‘Joy Ride’ Director Adele Lim Claps Back at Criticism Her Wild Comedy ‘Objectifies Men, Targets White People’
The criticism around “Joy Ride” has swerved in an unexpected direction.
The AAPI-led R-rated comedy, which stars Ashley Park, Sherry Cola, Stephanie Hsu, and Sabrina Wu as pals who set out on a wild and raucous trip through China, is executive produced by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. “Joy Ride” debuted at SXSW earlier this year, but first-time director Adele Lim is only now having to field racist criticisms of the film, as it hits wide release this week.
On Wednesday, Lim retweeted a tweet from film critic Jackson Murphy (aka Lights Camera Jackson) in which Murphy wrote that the film is “embarrassing and incredibly unpleasant” while also alleging that the comedy “objectifies men, targets white people.”
In her retweet response, Lim wrote, “Imma need ‘Objectifies men, targets white people’ on a t-shirt” followed by a series of prayer hands and crying-laughing face emojis.
Per the film’s official synopsis, it “follows Audrey (Park) after her business trip to Asia goes sideways. She enlists the aid of Lolo (Cola), her irreverent, childhood best friend who also happens to be a hot mess; Kat (Hsu), her college friend turned Chinese soap star; and Deadeye (Wu), Lolo’s eccentric cousin.” “Crazy Rich Asians” and “Raya and the Last Dragon” screenwriter Lim developed the story with writers Cherry Chevapravatdumrong and Teresa Hsiao.
“Any underrepresented group, there’s certain ways you get depicted. It wasn’t something I necessarily set out to do early in my career, but as an Asian woman in this space, I was very aware of how I was perceived. Asian women onscreen, they think of you as something exotic,” Lim recently told The Hollywood Reporter. “We were like the first subsect on Pornhub. That’s a whole yucky thing. But the reaction from the community has been, ‘OK, let’s disavow our sexuality altogether’ — which is garbage, because that’s part of us. You’re giving in to terrorists when you do that.”
Lim quipped during the 2023 SXSW premiere that “Joy Ride” needed a “rich white guy” ally to be produced, as a way both to thank and introduce Rogen.
IndieWire’s review applauded the screenwriters’ ability to “establish the comedic tone of racial commentary that is present throughout the film and show no mercy in how these characters face daily judgment and labeling, even if others do not mean to be intentionally hurtful. … The script overflows with comedy and social commentary almost to a fault because there is so much that these talented women want and deserve to say. Because there are no films like this readily available, the attempt to get points across becomes urgent at times and there are few moments where audiences can fully marinate with the impact.”