Lucy Liu Blames Racism For Her Awesome, Decades Long Career

Lucy Liu Blames Racism For Her Awesome, Decades Long Career

Guys, I love talking about actors. I do. I love talking about good movies. I love talking about bad movies. I do love talking about actors and critiquing them when I feel like they’re on the wrong path as far as their media presence. And things like this are the hardest to make because Lucy Lou is one of those actresses that was just a part of my childhood. And I’m not even talking about the likes of Kill Bill. I’m actually thinking of something more along the lines of Lucky Number Seven with her and Josh Hartnett. And I still to this day have memories of the nature of her character being so likable, so unique and so fun in such a mo in such a fun movie that so few people remember that that performance was indelibly like linked in my brain from a young age. and she was a fantastic example of representation with a talented actor that made a way in Hollywood for herself that I believe is a like a legendary cur. I don’t know if she has a Hollywood star on the Walk of Fame, but she absolutely deserves one. I wouldn’t be surprised if she if she does. And it’s one of those things that you hate to see these types of articles, which is saying that Charlie’s Angel star Lucil blames Hollywood racism for a lull in her career. And there’s that that’s a little bit uh on the nose. There’s a lot to this article, but let’s go through it here just a little bit. So, this is from Breitbart. It says, “The star of films like Charlie’s Angels and Kill Bill and TV series like Ali Mciel and Elementary are more in more than 100 other projects now insists that if she were a white woman, she would have been offered meteor and uh Meteor and more important roles in her more than 30-year career. In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Lou, who was 56, said finishing her new film Roseme was a struggle. But even when it finished, she experienced problems finding a distributor. That’s part for the course in Hollywood these days. Look, Hollywood doesn’t see the wisdom or the the the desire. They don’t have the desire to be putting money into smaller budget movies anymore. It seems like all they want to do is take big swings and big mi in big misses. And even a mid-budget movie is like a hund00 million now. That’s considered mid-budget most of the time. It feels like to me. Otherwise, you’re looking at lower budget movies. If you want them to succeed, you make them horror films. The horror films are the ones that you’re going to make strong return on investment. And other movies that are harder to market are definitely going to have trouble finding distribution. But it’s always felt that way. Anytime you listen back to the old clips of Matt Damon on Hot Wing on Hot Ones talking about what it was like to make movies and the distribution process that getting a movie made is very, very difficult. I saw a thing the other day where the guys who made Alita were basically saying that they were going to have to make that they made a blood pact to be able to make Alita 2 and maybe even three. And I thought, yeah, checks out. It feels like that’s that’s about how difficult it is to get things made in Hollywood that you pretty much need to make a Blood Pact if you actually want to see your movie get made. She goes on. She says, “But even after we made the movie, it was like, does anybody want to distribute it? Everyone’s like, how’s it going to fuel us? What’s our kickback? It does come down to finances, she said. She went on to say, many of the roles she had been offered over the years are not necessarily roles that would challenge or tap into my potential. Look, you are in an industry and I again Lucil is a favorite of mine. I love the show Elementary where you know that is the lesser of the of the Sherlock series. Of course, at that time, Sherlock Holm, you know, Sherlock with Benedict Cumberbatch was the one everybody was watching, but that was one of those examples that I give where I’m like, look, that is a race and gender swap that never bothered me. I always love that show. But when she talks about roles that challenge her, she’s in an industry where most people are just happy to be working. Sometimes I wonder if the actors that have reached these upper echelons don’t realize how out of touch they not just sound. They don’t just sound to the consumer like me, but to working actors or want to be working actors who would be willing to just take any role because they want to act and they want to be able to make a living doing what they love. It just always comes off as tonedeaf. She pointed that the criticism she faced in the 2003 Kill Bill Bill movie when many accused her of the dragon lady stereotype with her role as a martial arts warrior, especially when other women in the film face no such criticism. Why is uh why isn’t anyone else per uh perpetuating the stereotype when we’re all assassins? She claimed Vivica Fox, Daryl Hannah, or Uma Thurman were not. And I don’t even know if I if I have a word in English for American people. Well, I’m American, but I uh but I look like this, so I cannot get away with it. Things were very, very different back then. And the problem is what you’re going to see now that that’s the leftist argument that everything you can’t show this type of thing because it’s somehow it’s a stereotype or it’s a trope. Well, guess what? Those types of movies do well for a reason. They tap into something that people find instinctively realistic because of the history of someone, say, from Japan, right? When when you watch those types of movies, you’re almost at a disadvantage because you live in America, which is such a multicultural society, that they try to tell stories from other places. And because Americans are so kind of put off by the idea of the stereotypes, they’re so they’ve been rubbed raw to the idea of stereotypes that even when it’s accurate or or something that’s worth telling, they want to avoid it. And you’re just like, why? Why can’t this be the story? If this was true, the evil white CEO, I’d be like, you know what, that’s a stereotype. Well, guess what? There are a lot of big white CEOs that, you know, I’m sure a lot of you would consider evil. So, is it a stereotype or is it just something that people uh view as realistic and probable? Uh, and these critiques go back a long way. She added that other characters that are strong that are not Asian are not dragon ladies. They are strong lawyers or politicians or mothers or doctors. But if I’m a doctor, then I’m going to be categorized as super sn super smart nerdy Asian woman. I can’t get away with it because it’s trailing me because that’s what they want to label me. This is kind of what I want to get into and it’s more towards the idea of racism. You are giving up a whole lot of ground to people who don’t deserve it. Take ownership for your career. Take ownership for the roles. Do not let anybody else define you that way. when she plays Watson in elementary, she is an ex doctor turned sober, you know, sober companion