Over the holidays, I was looking for an easy Christmas movie to watch and of course, Netflix’s Love Hard was a strong contender. Not only did it have an Asian-American actor playing the lead (Jimmy O. Yang) – which is rare – but it seemed innocent enough as your typical dating-gone-wrong story about being catfished over the holidays.
However, I had to stop the movie after just a few minutes. There was just too much to cringe about starting with the stereotypical cast of characters, which included the too-cute-to-be-single writer (Natalie) with a dating disasters column, her flaming gay and fitness-obsessed media boss, the overweight colleague/bestie who lives vicariously through her, and of course, the nerdy and unattractive Asian guy who (spoiler alert) she ends up falling for in the end.
The final straw for me was when Natalie’s colleague referred to Tag (the hot guy that Josh used to catfish Natalie) as ‘Asian American’. Wait, what? I had to rewind and watch it a few times. Are they really saying that Josh used a picture of a fellow Asian to catfish Natalie, when it’s pretty obvious that the guy in the photo was white?
Now that I’ve had the time to google, the actor playing Tag is, in fact, biologically 1/4 Japanese, but you would never have guessed it by the way he looks. I mean, anyone in their right mind who saw a Tinder profile of an “Asian American” man with a photo of a white guy would have known (or at least have suspected) that they were being catfished. How is this even believable?
If the idea of the movie was in fact, more Asian representation, why didn’t Josh just use a photo of a better looking Asian guy instead? (Yes, they do exist.)
Other reviews of Love Hard
It looks like I’m not the only one feeling confused – here are some other opinions floating around the web about Netflix’s Love Hard:
Carol Eugene Park writes on The Representasian Project: “Upon looking at his face, Natalie’s colleague points out that he’s Asian American as if Natalie had found a gem, or even something exotic. It’s a jarring detail because the comment sets the underlying tone of the movie: there are Asian American men who are desirable to white women, and there are Asian American men who are not.”
Park continues, “For all the conversations about diversity and better representation, this Christmas movie leans into the harmful stereotypes Western societies have about East Asian men, and Asian men in general: the weird, nerdy, and desperate non-white man on the internet who virtually connects with pretty white women.”
“This Christmas movie leans into the harmful stereotypes Western societies have about East Asian men, and Asian men in general: the weird, nerdy, and desperate non-white man on the internet who virtually connects with pretty white women.”
Carol eugene park
Juliana George of The Huntington News called the movie ‘colour blind’: “Other than a few passing jokes about Josh’s heritage, the racial dynamics of the characters’ relationships with dating apps and with each other are completely ignored.”
For instance, at one point in the film, Josh’s grandmother asked if Natalie was a “geisha,” even though the family is meant to be Chinese.
“Hollywood needs to put effort into diversifying not only the actors, but the narratives they put out.”
juliana george
George continues: “Love Hard perpetuates the idea that only a certain kind of Asian man should succeed on dating apps, and even when Natalie and Josh end up together, she is seen as settling for something imperfect.”
On the other hand, Maggie Zhou on Refinery29 sees Love Hard as a cause for celebration. She explains that movies like Crazy Rich Asians and Shang-Chi served us “beefcake after beefcake” of hot Asian men, whereas Love Hard was like a breath of fresh air.
“While muscled-up Asian men dominate the few leading male roles available, it’s refreshing to see Hollywood embrace the average Asian man.”
maggie zhou
She writes, “it’s refreshing to see Hollywood embrace the average Asian man. Toxic masculinity is, after all, a limiting and regressive stranglehold for everyone.”
The thing is… we’ve actually had that nerdy Asian man stereotype for so long now that the beefcakes were that breath of fresh air. And I think we need more of it before going back to only seeing nerdy-looking Asian men on-screen.
For Jimmy O. Yang who played Josh, he was just happy to be cast as the lead in Netflix’s rom-com, telling Pop Sugar, “This role wasn’t written to be a particular ethnicity. I think it’s super awesome that they cast me as an Asian person and my [onscreen] family [is] an Asian cast. At the end of the day, it’s about the underdogs.”
Follow us on Instagram @ricefolk!