IW Group Agency for Asian Americans

Representation for minorities in media is important, and it is more important than ever for this representation to be culturally appropriate when given the opportunity. Recently, there has been a larger amount of white-washing in the film industry for Asian Americans than there normally is, and I feel that this can be accredited to the fact that many white directors and film production companies overstep the line when trying to market off this Asian American representation. They do not always know when their biases falsely guide their judgement, which is why they might hire Scarlett Johansen, a woman who is white, for a stereotypically Asian woman role just because she grew up near ChinaTown. Another more recent example is the executive team who made Mulan for Disney+. This team is entirely white, yet they tried to market the movie as a progressive movie for Asian representation with an “all Asian cast” similar to how Crazy Rich Asians was marketed. However, with Crazy Rich Asians, the executive production team had Asian roots so the cause felt genuine and not forced. Besides the questionable executive team for Mulan, the main lead for Mulan has questionable values as well. The actress, Liu Yifei, made a point by making a post which when translated says "I support Hong Kong's police, you can beat me up now.” It is not up to me to pick which side is righteous overall, but what is problematic is that she is not even from Hong Kong. She is from Wuhan, China. This actress is involving herself with another country’s politics that are very different from China, and she had the audacity to get involved in something that is not related to her at all. As one of the most popular Asian actors from Asia right now, it is very problematic that she would share this opinion.

Now that I have discussed why it is important that Asian American Agencies exist to prevent this cultural appropriation, I will now discuss the IW Group Agency in West Hollywood. IW is the 3rd largest U.S. Asian-American Agency, and as the main agency on the West Coast, it is integral to Asian movies and culture for Hollywood. Coming from an agency that is largely made up of Asians, they target many representation issues in media that Asians face with fun, colorful campaigns that draw in large crowds to spread their message. They have had many collaborations with large clients like Sony Pictures, Universal, The Walt Disney Company, Westfield, and many others. One of the ones that stuck out to me was how IW teamed up with McDonalds and internationally-renowned Chinese-American fashion designer Anna Sui to create a limited-edition series of red envelopes to celebrate the Year of the Dog. This exclusive series of red envelopes was official McDonald’s merchandise and could not be bought and had to be won through social media contests. To promote extra social media buzz, IW created a pop-up retro arcade in San Francisco for customers to have the chance to win a set of envelopes. Another notable campaign was when they led a Crazy Rich Asians Fashion Event that invited large Asian-American influencers in fashion and media to come to a special screening for the movie. The event was a huge success and became a turning point for the campaign of increasing interest in the Crazy Rich Asians movie, which in turn further increased acceptance of Asian-Americans in film production with it’s all Asian cast.