After Michelle Yeoh’s Oscar win, critics are pointing out it’s not just about her finally earning her moment in the spotlight — but more about Hollywood’s finally catching up to Yeoh.
Yeoh’s win, for her role as frazzled immigrant laundromat owner Evelyn Wang in “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” makes her the first Asian to take home the best actress award in the motion picture academy’s 94-year history. It’s no doubt a milestone.
But experts point out that given the decades when Yeoh was overlooked as a serious actor and the work it took for her to be seen as a contender, the Oscar is also a symbol of the enduring barriers that Hollywood gatekeepers have put up against Asians and the insufficient progress that has been made.
Yeoh, they say, has succeeded in spite of them.
“It’s just hugely monumental because of all those biases that exist in the industry and just racism,” said Ana-Christina Ramón, the director of the Entertainment and Media Research Initiative at UCLA. “To overcome all those hurdles of what exists in terms of the academy — that’s huge.”
She added: “I think it’s almost disrespectful that they haven’t honored her in the past.”
The Academy declined to comment.
The lack of acknowledgment of Yeoh, who’s only now getting her flowers after a 40-year international career, reflects systemic issues in how the Western film industry continues to dismiss and “other” Asian actors, experts say. Yeoh, an industry veteran, first became a respected action icon in Hong Kong cinema in the late 1980s. As with many other Asian actors, her foray into Hollywood, with the 1997 James Bond film “Tomorrow Never Dies,” involved stunts and martial arts.
Daryl Joji Maeda, an ethnic studies professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and the author of “Like Water: A Cultural History of Bruce Lee,” said Hollywood has embraced international stars like Australians Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe, who have…
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