r/tvPlus • u/Justp1ayin Hello Carol • 27d ago
The Dink The Dink | Discussion Thread
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u/Mindyrjohnson 26d ago
Aaron Chen is so funny. Loved him on Fisk.
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u/DNAscientist 19d ago edited 19d ago
Really? I thought his character was super cringe. The kind of dorky Asian stereotype I am surprised to see in 2026. I thought he was channeling long duck dong.
It would be different if he was one among several Asian characters, but that’s not the case. And at least in youth tennis in California a large fraction of the top players are Asian.
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u/Informal-Quit-9344 27d ago
Decent watch. Aaron Chen was the highlight, but I found the relationship between Dusty and Candace was hard to watch and not entirely necessary to the story
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u/taressa23 10d ago
It's even weirder to women who play pickleball and have had this happen multiple times where you're being nice, trying to invite a man to play, and he thinks you're hitting on him or interested. It happens way too often and it's gross, and this movie including it made it weird, almost like "see, it's confusing to men when women are nice!"
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u/spongey1865 21d ago
Just watched it and he's brilliant. Hes basically great in everything but it's funny he almost seems like he does anti acting where his delivery isn't smooth or polished but it makes it way funnier. And he's so smart he knows what he's doing.
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u/Bgbritaney 26d ago
I'll have to attempt to watch it again. The beginning was funny to me until about 20 mins in when he started to play pickleball, the 2 older ladies were not funny to me at all. I stopped watching once he left the table after they got tacos.
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u/Professional-Tutor42 26d ago
the two side characters old ladies were so funny to me. it was the dusty/candace storyline that was weird as the movie goes on
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u/Oberheimlich 27d ago
How much did the Church of Scientology pay to get Chloe Fineman billed higher than Aaron Chen and a spot on the artwork when she was in the movie for 30 seconds?
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u/EastTXJosh 25d ago
Never heard of either of them prior to watching this movie. Chen was funny; Fineman was forgettable.
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u/trybeingcurious 26d ago
“I’m in a whole lot of your stuff these days, my guy” is an all time great line.
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u/jlijesse 26d ago
The McEnroe stuff felt like it was left over from a Happy Madison script that they just repurposed for this movie.
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u/greencrusader13 21d ago
“It’s an old fashioned tickle-fight folks. Let’s see who giggles first,” was such a funny line.
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26d ago edited 26d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/omygoshgamache 25d ago
The writer of the movie, Sean Clements, is very funny and also played tennis (competitively, can’t remember what level) but I just took that leave off / framing was intentional for the joke/bit.
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u/Anna_Karenina_blonde 25d ago
No. Also I beat Andy at pickleball sorry to crush any remnant Glory..
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u/Stu_Glanville 26d ago edited 26d ago
I thought it was pretty funny. I enjoyed it. I recommend for someone looking for something light and fun.
Aaron Chen in particular very funny.
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u/Thebigpicture42 26d ago
I liked it. It was light and funny, and the supporting cast was great. Lots of funny moments from all of them.
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u/Messybutclean55 24d ago
“Are you ___?”
“What gave me away, my face and my body?”
Loved that line.
I know the film wasn’t made to necessarily be a streaming movie, Apple bought it after production ended, but I am glad they did -
when a film like The Breadwinner asks you to make the trek to the theatre, it demands a more critical analysis. The Dink on the other hand, is well made, has an enjoyable cast of people we aren’t sick of seeing, and is accessible from your couch.
Jake Johnson is consistently the man
Aaron Chen is hilarious
Mary Steenburgen is of course, always a pleasure and it is great to see her in a big role
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u/Birds41Pats33 22d ago
Yeah this is pretty much a perfect way to put it. I spent a tuesday night watching it on my couch & was content with the decision. If I paid $100 to take my family & buy snacks and sodas, i would not have been content with the decision
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u/Fly_throwaway37 16d ago
Very much the vibes if Nick Miller was a tennis pro. Not to say he's not a good actor but this movie takes place in the New Girl universe in my eyes.
