By: Phoebe Piserchio, Staff Writer
On September 3rd, 2021, Marvel Studios will be releasing Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, their franchise movie featuring an Asian American superhero. Actor Simu Liu, starring as Shang-Chi, is excited to share his movie with the world. After famously tweeting, “Hey @Marvel, great job with Cpt America and Thor. Now how about an Asian American hero?”, in 2014, it came to no one’s surprise or disappointment that Liu is now starring in this role. He and his other cast members including Crazy Rich Asian star Awkwafina and director Destin Daniel Cretton are stirring with excitement, ready for the long overdue Asian representation in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. “Because we’ve been celebrating a lot of firsts in our community — when ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ came out three years ago, we celebrated that as the first studio movie with a predominantly Asian cast in almost 25 years,” Liu says. “I’m looking forward to the moment where we no longer celebrate firsts. We’re celebrating seconds, and thirds, and fourths, and fifths. So I’ll take this moment for what it is… But I hope that there are many more just like it afterwards.”
As fans’ excitement starts to grow nearer to the release date, more questions start being asked. Disney CEO Bob Chapek states that Shang Chi will be an “interesting experiment” with the film only being released in theaters, as opposed to also on their streaming service, Disney+. However, Simu Liu, being protective of his movie, eventually bounced back and tweeted in response, “We are not an experiment. We are the underdog; the underestimated. We are the ceiling-breakers. We are the celebration of culture and joy that will preserve after an embattled year. We are the surprise.” Liu later explained how he wanted to get the message across and show how fired up he is for the movie. He continued to say, “…It’s truly going to change the world.”
Despite Simu Liu’s great effort in promoting his movie, the same cannot be said for Marvel Studios. Marvel fans are upset with the lack of promotion on their part for Shang Chi. Many say that the little advertisement is “racially motivated”. Unlike other recently released Marvel films including “Black Widow” and “What If…”, fans say Simu Liu is promoting his movie more than Marvel Studios themselves. “We, Asians, get our first ever Asian-led Marvel film and @marvel isn’t doing anything to promote it. Tweeting a poster isn’t enough…” (@widcwfilms on Twitter). The Asian community has been waiting for their representation, and when they finally get it, Marvel is doing the bare minimum to promote it. And while many fans are aware of this, there are others that simply don’t care. A select number of fans say the movie is “unimportant” and that they won’t watch it because it doesn’t have any of the “original Avengers.” Because of this negative energy, other fans on social media are doing their best to take matters into their own hands and promote the movie. As an Asian-American, it’s about time we see Asian representation in this popular film franchise, and I am looking forward to seeing much more to come.
