This 2024 Coming-of-Age Comedy Is A Perfect Reflection of My Asian American Experience (2024)

Dìdi (2024)

This 2024 Coming-of-Age Comedy Is A Perfect Reflection of My Asian American Experience (1)

By Kevin Kodama

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This 2024 Coming-of-Age Comedy Is A Perfect Reflection of My Asian American Experience (2)

Summary

  • Didi provides authentic Asian American representation in a coming-of-age narrative set in the Bay Area suburbs.
  • The film subverts common Asian American film tropes, focusing on the complex parent-child relationship and cultural identity.
  • Didi offers a fresh, personal take on the AAPI experience, staying true to its roots and avoiding cliches for a genuine portrayal.

As an Asian American person who grew up in the suburbs of San Francisco, it is extremely rare ever to watch my life experience transposed on the silver screen. Sean Wang’s coming-of-age comedy Didi has suddenly filled that void. Normally, I have to latch onto the cinematic lives of others. However, this has grown to include more than just American media. It feels like most of the mainstream Asian representation today derives from films and television shows produced in other countries and hardly satisfies the feeling of seeing yourself on-screen represented authentically.

This isn’t as much a criticism of the industry as it is a crucial indication of how diverse the Asian American Pacific Islander experience is and can be within the cinematic landscape. Sean Wang’s Didi, starring Izaac Wang and Joan Chen, follows a young Taiwanese boy as he navigates his last summer before the beginning of high school. Based in the suburb of Fremont and set in the distant year of 2008, Didi perfectly encapsulates this hyperspecific version of the AAPI coming-of-age narrative, one that centers on a character who looks like me in the place where I grew up.

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Related

Dìdi writer and director Sean Wang discusses the inspiration for his new film, casting Izaac Wang, and his mother's thoughts on the story at SXSW.

Didi Is Honest About Asian American Embarrassment

Didi Subverts The "Stinky Lunch" Narrative Trope

A common narrative archetype found within Asian American literature and cinema is the concept of Asian American embarrassment. Popularly commodified into the “stinky lunch” story, this form of embarrassment occurs when Asian ethnic culture is deemed inferior when compared to American sensibilities. In Didi, writer-director Sean Wang plays off this feeling in interesting and multifaceted ways, pitting Izaac Wang’s Chris against former friends, new friends, secret crushes, and nagging family members.

These feelings of isolation and rebellion resonate with my experience growing up in the Bay Area, especially as it relates to my AAPI identity.

As Chris learns to define how he wants to be seen in the world, he frequently lies or acts cool to bolster his status within the post-middle school social climate. He lies about his ethnicity, rejecting his full Asian identity for a half-white one. He pushes his mom away when she tries to connect with him, and he constantly picks fights with his older sister Vivian. He cuts off his friends after being rejected and excluded. These feelings of isolation and rebellion resonate with my experience growing up in the Bay Area, especially as it relates to my AAPI identity.

Didi Shows The Authentic Asian American Parent-Child Relationship

Didi Reimagines The Immigrant Parent Narrative Trope

At the core of this Sundance-winning feature film is a tense relationship between Chris and his mother Chungsing (Joan Chen), and Sean Wang’s depiction of this parent-child dynamic speaks so tenderly to the Asian American experience. Chris and Chungsing hardly share the perfect home life. The film’s dramatic tendencies hinge on their tumultuous relationship while exposing a common experience in the AAPI community.

Having grown up in the San Francisco Bay Area surrounded by a community of Asian American friends, I have witnessed how second and third-generation kids struggle to culturally communicate with their parents. Immigrant parents tend to expect highly of their children, which understandably clashes with America’s rather lax approach to a teenage upbringing. While the immigrant story has become somewhat of a cliche, Didi freshens this narrative trope by including the mother in Chris’ route to self-discovery. As Chris struggles to adjust to adolescence, so does Joan Chen’s Chungsing struggle against her displaced life in America.

Didi Subverts The Stereotypical Asian American Film

Didi Finds New Ways To Tell The AAPI Story

This 2024 Coming-of-Age Comedy Is A Perfect Reflection of My Asian American Experience (4)

With the “stinky lunch” and immigrant stories, contemporary Asian American media has developed a handful of readily available narrative tropes that are repeatedly highlighted by American tastemakers or AAPI artists themselves. In general, these stories can become reductive and limit the scope of what the Asian American experience can be on-screen.

Sean Wang’s Didi aims to subvert these tropes simply by remaining personally authentic. Whereas the “stinky lunch” and immigrant stories favor a white audience, Wang’s directorial debut feels as if it were made by and made for the people in the film. It never prances into social justice conjectures and restrains from preachy overtures. It stays true to its homegrown qualities and never strays from the beaten path.

This 2024 Coming-of-Age Comedy Is A Perfect Reflection of My Asian American Experience (5)
Dìdi (2024)

R

Comedy

Drama

During the summer before starting high school, 13-year-old Chris Wang navigates the complexities of adolescence in a Northern California suburb. As he experiments with skating, social media, and first crushes, he also grapples with family dynamics and the pressures of growing up as a Taiwanese American. The story explores Chris’s journey of self-discovery, filled with both humor and heartfelt moments, while highlighting the cultural and emotional challenges he faces​.

