Mashable: Yeoh's success is the stepping stone to achieving the larger goal.

After her Golden Globes win for Everything Everywhere All at Once, Michelle Yeoh lands another project, titled, American Born Chinese with a predominantly Asian cast and crew.

During her interview with the Critics Association’s winter press tour during a preview session of the Disney+ series, Yeoh hopes to see more Asian representation in Hollywood.

“I think we’ve broken that glass ceiling. I hope we’ve ninja-kicked it to hell, and it will never come back, like Humpty Dumpty together again,” she said. “But the only way we can keep this going is by getting the right storytellers, having the studio executives understand and keep putting it forward, which will create more jobs, which will create more opportunities.”

#MichelleYeoh is the first Asian actress to receive the @NBRfilm Best Actress Award for her performance in #EverythingEverywhereAllAtOnce! She is truly a trailblazer, @KenJeong! The power of representation! #VeryAsian #EverythingEverywhere 

Credit: Michelle Yeoh/Instagram pic.twitter.com/e7NUv4o8A0

— Barry Chou (@BarryChou_) January 10, 2023
Keeping in mind how Hollywood also treats representation as woke “just tick a box off”, Yeoh warns us against it. “‘Oh, I have a Chinese actor there.’ Tick the box. ‘Oh, OK. That means I’m being diverse. I’ve diversified, and I’m embracing everybody.’ But that’s not the truth,” she adds.

Yeoh, in her four-decade-long career, knows the repercussions of Hollywood using award winners as trendsetters. A study in 2021, for example, revealed that Asian and Pacifical Islanders (API) in cinema used as punchlines for films. The characters were portrayed in a way that fed into stereotypes.

Hope that awards for Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan can help pave the way for more roles for Asian American actors and actresses.

Both talked about how difficult it was to even find an Asian American role in Hollywood, but representation for these phenomenal roles mean a lot.

— CIΠESTRΔ #FOREVER1 (@Cinestra_) January 12, 2023
The report studies popular movies from 2010 to 2019, with API characters, often being “bad drivers,” “nerds,” or the “exotic women”, who are often objectified or treated as outsiders.

In addition, only 4.5 percent of protagonists in the films were API members, and three-fourths of Asian characters are in supporting roles.

While movies like Gandhi, Crazy Rich Asians, Parasite, and Everything Everywhere All at Once have been watershed moments for Asian representation, they still are not enough. For instance, The New York Times article points out that Ben Kingsley was the first actor with Asian heritage (his father is Indian) had won an Oscar in 2003 for Gandhi. While representation is poor on screen, in other fields, such as arts, literature, architecture and more, Asians have flourished.

Congratulations to Michelle Yeoh. She has been an integral part of the Asian representation in English movies, for a long time. I have pretty much grown up watching her movies . Well deserved. Crouching Tiger, Tomorrow Never Dies, Memoirs of Geisha, The Lady, Supercop 

— Dr. Samip MBBS, DCH (@zoraski_gujju) January 13, 2023
Why are Asians only limited to fields where they are not visible? Due to the harmful depiction for so many decades, there was also a rise in hate crimes against Asians, and discrimination in the workplace and educational institutions.

The situation worsened during COVID-19 when a country was blamed for its origin. As a result, Asian people faced hate crimes, not just in America but also in India. People from North East India with Asian features are still deemed outsiders in their own country. Like Hollywood, they have minor representation in Bollywood movies as well.

The legendary Anna May Wong.
Anti-miscegenation laws kept her out of many leading roles (no kissing the white leading man!), but she fought hard for better representation for Asian-Americans in Hollywood, before moving to Europe to star in many more movies... pic.twitter.com/SufM8zrlrM

— Boebert's Insurrection-Day Outfit (@Maryland_SD) January 10, 2023
Many hope that Yeoh wins this year’s Oscar to become the first Malaysian Chinese actor to win in a leading actor category. While there have been Asian winners in the Oscars, they are always limited to behind-the-scenes categories such as costume, music, cinematography, and so on. So, it’s not surprising that people are rooting for Yeoh. However, her win can be used as tokenism, and films will be made to make the jury happy.

Instead, what we need is to also include more people of Asian heritage in the structure of the film. They must helm big projects, not small-budget films (compared to how A-lister films, Everything Everywhere All at Once and Crazy Rich Asians were not even half their price.) The movies have proven that Asians work excellently both behind the scenes and in front of the camera. Then why are we limiting their growth?