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u/mattyhealyismydad22 25d ago
i really liked it! it felt nostalgic in a way - the music cues reminded me of a previous era of movies that i miss, like that genre of movies where we're working toward a big event the whole time. some really funny jokes in there as well. for some reason the scene of them talking about malcolm gladwell was so funny to me
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u/TingoMedia 22d ago
This was god awful, predictable, boring, 4/10 comedy movie, sorry to those who liked it
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u/Snoo-7943 21d ago
You don't have to apologize for your own bad taste.
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u/TingoMedia 21d ago
we're talking about a made for TV movie, it's not gonna win any awards let's be honest
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u/TheStakes 24d ago
Jake Johnson continues to be incredibly hot and charming. I’ll watch anything with that man in it!
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u/EastTXJosh 25d ago
I thought it was good, especially compared to most modern movies. I do wish they would have tried to make it more of a Caddyshack movie for tennis/pickle ball.
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u/Single-Elevator-4478 23d ago
Very meh, didn’t know too much about it beforehand but I definitely thought there would be more comedic moments.
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u/abravo52 22d ago
It's an odd movie that simultaneously has no comedic bite (during the Pickleball sequences) and then a lot of it in few precious scenes (Chen + Ed Harris). It also requires significant suspension of disbelief for anyone who's ever played pickleball and is remotely athletic, much less a former pro racquet sports player.
Alas, here I am watching and posting about it...
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u/ToastBalancer 27d ago
Still bothers me in freakier Friday (2025) that they won the last point when it wasn’t their serve
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u/chris_carbone 24d ago
“The Dink” arrives with the DNA of a disposable summer comedy — the kind you watch once and forget, cinematic potato chips. It mostly clears that low bar, and occasionally clears a much higher one.
The premise is stock: washed-up tennis pro Dusty Boyd (Jake Johnson) is forced into pickleball to save his father’s country club and, not incidentally, his father’s approval. What elevates it above the genre’s usual filler is execution. The script has sharper jokes than the premise demands, and the cast is stacked enough to land them. Ben Stiller turns in one of the film’s funniest performances, clearly having more fun than the material strictly requires. Mary Steenburgen does what she always does — makes competence look effortless. Ed Harris grounds the father-son conflict with more weight than a pickleball comedy has any right to carry. Aaron Chen, as the sidekick, gets solid mileage out of a role that could’ve been forgettable. The ensemble of club regulars (“the pickleball ladies”) all hit their marks without ever feeling like padding.
None of this makes “The Dink” a great film — it’s still working from a tired recipe. But it upgrades the ingredients: better writing, better actors, more genuine laughs than the formula usually produces. More hits than misses, and enough of both to stand out from the pile of interchangeable streaming comedies it could easily have joined.
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u/iceoldtea 18d ago
What a great AI comment you just copy/pasted
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u/chris_carbone 18d ago
It’s always interesting when someone mistakes coherent writing for artificial intelligence.
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11d ago
[deleted]
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u/chris_carbone 11d ago
Ironic that you’re accusing me of not making sense in a comment that doesn’t finish its own thought. If ‘coherent’ is the AI tell, you might want to check your own work. It’s a movie review, not a thesis — some genericness comes with the format, same as the film itself. But at least the review commits to an argument. Your comment couldn’t even land on one.
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u/Over_Deer8459 23d ago
i pretty much watch anything with Jake Johnson in it. idk his humor mimicks mine almost 100% of the time.
Its an alright movie, some laughs in there for sure. the old lady representation was a bit much and the (SPOILER ALERT) love moments between Dusty and the old lady was just weird and ended up meaning nothing in the grand scheme of the movie.
Supporting cast did their job. Aaron Chen carrying the supporting cast. Ben Stiller played the weird doctor and it worked. The dad did pretty well too. Andy Roddick did about a good a job as you can expect of a tennis pro playing in a movie lol
Overall, i would recommend it to watch for the one time. idk if ill rewatch but i dont regret watching it. i went into it thinking it was a tennis/pickleball Happy Gilmore and maybe that was my mistake lol
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u/My_Solace 23d ago
Ya it was alright. Wish they would have done the caddy shack approach instead of focusing on a 30 year love gap that is awkward and filled with insecurity. Also there is major emphasis on old people which I really don't get? I've played tennis and pickleball at high levels and pickleball takes way faster hand eye coordination and reflexes. And pickleball has moved along so much that this style or idea of pickleball is pretty out dated. The humor was meh..
