Devil Wears Prada 2 sparks racism storm in China over its ‘nerdy “Chin Chou” character’
Upcoming blockbuster movie The Devil Wears Prada 2 has sparked racism outrage in China due to the ‘nerdy ‘Chin Chou’ character.
As part of the promotion of the film, which is a sequel to the original film released in 2006, a short clip in which an Asian supporting character introduces himself as ‘Jin Chao’ was shared online.
Jin, played by Helen J. Shen, is portrayed as a ‘nerdy’ woman and describes herself as graduating from Yale University with a 3.86 grade point average (GPA).
And his name was mistakenly believed to be ‘Chin Chou’; in many online the name was believed to be similar to ‘Ching Chong’, a derogatory and racist slur used against Chinese people since the 19th century.
One social media user said: ‘Another racist Hollywood stereotype about Chinese people [people]. They named this woman “Chin Chou”. ‘No one is called that in China.’
In a post seemingly aimed at the film’s director, another wrote: ‘Are you really clueless or are you doing this on purpose?’
A third said: ‘What kind of name is Chin Chou?’
‘I’ve lived in the US for over ten years and I can’t find any excuse for this name. ‘I had planned to watch the movie but now I won’t,’ another online observer commented.
Jin, played by Helen J. Shen (pictured, left), is portrayed as a ‘nerdy’ woman in the film
His name was mistakenly believed to be ‘Chin Chou’, and in many online media the name was believed to resemble a derogatory and racist slur against Chinese people.
One netizen questioned the film’s character styling, writing: ‘I rarely see anyone dressing like this in a second-tier Chinese city, and you’re telling me that a Chinese girl working in the fashion industry looks like this.’
Another said: ‘The year is already 2026 and they can’t even find a normal Chinese name.’
However, many people responded by saying the criticisms were unfounded. One person wrote that associating ‘Jin Chao’ with an insult towards the Chinese was a bit of an exaggeration.
Another said bluntly: ‘No one is discriminating against you. ‘It’s just you feeling low on self-confidence.’
So far, the film’s producers, directors and stars, including Shen, have yet to comment on the matter.
The movie will be released in China on April 30. The original film was released on the big screen in China in 2007 and grossed £1.1 million in its first week.
Since then, it has reportedly become a cult classic in the country. The South China Morning Post reported that 800,000 fans on a Chinese movie rating site gave the film an average score of 8.2 out of 10.
Many said the film ‘enlightened them about their career attitudes’ and ‘uplifted them when they were feeling tired’.
And nearly 40,000 people put the sequel on their watch list.
The Devil Wears Prada 2 isn’t the first Hollywood movie to cause uproar in China over the way directors portrayed East Asian characters on screen.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie and directed by Quentin Tarantino, was planned to be released in China in October 2019, but was suddenly stopped without explanation.
Some believed that China’s decision was due to Tarantino’s portrayal of the late martial arts star Bruce Lee, whose family and friends were allegedly mistakenly portrayed as caricatures.
In July of that year, Lee’s daughter, Shannon, told the Wrap that her father “comes across as a rage-filled, arrogant asshole, not someone who had to fight three times harder than any of these people did to achieve something that was naturally given to others.”
Emma Stone’s portrayal of Allison Ng, a character of Hawaiian and Chinese heritage, in Cameron Crowe’s 2015 romantic comedy Aloha was also widely criticized.
Responding to the backlash and allegations of whitewashing, Crowe went so far as to apologize in a blog post to ‘anyone who thought this was an odd or misguided casting choice’.
Stone also told an Australian news site following the outrage: ‘I’ve been the butt of a lot of jokes.’
He continued: ‘I learned on a macro level the crazy history of whitewashing in Hollywood and how widespread the problem really is. This sparked a very important conversation.’
Defending his casting, the two-time Oscar winner said: ‘The character wasn’t supposed to look like her background, which is one-quarter Hawaiian and one-quarter Chinese.’