Director
Sean Wang

Release Date
August 16, 2024

Cast
Izaac Wang , Joan Chen , Shirley Chen , Zhang Li Hua , Mahaela Park , Raul Dial , Aaron Chang , Chiron Cillia Denk

Runtime
94 Minutes
This 2024 Coming-of-Age Comedy Is A Perfect Reflection of My Asian American Experience (2024)

FAQs

What is the story Growing Up Asian in America about? ›

In the essay “Growing Up Asian in America” by Kesaya E. Noda the reader learns of the author's past experiences and how it helps her discover her identity and why it's important. Noda discovers what it is to be racially Japanese, Japanese American, and Japanese American woman.

What does Peter Feng in In Search of Asian American Cinema write about Asian American with the hyphen as? ›

Chinese-American: Peter Feng, in his essay “In Search of Asian American Cinema,” explains why Asian Americans, including Chinese Americans, decided to drop the hyphen: the hyphen represents a persistent discourse which suggests that Asians will never be fully accepted as Americans.

What historical context and causes set the stage for the Asian American movement? ›

The Asian American movement that promoted this new identity– which initially united Japanese, Chinese, and Filipino Americans, and then expanded to include Koreans, Southeast and South Asians, and Pacific Islanders– was driven largely by student activists radicalized by anti-Vietnam war and black power movements.

Why did Asian American Theatre develop? ›

Esther Kim Lee

In 1965, the first Asian American theatre company, the East West players, was founded by a group of actors who wanted to find better opportunities in the acting industry.

What is the author's purpose in Growing Up Asian in America? ›

An attempt to make a statement about how a person's race does not define them as a person and what it takes to find their own identity. Noda may have written to vent himself and to explain to others what Japanese Americans are going through. The author uses it to distinguish himself from other Americans.

What is the Growing Up Asian in America essay contest? ›

Hosted by AACI and in partnership with NBC Bay Area, Growing Up Asian in America (GUAA) is an annual art, essay and video contest that reaches thousands of Bay Area students in Kindergarten through 12th grade.

How were Asians portrayed in movies? ›

Once most East Asians were seen in meek servant roles, but in modern films, martial artists predominate roles for both men and women. The stereotypes are usually further enhanced when white actors are selected for Asian roles, and the practice called yellowface remains controversial.

What is the big little man in search of my Asian self about? ›

Alex Tizon's Big Little Man: In Search of My Asian Self is another retelling, this time in the lens of a Filipino boy coming to the states with his family, growing up, being able to learn what is manliness, and how it affects the relationships around him.

Who was the first Asian American actor to have a lead role in a Hollywood film? ›

Today, we're sharing the story of Anna May Wong, Hollywood's first-ever Chinese American movie star, who captivated audiences, earned critical acclaim for her performances, and dared to break free of Hollywood's early to mid-twentieth century typecasting practices for nonwhite actors.

What were Asian Americans for equality? ›

Asian Americans for Equality (AAFE) is an organization based in Chinatown, Manhattan that advocates for civil rights and affordable housing, which it is also involved in developing.

Who created the term Asian American? ›

The term, “Asian American,” used as a social and political identity, was coined by activists Yuji Ichioka and Emma Gee in 1968. Its creation served as a rejection of the derogatory term “Oriental,” which was used to describe Asian people.

When did Asian culture come to America? ›

The first major wave of Asian immigration to the continental United States occurred primarily on the West Coast during the California Gold Rush, starting in the 1850s. Whereas, Chinese immigrants numbered less than 400 in 1848 and 25,000 by 1852.

What are some facts about Asian theatre? ›

The Asian drama is essentially a dance-drama. It has its roots in the ancient classical dances of Asia: Noh and Kabuki in Japan and Kathakali in India. All three are highly stylized, setting an aesthetic distance between performers and audience by various means: this was what Brecht called Verfremdung.

What themes did early Asian American theatre tackle? ›

The first wave of Asian-American playwrights included Wakako Yamauchi, Momoko Iko, Edward Sakamoto, Hiroshi Kashiwagi, and Frank Chin. Common themes in plays by first wave writers were Asian-American history, generational conflict, cultural identity, cultural nationalism, and family history.

Why is the Asian American movement important? ›

The movement featured many instances of interracial solidarity as Asian Americans aligned themselves with other Third World minority groups to resist oppression and racism in America while fighting for self-determination.

What is she portraying about her experience of growing up Asian in America? ›

Kesaya Noda's mixed feelings about her family in “Growing Up Asian in America” stem for her lack of understanding about her Japanese heritage and how to combine that heritage with her American identity. She feels her inside and outside do not match. She looks Japanese and feels American.

What is the making of Asian America a history by Erika Lee about? ›

An epic history of global journeys and new beginnings, this book shows how generations of Asian immigrants and their American-born descendants have made and remade Asian American life in the United States: sailors who came on the first trans-Pacific ships in the 1500s; indentured "coolies" who worked alongside African ...

What was the main reason Asian immigrants came to America? ›

In the 1850s, Chinese workers migrated to the United States, first to work in the gold mines, but also to take agricultural jobs, and factory work, especially in the garment industry.

What is the summary of Asian American Dreams the emergence of an American people? ›

Plot Summary. Asian American Dreams (2000), Asian-American author Helen Zia's part memoir, part social history, traces the evolution of marginalized Asian ethnic groups in nineteenth- and twentieth-century United States history.

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