My Plan To Draw Oscars Cartoons Was Derailed By Hours Of Crying
& thoughts on a new way forward for art.
Like any good enterprising cartoonist looking to churn out content, I sat down with my sketchbook yesterday intending to watch the Oscars and draw my little reactions. Here is what I managed.
But then shortly thereafter, Everything Everywhere All At Once (EEAAO) started sweeping all the big awards and I ended up doing versions of this for the rest of the night:
I did manage to gather my wits in time to draw the Daily Cartoon for the New Yorker:
(Just for fun, here’s the initial pen sketch - gotta get that caption just right!)
I was lucky enough to see EEAAO at an advance screening put on by the Vancouver Asian Film Festival last year. It devastated me. I’ve watched it three times and will probably watch it again tonight. The more I think about the movie, the more I uncover.
The first thing that shot me right between the eyes was how accurately and compassionately and sensitively this movie portrayed the dynamic between Waymond and Evelyn. The idea that she feels she has thrown away her whole life to be with this man who she always has to rescue, but later we see the montage of her realizing all of the beautiful small things he does to fill their fraught lives with love and joy, and I am a literal puddle on the floor because this is a story about mothers we all fricking know but that has never been told, let alone with this level of care.
And then the use of the the multiverse, a throwaway Marvel movie device, as a metaphor for generational trauma?!?!?!?
The fact that when you immigrate to a new country, anything can happen to you and you can either become a movie star or wallow in misery in a failing family business, and millions of lives in between.
The idea of searching through infinite universes for a version of your mother that loves and accepts you. For them to take that eternal pursuit of acceptance and common ground with your Asian immigrant mother, and the rage/sadness that often accompanies, and realize it within the context of the multiverse, is… GENIUS.
My family is Malaysian-Singaporean. We grew up watching Michelle Yeoh, a Malaysian-Chinese woman, in martial arts movies, and my entire family was crying seeing her accept her award yesterday.
Actors aside, I was so, so thrilled to see EEAAO win for editing, screenplay and directing. These are not “veteran” auteurs. They are friends who made something they love with all their heart and brought out the greatest in each other. I sobbed during Daniel Kwan’s acceptance speech where he spoke urgently about the importance of the collective in achieving your potential and thanks his parents (paraphrased):
“Genius does not stem from individuals, but rather genius emerges from the collective. We are all products of our context. We are all descendants of something and someone. There is greatness in every single person … you just have the find the right people to unlock that genius.
This is so goddamn inspirational, so huge for Asian people and for a new way of making and being recognized for impactful art. As the child of immigrants, excelling as an individual was never an option. The idea that I was part of a whole, that my successes were necessarily predicated by the immense sacrifices of my parents, and that every decision I made impacted and involved them, wove into every aspect of my life. I felt so resentful and disconnected from my high-achieving white peers in law school who seemed to be able to do whatever they wanted, uninhibited by their families. I felt at such a disadvantage for not being able to hold my own as an individual and rise up to those values. I felt like my parents had no idea what it really took to succeed in the real world. It’s only with the benefit of age, time, and hindsight that I realize that my family is my strength and that white supremacy simply does not make room for people who are raised in the collective.
I am done with venerating individual genius and ignoring the contexts from which they came. I am so full of hope that this marks a turn.
I will leave you with this.
Eternal love,
Zoe
Might be worth grabbing an over-the-air digital antenna for next year since CTV is still broadcast on that for free.
Beautifully said Zoe.