Oscars, Asians, Invisibility, and Rage

Representing on the Big Stage, Being Seen, and Netflix's Beef

This year is flying by more quickly than most. The vibe these days seems to be lots of creative energy, a great deal of heaviness and anxiety in the news, and a pop culture landscape filled with tantalizing offerings to give us all a healthy and necessary dose of distraction.

Social Impact Insights: Asian (In)Visibility

Halle Berry presents the Best Actress Oscar to Michelle Yeoh. Photo Credit: Kevin Winter/Getty Images

The pop culture centrifugal force of the Oscars lured me in once again, even though last year I swore I was done with the ceremony of it all. I knew I couldn’t quit awards season entirely. I’m too much of a film fanatic. And this last year of film heralded a compelling Oscar-forward Asian Invasion, if not exactly the one I was expecting.

I was quite irritated when two of my favorite and anticipated films of 2022, Park Chan-wook’s Decision to Leave (from South Korea), and Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Broker (from Japan) were not a bigger part of the Oscars conversation. The pleasant surprise, of course, was the dominance of the Asian American Everything Everywhere All at Once. I’ll confess that I actually was not as drawn to this film as so many were. In fact, if there hadn’t been a noisy multiverse context, and it had been a quiet, meditative look at an immigrant family, a mother/daughter relationship, and a marriage on the brink, I probably would have loved it. For my sensibility, the multiverse action took me out of the emotions of the moment. And yet I could certainly appreciate its fascinating bizarreness, adventurousness, and original artistry.

And I was very much captivated by Michelle Yeoh. I have loved her since 2000’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, directed by my favorite of all, Ang Lee (Taiwanese American director). Crouching Tiger was nominated for and won a number of Oscars, and I remember at the time—over two decades ago—thinking how wonderful Yeoh was, but I’m embarrassed to say, it was totally outside the realm of possibility back then for me to even hope she’d be nominated for Best Actress, as she deserved. So her win this year was both a long time coming and a sign of all the good ways our culture has developed, despite how painfully long it takes to actually see real change.

Everything Everywhere’s Oscar run and big wins reinvigorated a lot of discourse about Asians in America, the ever-present model minority stereotype, and representation. For Brown/Asian/South Asian people here in the U.S., cultural invisibility is a throughline in our lives. The impact of course is wide-ranging, whether it’s from the pressure to over-perform, model minority-style; to assimilate and fit in via the mandates of mainstream American culture; or to feel that no matter what you do, no one will ever really see you or see your value as a person in our deeply capitalist world. Often it’s all three.

I know for myself, I’ve had those times when I’ve felt invisible and unseen, whether it was in a personal or professional context. And yet I’ve also always been able to use my invisibility as a superpower and flip it to use as a veil for my own purpose. It’s a skill I’ve learned, to stealth my way through lots of situations, giving just enough to make my audience happy, but keeping the rest of my energy and focus for myself. That said, while this approach has worked for me and for countless others, private negotiation of public-facing identity is not a systemic solution.

This leads us to the Asian rage part. The flip side of this invisibility is the rage underneath of being unseen. The production company behind Everything Everywhere, A24, is also the producer of Netflix’s series Beef. Beef is about two Asian Americans of different backgrounds, in terms of socioeconomic class, gender, countries of family origin, and even their experience of Asian Southern California culture. Both feel invisible and unseen in the ways I’ve described above, and have a low-simmering rage inside. And various characters show us the emotional impact of rage turned inward. It’s both super compelling and super cringe to watch, and a rare depiction of multiple Asian American characters living in their absolutely ugliest emotional depths.

Unfortunately, there is now a real-life enraging aspect to the show. It’s emerged that one of the actors who is also a visual (and performance?) artist has had a history of (he says) engaging in horrifying commentary on what I will call fantasy/ideations about sexual assault under the guise of creating art. Or he has actually engaged in sexual assault and publicly told the story with enthusiasm. I’m paraphrasing here because I don’t want to give him more airtime. There are too many men like him out there, who either casually engage in assault or feel entitled to make ugly comments about it under the cloak of art/comedy/provocation. I’m linking here to these important pieces on the topic that offer in-depth analysis.

I want to amplify a point that the pieces I’ve linked to make, because it relates to invisibility. This information was out there and known. It is unfathomable to me that the producers and creators who brought Beef to life would endanger their project by including someone with this background, regardless of how talented they thought he was. It’s almost as if these collective feelings of invisibility led them to believe his past and their positioning of him would go unseen. And there are so many talented actors from Asian backgrounds, known and unknown, who deserve an opportunity to be a part of this project. So why keep giving opportunities to a person who brings so much potential to poison the entire enterprise and to horrify the very audience you seek to reach?

This is a question we’ve been asking about people and organizations from all kinds of racial/ethnic/cultural backgrounds, and we’ve certainly asked it in the context of Whiteness. But there is something so self-sabotaging and rooted in having lived life unseen and invisible about this unfortunate mess. And from a crisis communications perspective, the silence of the producers and creators so far/as of the moment I am sending this out is another piece of the mess and the poison that stems from feelings of invisibility.

Speaking up, using your voice, and adding to the conversation: These are the tools that lead to liberation and to finding your own authentic way. It’s also what allows us to build collective power. This is why I have devoted so much of my own work to the art and science of communications in social movements and harnessing our communal voice.

Surf Synthesis: Getting into Rhythm

Thanks to the soothing power of only chilly—as opposed to freezing—water, I’ve been getting into a good rhythm with my surfing again. It’s starting to feel natural and expected, and more like I’m bringing concentrated focus rather than an undisciplined and chaotic effort that I hope lands me somewhere.

As with work, it’s all about setting realistic goals that have an edge of being “push” goals, but have enough possibility to them that I can gain confidence. And it truly is a daily practice that builds towards progress. And the more I am preparing, working out at home and doing exercises that support my endurance, balance, and power, the more confident I feel in my surfing.

Here on the East Coast, spring is definitely in the air, and that’s giving me that extra boost of energy, both physical and mental. Hope the same is true for y’all as well.

Tarot Inspiration: The Page of Swords

Deck = Golden Thread Tarot/Labyrinthos Academy

I was having a little trouble focusing on the exact card for this month. I felt for sure it was in the suite of Swords, the air sign indicating an analytic approach, mental sharpness, and “thinking energy,” for lack of a better term. I’ve been in heavy thinking and analysis mode these past few months. As I’ve been wrapping up existing clients, exploring new partnerships, and updating my website and info deck, I’m definitely in that mode of evaluation, setting frameworks, and analysis of our methodologies and approaches at Apsara Projects.

So I knew I had a lot of Sword energy swirling around me, and because the Swords can go in so many different directions, I wasn’t drilling down enough on the specifics of which card. So as I started working on this newsletter, I decided to let one of my tarot apps guide me. It could have picked any of the 78 cards in the deck, and I held my breath out of nervousness for a second before I hit the button.

And then up popped the Page of Swords! Yes! Exactly what I was thinking, but I hadn’t yet been able to grasp onto it with clarity. Pages are the young people of the tarot Court Cards. They have a sound foundation, a grounded sense of possibility, and an eagerness to go out in the world and explore. The Page of Swords is extremely curious and seeks to channel their mental energy in positive ways. This is exactly the mental spirit I’ve been cultivating as we leave winter behind and as my Apsara partners and I think about our lessons learned over the last few years of work.

And having the Page of Swords pop up for me when I was having my own mental block was a reminder to trust the universe to offer signs when you need them. Hope your Page of Swords energy is driving you to new places of intellectual curiosity and energy as the spring sun breaks through.

—Juhu Thukral

@juhuthukral | LinkedIn