and it’s never about her being Asian. And I don’t know anybody that ever categorized it that way or saw it that way. It’s almost like a self-report or a self-insert if people are phrasing it that way. It’s like I’ve seen people point this out as well. When a TV show has a lawyer character and the lawyer has a Jewish name, well, there are a lot of Jewish lawyers. Are they supposed to just not give Jewish uh lawyer characters Jewish names because it’s too much of a stereotype? Or should they all get very generic names from somewhere else? Thus, we can’t apply any type of real world logic to it. Is that a bad thing? Is it a bad thing that someone from an Asian household is extremely smart because their parents uh taught them a ton of discipline and self-reliance and how to take care of themselves? Is that a bad thing? I don’t think it is. Is it a bad thing if a Jewish character goes on to be a lawyer? It’s true to the real world and the world needs lawyers. You know, well, say what you want about uh uh lawyers these days, but the point is it’s an admirable path to go down to go to school for an extended period of time. do it, get a job, and do it well. Why is that stereotype bad? I don’t think it is. And if somebody does, it’s either because they want to subvert expectations because the idea of any stereotype is offensive to them, or they’re actually the real racists who see a problem with this stuff and see everything through some weird Marxist lens that you can’t help. You don’t have any say in the matter, she says. She continued, I haven’t gone I haven’t gone out and changed my face. There’s only so much I can do. I cannot turn myself into somebody else who somebody who looks Caucasian, but if I could, I would have had more opportunities. Okay. So, there is there is a a worldview that I live by and I it’s not stoicism, but I do believe that you should take radical ownership of your life, both good and bad. No matter what happens, you should hold yourself responsible for what happens to you. And that is not to say that there are not instances where there are not going to be people that screw you at work that make your life difficult. But more often than not, you are seeding ground to somebody who doesn’t deserve it when you allow yourself or failures that have you that you are part of to be somebody else’s responsibility. hold yourself responsible and you stop giving power to people who do not deserve to have power over you in life. And in Hollywood, if I’m being completely honest, it’s not even a fair critique because the idea that you’re going to have nothing but an upward trajectory, which is something she talks about her career stalling. Look, many people in Hollywood, men, women, white, black, Asian, Hispanic, many, many people have careers that take very, very different trajectories. It’s not always, I started down here and I rocketed to the stars. In fact, there are very few stars and I would argue that Lucil is one of them. when you have made a cultural impact with movies like Kill Bill, with a franchise like Charlie’s Angels, which say what you want about it, but there was a movie that included representation and still managed to actually be fun and part of a time when people looked at pop culture with a certain level of reverence rather than anger and hatred, right? She played a huge impact in society. She got a chance to shepherd forward a version of a character, John Watson, be American, be uh be not be white, and not be a man. She got to take that character and run with it. And guess what? Most people loved it. I actually think the biggest thing they did to ruin that show was they tamped down on her ability to bring some levity to it. Now, her character in Holmes, Holmes is wacky, half serious, and she is a more serious character, but the show found its moments in humanity. When you saw Lucy Lou smile, when you saw her character laugh, it gave way some real human emotion and she was responsible for that, her on a character that she was given the opportunity to perform that doesn’t even cons, you know, doesn’t even conform with what the character was in writings. And guess what? Nobody cared. Everybody loved it. And the people that didn’t love it probably had such a strong connection to the original source material, they were never willing to be convinced. But me, I was convinced. She has a career that spans decades. She is one of the most reliable actresses in Hollywood. She always turns in a performance that’s going to be watchable. And she is doing herself a disservice when she starts to put it on the industry or society or racism or sexism as the reasons why her career didn’t work out the way she wanted it to. One, 99.999% of actors in Hollywood would love to have had the career that you have had within that industry. And two, there is no reason to put this off on other people when you’ve had such a charmed career and when you have so much more to look forward to given the fact that you are still working each and every day. I just feel like it’s this form of learned helplessness when we put it on other people when we don’t get to where we want to be in life. Look, I love this job. I love doing this show, but if it falls apart and it falls through, I’m not going to blame the algorithm. I’m not going to blame people who chose not to watch it or say, “It’s your fault that you didn’t watch PCC. It’s your fault that you didn’t listen to what my thoughts were on things like Hollywood and entertainment.” I’ll say, “Look, there’s other people out there. There’s people that put in immense amounts of work. There’s people that work hard every day to make content for you that they believe you will engage with. And those people deserve their credit when they do it right. And when you do it right, you deserve that credit as well. But you must hold yourself responsible when it doesn’t work out the way that you want to. Will it always be your fault? No. Should you always take responsibility for the way your life is going? Yes. It takes the power away from others and puts it in your own hands. Those are just my thoughts on it. Guys, if you don’t know what our podcast is, Pop Culture Crisis is live Monday through Friday, 3 PM Eastern Standard Time, which is of course noon Pacific. What you should do though before we go, I do want you guys if you never saw the movie Lucky Number Sven with Lucy Lou, Josh Hartnett, and Bruce Willis. It’s got Samuel L. Jackson. It’s got Sir Benjamin Kingsley. There are so many amazing actor. Not Samuel L. Jackson, I’m sorry. Um, Morgan Freeman before somebody calls me on it. Morgan Freeman. Ben Kingsley. So many amazing actors in it. It’s one of my favorite movies. You should go and check that one out. And then you should tune in after you watch it to our podcast Monday through Friday at 3M. See you there, guys. Thanks for watching. Listen to full episodes of Pop Culture Crisis on Spotify. Keep up with us on social media and make sure you subscribe and ring that bell so you never miss the show. Bye, guys. [Music]

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