"If you can't beat them… be them."
That's the tagline of Slanted, a sharp, unapologetic satire blending sci-fi and body horror to explore the devastating cost of extreme assimilation. Joan Huang (played by Shirley Chen) is a working-class Chinese American immigrant teen who idolizes the blonde, blue-eyed beauty standard, and has spent her whole life trying to earn a place in it. She sets her sights on prom queen: the ultimate symbol of popularity, admiration, and acceptance. But walking through the school’s hall of past prom queens, she becomes convinced the only way to win is to become one of them—white.
Waking up blonde and unrecognizable after a mysterious cosmetic surgery, she reinvents herself as Jo Hunt (Mckenna Grace), fabricating a new identity as a wealthy white girl with one singular goal: the prom queen crown. But what she believed was a dream come true quickly reveals itself to be a physical and emotional nightmare.
Written and directed by Amy Wang (who is writing the Crazy Rich Asians sequel), the film won the Grand Jury Award for Narrative Feature at SXSW. Starring Chen (Dìdì), Grace (Regretting You), and Maitreyi Ramakrishnan (Never Have I Ever) as Brindha, Joan Huang's best friend, Slanted proves that identity is never only skin-deep.
Chen, the star of Slanted, is a force to be reckoned with: a film festival darling, Harvard graduate (Class of '22), and prom queen of the theater kids. She recently wrapped Netflix's highly anticipated teen psychodrama The Body as a series regular. Chen's breakout film debut came the summer before she left for Harvard, in Beast Beast, playing "a really excited theater kid who doesn't know what's coming to her," a role that earned her Special Jury Recognition for Acting at SXSW. Since then, she has been making serious waves in Hollywood, winning the Dramatic Special Jury Award for Best Ensemble Cast for Dìdi, where she played "incredibly angsty" big sister Vivian, and most recently starring in SXSW’s Grand Jury Prize-winning Slanted.
Teen Vogue sat down with Shirley Chen to talk about what the American dream means to immigrant parents, why being "okay with yourself" is "the most liberating thing," and dancing with her costar Mckenna Grace to Sabrina Carpenter.
Shirley Chen: I was born in Pennsylvania in Amish country—which was very strange—but I don't remember it very well. And then I moved to Washington State when I was three, and then moved to LA with my mom to act when I was ten. I owe a lot to my parents. I think there's this very common dynamic of immigrant parents with American born kids, which can be seemingly very strict. But I'm really lucky that I had really supportive parents, and especially a mom who was willing to move with me to act.
SC: I was three, ages three to ten, when I lived in Washington State. I just remember growing up in a predominantly white community, not really knowing any Asian or Chinese American kids, and the few that I did, I really wanted to distance myself because I honestly felt just kind of embarrassed and out of place. I feel like, especially when you're that age, all you want is to minimize anything that makes you feel different.
I genuinely remember thinking that I would turn 16, suddenly waking up with blonde hair and blue eyes, just because I thought that was like how puberty worked or something. So I related to the kernel of truth in Joan, which is feeling like an outsider and, in a very normal way, just wanting to be like everyone else. But I then went to a public arts high school and kind of grew into the things that made me different. So I think that's the main perspective I have on myself and my identity. But for a lot of my formative years, I felt a lot like Joan.
SC: It was really bizarre, I think, in like the best way possible. Like I said, I remember imagining that I would become blonde, and I didn't, obviously. Once I became 16, I realized that was basically virtually impossible. So when I read the script, I thought it was really weird to feel like Amy had almost taken a slice of my brain out and put it into a story. More than anything, when I got to meet Amy, I just felt like I could really trust her with all of myself, like all the things that make me really human and vulnerable and also brave. I feel like we had gone through really similar feelings and had a really similar relationship to our parents. So I think those were kind of my initial impressions of the story, and of the creative process, which was honestly feeling a bit jarred at first, but also really excited at the possibilities.
SC: I feel like it's very hard to exist as an Asian woman and not have an opinion about an event like that. I think everybody was affected in their own unique ways. It's almost like a mirror self, like a version of you somewhere else, and if you had had that life, how would things have panned out for you? And so I think we didn't need to have an explicit conversation about what was happening in the news to know that we were feeling some type of way about it.
