portrayed with
stereotypically Asian attributes, which tend
to make up their identity, who they are and
what role they play in the film. All of which
is why I tricked myself into loving movies
“Don’t ever let somebody tell you you
can’t do something. Not even me... You got a
dream, you gotta protect it. People can’t do
something themselves, they wanna tell you
you can’t do it. If you want something, go get
it.”
“Pursuit of Happyness” has always been
one of my favorite films. Chris Gardner’s
determination to earn a better life for his
family inspires me to never give up on my
dreams and the sacrifices he makes for his
son never fail to make me cry. Since I first
watched this movie I felt a strong connection
to Gardner’s story, but it wasn’t until recent-
ly, when I revisited “Pursuit of Happyness”
with my mom and dad, that I realized why it
provokes me to feel the way I do.
My mother immigrated to America when
she was 22. After surviving years of civil
wars, bombings, homelessness and extreme
poverty in Lebanon she decided that if she
ever wanted to have kids, they couldn’t live a
life like hers. This decision meant she would
have to leave her entire life behind — her
family, her friends, her education and her
career goals — all so the kids she imagined
having could live a better life. She made this
decision while aware of its consequences.
She knew what it was like to have the sound
of bombs in the morning replace the sound of
an alarm clock buzzing and didn’t want her
children to know that feeling. She knew what
it was like to sleep on the floor in an aban-
doned school because the homeless shelter
she previously lived in had been bombed.
She didn’t want her children to go to bed
each night wondering where tomorrow’s bed
would be. My mother’s pursuit of happiness
was in giving her kids a better life than her
own. A life in which survival was not their
priority.
My father emigrated from Lebanon to
America when he was six years old. His
father found a job in an assembly line at
the Chrysler Motor Company and he toiled
away each day trying to make ends meet.
Even with all this, my grandfather’s job
was not enough to support his eight kids,
so my father had to work at a young age. As
a 12-year-old, he spent his weekends land-
scaping his neighbors’ lawns, his evenings
working at a pizza shop and his mornings
distributing leaflets throughout his neigh-
borhood. My father knew what it was like to
live an impoverished life and he didn’t want
his children to know that life. He knew what
it was like to have the responsibility of pro-
viding for your family before reaching your
teenage years and he didn’t want his chil-
dren to feel that burden. He spent the first 20
years of his life saving money from various
minimum wage jobs and when he met my
mom, he made the brave decision to go to law
school with a weekly salary of $100 in hopes
of establishing a successful career so that his
children would live a life far from his own.
My father’s pursuit of happiness was in giv-
ing his kids a better life than his own. A life
in which survival was not their priority.
My parents have sacrificed so much for my
siblings and me. My mother left her entire
life behind and moved to a different country
while my father worked endlessly, trying to
escape the shackles of poverty. Whenever I
watch Chris Gardner in “Pursuit of Happy-
ness,” I am reminded of my parent’s strug-
gles.
who threw me a bone in regards to Asian-
American representation—there is no range
of selection for me to choose from—and so I
settle with what I can get, to the point where
I allowed tokenism to make me believe Hol-
lywood was finally changing. And it was Wu
who shattered my low expectations.
I was tired of constantly seeing the dorky,
quiet or overly-achieving Asian because that
is all viewers see them as, no depth or deep-
er understanding. But this movie and Ellie
Chu were a breath of fresh air, because even
though Ellie is indeed quiet and reserved,
this stems from her character and storyline
rather than her racial profile. More than
that, Ellie is an intelligent and beautiful
writer, who is stuck in Squahamish with
her father who is still ridden with grief from
the passing of his late wife. Another aspect
of her growth is this relationship between
her unemployed-immigrant father and the
adversity he experiences due to language
barriers.
But the crucial and integral observation I
made is that Ellie being Asian doesn’t have
any impact whatsoever on the movie’s plot. It
shapes dialogue and how characters interact
with each other, but her ethnic background
doesn’t play a role in her relationships or
the ups and downs of her character. That
being said, the movie also doesn’t shy away
from who Ellie is. There are subtle notes of
how her identity impacts her character from
other white protagonists, as there are school
bullies who make fun of her last name, cook-
ing scenes of Chinese cuisine, conversations
with her father who doesn’t speak fluent
English, or even when Paul’s mother calls
her his “Asian friend.”
SONY PICTURES
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