Awkwafina Applauded for Accurate Depiction of Asian American Experience by Speaking Chinese Badly
It really reverberated authenticity
October 11, 2021
By: Elle Kobler
In an effort to highlight diverse actors, The Academy Awards announced this week that they changed their mind about giving Renee Zellweger an Oscar in 2020 for Actress in a Leading Role for her portrayal of Judy Garland. Instead, they have chosen to highlight Awkwafina’s hyper-accurate depiction of the Asian American experience in The Farewell.
“I’m disappointed to get the award rescinded, but it’s honestly just an honor to be nominated. Maybe next year I’ll get offered an Asian role,” said Renee Zellweger.
In their awards announcement, the Academy recognized Awkwafina for her realistic Chinese appearance in portraying Billi Wang.
“Learning Chinese is, you know, really difficult,” said Academy representative, Mark Gollichmer. “We are in awe of the way Awkwafina captured the essence of what Chinese sounds like when you hear it crossing the street or ordering take out. It really reverberated authenticity to us and went beyond the work any actress was doing in this category.”
Maoyan Entertainment, the online ticketing platform responsible for distributing the movie in China, expressed surprise at Awkwafina’s win.
“We had a local Chinese actress do voiceover for all of Awkwafina’s lines,” cackled Ed Yao, agent for Maoyan’s Beijing office. “The rest of the movie’s Chinese was fine and we know she was doing her best, but damn! Put some elbow grease into it. And even with that, the movie did incredibly poorly in China. But good for her, I guess, only in America, right?”
The Guild of Asian American Actors and Actresses (“GAAAA”) issued a statement congratulating Awkwafina on her historic success.
“It’s not every day that a comic rapping about vaginas can do a crime heist movie, an immigrant drama, and an action film. We’re immensely proud of the mark Awkwafina has made. I mean if her Chinese is bad, at least it’s an accurate portrayal! We speak Chinese with a bad accent and we’re proud! ” said Norah Ming, GAAAA spokeswoman, while actively ignoring Duo the Owl notifications on her phone.