Between me and Amy, a lot of it was just about grounding a very fantastical premise in a really earnest desperation. A lot of the movie references that Amy had me watch before going into filming, which included Dream Scenario, Being John Malkovich, and I'm Sick of Myself—they're all these kind of heightened premises, but at the core you want to root for the protagonist because they don't see any way out of the situation they're in, and all they want is to get out … We definitely latched on to tethering her relationship to herself with this guilt that she feels with her parents.
My dad is pretty goofy, just like Fang, my dad in the movie. My dad is so silly, and he got to visit set and he met Vivian Wu. She's so big in China, so when we got in the van, he was like, "Oh, you're Wu Jin Mei." And he was fangirling. I had to take a picture of them together at Vivian's trailer.
But I think really it was about anchoring these complicated feelings of deep love and appreciation for your parents and the sacrifices they've made for you, and also this immovable guilt and shame that you can never be fully honest with them about. Because if you're honest with them about it, it's like essentially telling them, I don't like the things you've given me, I don't like who you are, because I don't like me. Those were the things we tried to really hone in on to make it feel honest.
SC: I think it's in the messaging of the environment that she's in. Amy's talked about how she's kind of modeled it after a prototype of like a small town in the South. And I just think, whether it's explicit or not, in the movie Joan experiences a lot of microaggressions, [and] flat out just examples of racism, which is really heartbreaking to watch. So I think it's a bit of both, what she's seeing in the world and also what she's choosing to see. Because I think she has two loving parents who really try to encourage her to celebrate Lunar New Year, or love the color of her hair or the shape of her eyes. Those two warring perspectives, of what you're seeing as a kid growing up in America and the environment around you versus what your parents are telling you, which feels completely at odds, that's where her shame comes from, and not feeling like there's anybody she can really be honest with about how she feels.
SC: This is a really good question. One of my favorite scenes to film is the one right before she chooses to fully take the dive, to go through the full surgery. Our parents are speaking to her in Mandarin, and she replies like, "Hǎo de." And there's a mix of so much longing in there that I don't think you see in a lot of the movie.
She starts off this movie in this outfit that I think is so true to being a Chinese kid in the US, like, two little braids and a cute little dress and jelly shoes. That is how I was dressed when I was a kid. One of my favorite scenes that I'm not a part of is when young Joan hugs her father in the school hallway. It's so brief, but to me, I think it's that moment where Fang looks at Joan with all of the hope in the world, like he sees this little girl and she is the American dream.
It reminds me of this perspective that one of my best friends told me when I was really struggling, as Shirley, feeling like I needed to live up to who I was supposed to be. Because my mom always wanted a daughter, then she moved to America and finally had the chance to have a daughter. I remembered feeling a lot of pressure for that reason, like, I need to live up to this opportunity. And my best friend, who's not Asian, told me, "But aren't you already? You're your mom's dream. Isn't the fact that you're born already her American dream?"
I think that that's the key sort of grief that Joan feels, she doesn't feel like a dream. She feels like she's living in an American nightmare, basically. Like, you get here and you actually realize you don't belong. You don't understand the culture, and everything that your parents taught you, you have to renegotiate with the world around you.
At the end of the day, I feel like when you're in high school, your parents are just your parents. They're not even people, they're literally like beings who tell you what to do and nag you and all of this stuff. And the funniest thing is, I have such a deep appreciation for my parents now. I'm grateful that my dad got to sit with me at SXSW, and he turned to me and said, "I'm so proud of you." My mom came to the premiere as well, and I'm so lucky. I turned to my mom on that line you mentioned, "Mom, speak English," and my mom literally laughed. That's how I knew that it rang true, because I like to block out being an angsty teen, but clearly my mom didn't forget that, which is embarrassing.