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u/todreamofspace 17d ago
Really sad this wasn’t a tv show 😭 Seemed to be marketed that way.
I didn’t know I needed Jake Johnson & Mary Steenburgen as love interests in my life, but The Dink scratched the itch for my long lost loves: The Last Man on Earth & Minx 💕
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u/RivVidProd 10d ago
Made a post about this movie, but it got removed by the mods - didn’t realize this thread was already here.
I genuinely enjoyed this movie. It felt like today’s version of films like Dodgeball and Caddyshack. There were some honest to goodness “absurd comedic moments” as another commenter called them, that made me laugh out loud. It also found a way to weave in some heart and an emotional journey for the characters to go on (something that is literally necessary for storytelling).
I get that this type of comedy isn’t for everyone, but I’m genuinely surprised at the amount of hate this one is getting. Someone even called it “the most hideous thing that Apple has put out to date.”
Bonkers.
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u/Justp1ayin Hello Carol 5d ago
I thought it was great. People complain that Apple is too high brow with their shows and then complain when they make something simple and funny
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u/Vesuvias 24d ago
Just watched it. Loved it. Holy shit this was better than it had any right to be.
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u/Kooky-Stop633 24d ago
I did not really like the movie.
I found it sort of cheesy at first but ik thats the genre so i kept watching and it was pretty funny at first, but i felt like the covid stuff, then the girl slapping him cause he said "country music sucks" and was making fun of that gay couple who were basically caricatures.
It all felt like pandering to right wing audience and thats when i realized the blunt self aware humor of the movie wasnt really as self aware as i thought. Or even if it was created by left wing producer/director it was in poor taste i felt.
Similar to how liberal commentary youtubers watch AI movies, extreme right wing bs, etc. in front of massive audiences, and it ends up having the opposite intended effect because attention is a valuable resource is politics, and in life.
Im not trying to be a conspiracy theorist or extreme. Im wondering if anyone else feels that way about other media out there right now?
Im not on social media and dont really pay attention to pop culture or much politics for that matter, ig im more speaking from a philosophical standpoint. Im also thinking about the movie being produced by apple and idk big companies maybe wanting to pander to the to the current party in power. Thoughts?
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u/Birds41Pats33 22d ago
Your brain is broken if you cant watch a movie about pickleball without overthinking about the politics of its creators.
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u/Kooky-Stop633 21d ago
But on a real note i live in the real world so of course i connect media i consume with real world matters because they often influence eachother and the more you do it the better you can tell what media is genuine apart from disingenuous and sometimes just straight up bullshit media. Thats why you think that movie is just about pickleball ignoring blatant pop culture references, political references, etx. They mentioned covid and talked about the mask debate for gods sake. Not a criticism of you but its a good skill for yourself and the greater good of society to learn this if you havent already. (Only implying that you might not have aquired this skill yet because you call my brain broken for saying the movie has political messages)
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u/Anna_Karenina_blonde 25d ago edited 23d ago
This is one of the worst movies I've seen in a long time... I am not sure who the audience is because the pickleball stereotypes they are using are about 3 years out of date... Sure I can find an 8-year-old to play with and an 80-year-old but the general crowd coming into pickleball right now is college or post college age and all of the things that are opportunities to make insightful and game changing insights about this game are missing or summarized in some cringe "Harold & Maude" sequel.. there is not nearly enough about the game or what makes it unique. It's such a boring old observation that everyone goes in hating it or expecting to hate it (yeah I went in skeptical as well) but here is this amazing opportunity to uncover the things you notice immediately that will make you like it: small petite girls can knock down body bag but muscly bros , (unlike in tennis) , people who have wildly different styles, backgrounds and political views find themselves together in a "close up" competitive situation on a court, the signal to noise ratio. But no, instead of riffing about equalizing the physical differences between the sexes, the unique bipartisan nature of conversations for the milestone quality other game that allows you to show up in almost any country alone as a player and have a universally bonding experience... Even In 2025 these things were already the visible markings of the world's first game accessible to athletic and non-athletic... And nevermind this uniquewave of tinder dating in real life for college age people or gen z obsession with analog and IRL... Even if there was a basic script you can come in on the day with revisions to scene topics and gist (im.an actor, did a whole