To All the Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han

It hurts doubly because the author is Asian American. So when To All the Boys presents the rare opportunity to strike another blow against the Asian male stereotype, it hurts that it is not eagerly taken. While we enjoy the depiction of Asian men in CRA, their nonstereotypical roles don’t even begin to counter the centuries of Western society’s emasculation of Asian males. Instead, the film appears to have forgotten that their lead character’s identity is Asian American and (very possibly) might have met some Asian boys in her high school class.ĭespite the cultural breakthrough and apparent financial success of To All the Boys, Crazy Rich Asians, where Asian men finally are presented as complicated-and attractive-people, is still the outlier. In Han’s book trilogy, the races or ethnicities of Lara Jean’s crushes are never spelled out which-you would think-gave the Netflix production the creative freedom to be daring and include at least one Asian among Lara’s boys. High school gets even more complicated when letters she wrote to five crushes become accidentally mailed off. The bashful high school junior writes love letters to her crushes. Han’s protagonist is Korean American Lara Jean Song Covey played by Vietnamese American actress Lana Condor. “For this, all I can say is this is the story that I wrote.”

“I understand the frustration and I share that frustration of wanting to see more Asian American men in media,” said author Jenny Han in an interview with IndieWire. Not a single one of the heroine’s “boys” are Asian. However, with the opportunity to cast an Asian American boy as one of Lara Jean’s romantic interests, she chose to go along with the studio’s casting decisions after making (and winning) her point for the teenage heroine.Įven though the movie is receiving high praise, the Netflix product is being questioned for rendering the Asian male invisible as a potential romantic interest, reinforcing the stereotype of the unattractive, unsexy, unromantic Asian man. Author Jenny Han fought to keep Lara Jean Song Covey, the main character in the young adult novel, Asian American despite some studios’ desires to whitewash the character.

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before is being hailed in some circles as the best teen rom-com in a decade. Two days after the theatrical release of Crazy Rich Asians, the romantic comedy with an all-Asian cast, Netflix released its own romantic comedy with an Asian American actress in the lead role. Lana Condor (left) and Jenny Han (right).

To All the Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han