Shirley Chen in SLANTED Courtesy of Bleecker Street and Tideline Entertainment
In Amy Wang’s ‘Slanted,’ a Teen’s Quest To Be Accepted Takes a Dark Turn
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Part teen movie, part family drama, and part body horror, Amy Wang’s new film Slanted offers a sharp critique of the pressure to conform to Western beauty ideals, and exposes how people of color can lose themselves in the process.
Slanted tells the story of Joan Huang (Shirley Chen), a Chinese American teenager who is desperately trying to fit in and be crowned prom queen in a school where blonde and blue eyed is the standard. After a company called Ethnos offers the opportunity to transform her appearance to Caucasian, Joan makes the decision to go through with the irreversible procedure. She wakes up from surgery as the blonde Jo Hunt (McKenna Grace), but soon finds that all is not as it seems.
Amy Wang spoke with us about the inspiration for the film.
“I came up with the concept after there was a shooting in Atlanta, Georgia, where a group of Asian American women who worked at a spa were killed. And it really brought up a lot of emotions and past memories of growing up in Australia and the racism I experienced. And so that's kind of the core of ‘what would it have been like if I'd grown up white and I got to change my race,’ which is kind of what I wanted as a teenager.”
The inner turmoil that Joan experiences as she navigates American beauty standards and popularity, while living with parents who are struggling themselves, is expertly portrayed by Shirley Chen. We asked Chen if she could relate to Joan’s character, extreme as her choices may seem. Having grown up in a majority white community herself, Chen recalled imagining all teens looking a certain way.
“I really vividly remember one day thinking that when I woke up as a 16-year-old, I would have blonde hair and blue eyes. And so there's a strange parallel to what Joan ultimately experiences in this story.”
Not every Asian American character in the film is struggling with identity. Maitreyi Ramakrishnan plays Joan’s friend, Brindha, who is confident in who she is and who challenges Joan’s decision to turn into Jo. Ramakrishnan remarked on the importance of showing the variety of Asian American experiences.
“What I love that Amy did in the script is show how both Joan and Brindha have grown up in the same school,” Ramakrishnan said. “They're growing up in the same neighborhood, but you still can have two very different experiences and both are valid.”
Slanted asks us to rethink our insecurities around identity, and consider how much we’re willing to sacrifice in order to feel accepted.
Slanted is released in theaters nationwide on March 13.