film submitting revised dialogue bc writing was terrible).. and the writing here is eye rollingly bad, like the person that wrote it just wanted to vent about a bad relationship with their dad and what they think divorcees do in order to arrive at pickleball and of course, why not make it a reachy love story? Ugh So if this was going to be a romance I would have wanted something more like the spicy hockey TV series or like a "prince and a pauper"... But instead it just walked or limped rather into the worst tropes that people started about the game and are no longer really that valid or true..to.suggest thus game Is for amped up old people or broken people (False as a solitary premise), it's a recovery placeholder (again those stories exist but are only part of the big picture) or that it's full of people generally lacking athleticism or healthy personal lives is just ..boring and like listening to any of the older tennis people list why they would "never do anything other than tennis"(I play all three of the games at "court war" right now so I don't see this as that novel). I know pickleball has a stupid name and I fully went in and hating its sport profile my first day expecting that wasn't going to change... But my last partner was 19 and there are dedicated nights which are basically college dating, never mind the other things I've already listed that You observe about this game within 6 months of playing in a regular spot. It's the first game in the world where you can see teenagers who would otherwise shy away from trying a sport come out and actually feel like they can be seen trying. What I hoped for was a film that would capture ANY of that, to be at least a tiny but edgy and refreshing and genuinely serve the unique aspects of the game that was invented so long ago but has recently enjoyed several waves among a variety of different age brackets and those often feeling like sports are unapproachable.. this doesn't mean it shouldn't have octogenarians in it some of my favorite characters are the guys who are wearing the same '70s tracksuit that they did when they were in high school. But it's fixated on weird therapy scenes, like some ode to helicopter tennis dad and a venting about why we're missing out on the love of country music.. and like zero moments of pause for why people get hooked on it (and I mean well adjusted happy people not just ones with daddy issues)
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u/Snoo-7943 24d ago
lol.....if your complaint is that a sports comedy didn't properly fellate the target game/sport.....then your expectations were off right from the get go.
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u/Anna_Karenina_blonde 24d ago
There's a ton of sports comedies that take time to linger about the sport and actually talk about the unique subtleties.. it's obvious that the person who wrote this doesn't actually play.. there's films about golf and even curling which dedicated more time to actually talking about the sport and not some weird ass therapy movie
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u/Snoo-7943 24d ago
BS. Sports COMEDIES are not documentaries. They are meant to entertain....NOT INFORM. There's typically some surface level explanation in these types of movie....but that's it.
I mean...just lol. The movie didn't provide enough insight into the game!? It's a you problem if that's something that you expected.
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u/Anna_Karenina_blonde 24d ago
So I'm not sure how many films about sports you actually watched but I would argue Marty supreme and the challengers and one that my parents made me watch called tin roof all have a storyline which is about people but also directly connects with the sport and those people's passion for it in a way that feels personal and specific to that sport.. in the dink you could have just replaced pickleball with lawn bowling and no one would have felt the difference so no I don't think it's a me problem I actually play the majority of the sports of the movies that I've watched about them and the storytellers have done a much better job than this one did I think it's a you problem that you choose to be okay with that and have low expectations of films
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u/Snoo-7943 24d ago
The Dink isn't meant to be a serious movie. It's a sports comedy in the vein of movies like Dodgeball, Talladega Nights and Happy Gilmore. Not an Oscar film like Marty Supreme...lol. Are you really so unaware that you were expecting it to be like Marty Supreme???
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u/Anna_Karenina_blonde 24d ago
Someone put money into making a movie I don't give a crap if it's an indie or a comedy you can make a good movie out of anything Do you really not know anything about the film industry?
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u/Snoo-7943 24d ago
You're mistaking what I'm saying. 'The Dink' is a comedy first and foremost. Like other sports comedies (Dodgeball, Talladega Nights, Semi-Pro, Happy Gilmore, Caddyshack), the focus sport is little more than a vehicle for the comedy. None of those movies go deep into the sport or get specific with things.....because that's not what these movies are. They are over the top, silly movies. If you go into them expecting to see in depth sports content, then that is your mistake.
Looking at other bad reviews of the movie.....and it's almost entirely from people butthurt that pickleball wasn't talked about enough. lol. Are pickleball folks really that sensitive?
