It’s my favorite time of the year, when all the people I love gather and spend time together in the same room. There are jokes and music playing. And just like every holiday, there’s a little drama and hands are thrown. I am, of course, referring to award show season.
The Oscars, the Emmys, the Grammys and the Tonys are a time to celebrate the best and worst theatrical productions, movies and television shows of the year. The nominees obviously prefer to achieve the former because people constantly criticize your work and discuss whether it truly deserves recognition. Even if people unanimously decide a project is bad (I am looking at you, Emilia Pérez), the recognition from being nominated alone is incredibly groundbreaking. To be mentioned puts a work at front and center stage as the title and best clips are projected on a giant screen for millions on awards night. A nomination has the power to launch careers to new heights, creating and cementing a director’s legacy in Hollywood. Yet, for Asian directors, this is an elusive dream to achieve even in 2025.
As of 2025, only 13 API directors have been nominated for Best Director in all of the Oscars’ 96 years, with four having actually won. Perhaps, this number would have increased if only John M. Chu, the director of Wicked, had not been snubbed in this year’s awards.
Now, Chu is not some “no-name, picked-out-of-nowhere” director. He first gained recognition for his work as the director of the phenomenal 2018 film Crazy Rich Asians. For the first time in 25 years, a major studio film featured an all-Asian cast, a prospect that was long overdue. The film’s success proved how major films could feature a diverse, non-white narrative while performing outstandingly under Hollywood standards, making the film a cultural milestone. Thus, Chu’s next films were expected to be just as monumental.
Enter 2024’s Wicked. Starring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, the film follows the 2003 Broadway musical that introduced the world to Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth. While Erivo and Grande are no newcomers, their casting replicates the importance and the success of diversity in films that Crazy Rich Asians accomplished earlier. The film has amassed a whopping $718 million worldwide within a little over a month of its release, becoming the highest-grossing Broadway musical to film adaptation. With a 90% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes and an even higher audience score, it should come as no surprise that Wicked has become a nominee for several awards this season, from Best Supporting Actress to Best Costume Design. Although not without a lack of pushback, Chu was not nominated for Best Director, leading many to question the treatment of Asian directors by the Hollywood elite.
The film’s star, Erivo herself, expressed her grievances in a 2025 Variety interview, stating the necessity of Chu’s dedication and hard work for the film’s completion. “[Chu] can see who is right for this, who cast us in these roles, who asked for nine million tulips, who says he wants to build a real set so it feels embedded in reality,” Erivo said. “There is a kind of vision that you have to have in order to be in control of something that could run away from you very quickly if you don’t know what to do.” Chu’s work on the film was a long time coming (almost a decade) which makes the lack of nomination all the more tragic. His nomination alone could have brought the implementation of Asian Americans in the film industry one step closer to the norm.
According to a 2023 CNBC article, “[b]ehind the cameras, Asian Americans made up 5.6% of directors and 4.5% of writers for movies released in theaters last year.” Considering how prominent the Asian community is in big filming cities like Los Angeles, one would think more would be involved. With calls for more inclusivity, Asians have begun to progress in the streaming space with shows such as American Born Chinese, Beef and The Sympathizer; but Chu’s snub emulates how this progress “takes a step backwards when you look at theatrical releases.”
With a majority of directors, writers and producers being white men, it is clear that Asian directors are not as highly regarded in comparison to their counterparts. Because of their ethnicity, many are not given the chance to earn as much recognition or produce the films they desire. Because they are Asian, their films will result in a flop. However, evidence actually proves the contrary, as there has been much Asian director success in Hollywood. Everything, Everywhere All at Once swept last year’s award shows, with one of its wins consisting of Best Director for Daniel Kwan. Celine Song’s Past Lives achieved critical and commercial acclaim. The TV show Shogun starring Anna Sawai had two episodes directed by Asian directors and ultimately garnered a groundbreaking record of 18 wins and 25 nominations at the Emmys. Ultimately, this shows how Asians in Hollywood can be just as, or even more, successful than their white counterparts. For Asian American directors to be embraced in Hollywood, the industry must move beyond tokenism and begin to honor the full range of stories and perspectives these directors want to tell.
With John M. Chu’s snub comes the realization that Asian American directors are still facing exclusion and barriers of entry to success. No matter how successful their film is, they may still not get the recognition they deserve, which is critical when working as a minority in this space. Until this is acknowledged, Hollywood loses out on the diverse voices and art that Asian Americans can create.
Visual Credit: Samuel Ramos
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