This article is from Bitch. I want to preface it with the caveat that I haven’t seen To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, nor do I have plans to do so. High school sucked enough the first time around, I don’t need to rehash it. I have seen a lot of criticism of the film exactly for the reasons outlined in the article. This response is the first to address the double standard of that criticism, and I have to say I can definitely see both sides of this issue. This is where intersectionality comes into play.
For the record, I am not Asian. I don’t get a say in whether or not an Asian-American should or should not view a movie as problematic. That said, there’s been an issue in Hollywood with how Asian people are portrayed – Asian people of all genders. Asian men are often portrayed as martial art expert monks or as nerds, generally sexless, and never as romantic leads. (This, as pointed out in the article above, is changing, but change comes slowly.)
Asian women, in American film, are usually portrayed as either hypersexualized or innocent to the point of idiocy, sometimes both, with wildly stereotyped accents, and usually in need of rescue by a Great White Savior. (Always white, never from any other race…)
Anyway, I can definitely see the criticism if the main character in TATBILB doesn’t have a single Asian love interest, especially if the film is being billed as great Asian-American representation. I hadn’t considered the double standard until Bitch pointed it out. Many of the men in the current crop of films with Asian-American male leads have non-Asian love interests. If it’s okay for them, why is it not okay for this film?
And that’s where we have the intersectionality issue. Of course, it’s good to have Asian-American men as leads, especially romantic leads. It’s good to have Asian-American women as leads too, and it’s good to have a wider variety of roles open to actors of all races. Just as we shouldn’t see Asians relegated to nerd or helpless victim roles, we shouldn’t see Black or Hispanic/Latinx actors relegated to hypersexual or gang roles. We also have to consider where gender comes into play when we criticize films for their representation “score.”
And let’s not leave books out of our criticism. The romance genre has come under a lot of fire lately for our lack of diversity, and it’s mostly been deserved. Some folks within the genre have been making an effort to be more inclusive, but I do think we can all do better. LGBTQ+ romance in particular needs to be more conscious about bias, because of issues of intersectionality and just as plain common sense. We’ve all faced discrimination ourselves, so why would we reflect that hate outward?
I’m looking at my own body of work. I like to think of myself as writing “diversely,” but I can see a lot of areas in which I can improve. Part of the variance between my self-image and what you can see in my bibliography is missed deadlines, abandoned work, and so forth. But I can definitely do better. Everyone in The Dented Crown is a person of color, but it’s a fantasy romance so people don’t face the same oppression for skin color that they do in the real world.* Cameron, the main character in Rites of Spring, is Native.
Another issue is the market, of course, especially within the M/M romance community. I’ve had a client, in my ghostwriting business, who explicitly asked me to keep my main characters white because the books with non-white characters didn’t sell as well. (For the record, this client is a person of color himself. It was a purely business decision.) Authors, editors, cover artists – we all need to eat. I do think that part of it is improving, because there are some fantastic books out there with main characters who are not white.
I’d love to hear your thoughts. Have you seen To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before? Do you plan to? Do you think there’s a double standard in the criticism the film is facing, or do you think critics have a legitimate point? Let me know in the comments.
* It’s also out of print, but you know, details.