Quick TakeAre you crazy? Rich Asians vs Kevin Spacey is no morality tale

MUCH HAS BEEN read into the box office takings of Crazy Rich Asians and the Billionaire Boys Club. The movie about Asia’s 1 per cent took in a whopping US$35 million at its opening weekend while the last film Kevin Spacey starred in before his sex scandal broke earned just US$618.

The sharp contrast has been taken as a morality tale of good vs bad; of virtue vs vice. Crazy Rich Asians is considered a strike for racial diversity in Hollywood, with its full Asian cast, following the success of Black Panther with its all-black cast. Not only did the movie avoid “whitewashing”, but it also went all the way with the politically correct route by openly auditioning Asian actors for all the key roles.

Meanwhile, BBC, as the investment club is called in the movie, features a bunch of privileged young white males who just want to be even richer, and two of their underprivileged friends – the film’s anti-heroes – who would do anything to be like them, including committing murder. It is based on a real homicide from the 1980s. Its apparent failure at the weekend box office is supposed to cement Spacey’s status as Hollywood pariah and persona non grata, after more than a dozen male actors from both sides of the Atlantic came forward alleging sexual harassment.

But you would be seriously mistaken if you think there is a moral to the story here. Indeed, if you scratch beyond the surface and ignore the sugar-coating, Crazy Rich Asians is, in some ways, also repulsive.

To be sure, it is admittedly a far better movie. It has better direction, a better script, a much bigger budget and is far nicer to look at with its beautiful and fanciful shots of Singapore. Walking through the city state’s ultra-modern Changi Airport, the heroine says: “At JFK [airport in New York], it’s all salmonella and despair.” With BBC, you have reliably trite lines like, “‘Cause when I go in, I go all in.”