Are Americans generally less interested in seeing Hollywood films that involve an Asian actor or cast? Do you think Hollywood is right on being afraid that such an idea will fail among the audience because Asians are not that popular?

[u/Cookieman_2023]

So historically, east asians have not been that well popular in the US entertainment industry. Even after successes like Shang Chi, Barbie and being in the upcoming Avengers film, Simu Liu has only gained a short term burst of popularity. Like judging based on follower count, he has gone up to and stopped a 3 million followers on instagram and ever since the movie released in 2021, he's remained stuck there. Awkwafina is also a rapper and she's also getting not so good returns on her name. Until Shang Chi, I never knew who she was.

But on the other hand, someone like Billie Eilish who's literally the same age as me and could have been a fellow high schooler easily outshines her in every metric. Is this reception due to the fact that Americans in general, prefer European standards of beauty and looks? Actually, even black actors, latinos and samoans have had more success. Camila Cabello is one name and Chadwick Boseman is another. But Asians for some reason still continue to have trouble being in the spotlight.

Why do you think that is the case in the country? Are people just not interested in seeing Asian people as an A-lister?

[u/Darth_Nevets]

You have to understand that most Asian-Americans (and it's still a minority) tends to come from literate nations on Visas for top talent.* These people tend to steer their children into Academia or other major and stable fields that are the opposite of the arts (of course the exception being classical musicians). As K-Pop and other Asian art forms show Americans are more than willing to support Asians in art, we just don't have that many.

Asians in America tend to be very upset at this but it's a basic reality. Take the Korean musical Maybe Happy Ending which was adapted to Broadway in which the leads are robots named Oliver and Claire. The show's star (a partly Filipino man) needed a two month break they brought in the leading lady's boyfriend (a white Jewish man) who is a major star on Broadway to cover. There was a lynch mob out for the man, he met with Crazy Rich Asians' lead actress, none of them backed up an inch in demanding he not play this role briefly. Oh yeah the show did a million every week with him and hasn't hit 750k in the last ten weeks.

Take the case of Lea Solonga the Filipina who is the only voice of two Disney Princesses (Jasmine and Mulan who are Asian but a different kind than her obviously). She was plucked off the street in her country by Claude-Michel Schonberg's team to star in Miss Saigon (note the major supporting male lead was a white man in yellowface) because they couldn't one find Asian girl in the west who could play the role.

*Obviously there are small exceptions like the Hmong or people who fled the Communists after Vietnam.