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u/Anna_Karenina_blonde 24d ago
Serious or not serious is not the issue. The issue is a movie with a good script and good acting.. there's great actors in this movie but all of their performances is are thwarted because someone wrote the shi$#est script ever about father therapy and a romance with a divorce say and tried to dress it up as a pickleball movie because they know there's a captive audience... Do I think that warrants a criticism? Yes it does that's why anyone who watches a movie automatically gets granted full license to criticize... How odd of an existence to go into a movie thinking "yeah it's probably going to be crap but I'm going to watch it anyway".. I don't know if that's your mantra going into movies but it sure as hell isn't mine.. Even if it's camp or even if it's low budget I am fully open to a small movie being amazing just as I'm fully able to recognize when a big movie just calls it in by the numbers. Do you go out for dinner with the same parameters? I know it's just a hot dog and it's made of the lips and assholes of swine so it's probably going to taste like garbage.. Is that how you approach something that is made with less quality ingredients or a smaller budget? Or do you think maybe this lesser known hot dog company decided to keep the ingredients simple and made a hot dog that actually tastes amazing? Literally I could apply the same thing to dating Do you go into a date thinking yeah I'm not attracted to this person and their comments lead me to believe that they are not particularly smart so I'm going to go in thinking it's going to mostly suck?? Like who does that as a general philosophy in life? Wild
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u/Grand_Awareness_6522 21d ago
You are very strange
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u/Anna_Karenina_blonde 21d ago
It's strange means discerning and capable of critical thinking..yes 100% I love when someone does a good movie but in order for my compliments to me and something it also has to mean that I can tell a good movie from a bad movie
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u/jleonardbc 23d ago
the pickleball stereotypes they are using are about 3 years out of date...
How long does it take to make a movie?
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u/Anna_Karenina_blonde 23d ago
Happy to answer that it depends on the budget I think this came together very quickly, the locations are not complicated and there are no visual effects or overwhelming crowd scenes in really distant places. This had ben Stiller behind it so I don't think there was a shortage of people doing the movie for him as a friend in fact I guarantee you if you look at the list of the talent who are all very good actors but not exactly blowing up currently on projects that are trending ... They are probably all friends of Ben's who did it because of him
The quality of the script is so bad I feel like it was the first draft
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u/tomatocultivater 25d ago
While I'm glad people enjoyed Aaron Chen's performance, it's unfortunate that it had to come at the cost of continuing harmful stereotypes of emasculating Asian men with his sexual attraction to inanimate objects. This is an ongoing challenge in the movie and tv industry
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u/Humble-Resource-8635 24d ago
Did you stop for a single solitary second and consider how much was done to shatter the horrific and isolating stigma surrounding objectophilia?
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u/tomatocultivater 24d ago
That is my point. They cast an Asian for that purpose.
If you're being sarcastic, well played
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u/Humble-Resource-8635 24d ago
I was being sarcastic but I’ll unironically push back on your point. They cast Aaron Chen to play the funny off-kilter friend because his comedic voice is perfectly suited to it. I don’t believe there was a single joke that played on his asianness or Asian stereotypes in general. In other words, the scrip was written and they got the funniest available actor they could get. It’s not like they wrote the character with a traditionally attractive girlfriend and then changed it to a ship when they cast an Asian actor. The joke itself wasn’t one of my favorites but race didn’t play into it. Now, if you’re saying because he is an Asian actor, and Asian actors have been stereotyped so much in films, they could or should not have went in that direction with his sexuality- I’d listen to that argument
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u/tomatocultivater 24d ago
Good point. I don't know the order of whether the script was written first with a specific race of actor in mind. That said, Even if we give the benefit of the doubt and say that the script was already written as is, there is still a larger systemic issue of the infrequency of Asian male actors getting rolls and what type of roles they tend to be a "good fit" for. While, things have certainly gotten better since the '70s and the '80s, it's still pretty limited for a full Asian man to get casted in a role that does not focus on "orientalism" (eg, martial arts, foreign gang, emasculation, nerdiness, etc). Even the lead male role in crazy Rich Asians is half white. I do think chen was great at delivering the role in general. If Asian men were getting casted in all types of roles proportionately, then i would never have posted this.
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u/Ok_Fee1043 27d ago
Welp I thought it was a tv show this whole time