SC: I think that's a really hard thing for me, as Shirley, to say, and also for Joan to say. I honestly don't even know if that's something she genuinely believes, but I think it's something she's just been taught to believe. Like, in the way that when you're a kid, you just notice, "Oh, everyone's wearing this brand of backpack, but I don't have that," or "Oh, everyone else is on the soccer team and I like dance." Like, from the most basic differences to differences rooted in identity, I feel like you're getting all these signals from this really limited environment about what's cool and what's not.
But it was really, honestly, hard to say as Shirley, because, I mean, my mom is a dental hygienist. You know what I mean? Like, my mom f— cleans. Oh, sorry, my mom freaking cleans. And I'm really proud of that. My mom is back in dental school, because I got my first series regular project this year on a Netflix show, and my mom was like, "Wow, Shirley's finally achieving her dreams. I want to achieve my dreams too." It inspired her to go back to dental school and I'm really proud of her. So it's hard that Joan does say that, but I don't judge her for it, because I mean, that's something that some people believe.
SC: I think the beautiful thing about Slanted, and getting to work with the cast and creative team we have, is that all of us look completely different and we're all from completely different backgrounds. Like even Amy, who I might on paper share the most with, grew up in Australia, which has its own very unique sociopolitical environment. But I think what was so beautiful about the process was realizing that no matter what you looked like, you could still, as a woman, feel othered, or feel like you're not enough, feel like you're not smart enough, feel like you're not entitled to something that the next person has. It's just such an unfortunately unifying experience.
But I think that's what makes it so empowering, because once you realize that there's no standard that's possibly achievable, you kind of get to write your own rules. And getting to work with so many driven and passionate women really taught me that it never stops, and that the voices that tell you you're not enough exist for everybody. So the fact that this story could speak to so many of us on the creative team is really special, and it's a lesson that I continue to take with me in every environment I'm in.
SC: The first time we see her at school, she's introduced to the concept of a prom queen, and we see her not know what the pledge of allegiance is, so she's getting all of these signals about what it seems like to succeed in America. And one of them is being this beautiful blonde in a beautiful gold dress. It means being accepted, it means belonging, it means being loved, it means being celebrated for you. It also means being perfect. The thing about the prom queen is so interesting because she's simultaneously so unattainable but also attainable. Like in a way, she's the girl that's in all of your history classes, she's the girl that's with you in school. And it's not even that she's perfect, it's that she has friends, and people who don't even know her in this school know who she is. Me and Mckenna, to prep, we would listen to Sabrina Carpenter and dance around with each other to try to build a similar physical vocabulary.
But the funny thing is I actually went to a public arts high school where each art department got their own prom king and queen, so I was honestly prom queen of the theater kids. I was like queen of the theater nerds … which is very silly to look back on because I feel really proud that even though there is almost this stereotypical ideal of what it means to be beautiful or well liked in America, I was still prom queen as like the goofy, quirky Asian girl. And I feel like in my own life experience, it's only continued to teach me that the more you believe in yourself and what you like, the more the people around you respond to that. So I wish that Joan had had that context.
SC: That question makes me want to cry. Honestly, sometimes it's hard to watch the movie, especially when Joan is bleaching her hair in the mirror and just looking at herself with such deep dissatisfaction. I honestly really wish I could just hug her.
There was this YouTuber that I watched when I was a kid, and I remember learning how to do makeup for my monolids from watching her YouTube videos. So I really wish I could just change Joan's search history. I think she's just watching the wrong stuff and looking at the wrong idols for her. I wish I could show her K-pop. She just has to find the right crowd, you know? And part of learning who you are is learning who you're not, and that's just the phase of life that she's in.
SC: I literally want to give everybody a hug who feels that way, because the thing is, everyone feels that way, and it feels so isolating. The worst thing about feeling that way is feeling guilty and ashamed for even feeling that way at all. A lot of narratives just preach "love yourself" and almost convince you that being confident means loving yourself no matter what, and just being unabashedly proud of yourself. Especially if you're from a marginalized community, and right now especially, like Asian Americans, we're so encouraged in our media to embrace everything that we are.
But it is so real, and honestly sometimes necessary, to come to terms with not liking yourself. Because once you can get through that really terrible hurdle, and it feels endless and just horrific, and I really send so much love and cuddles to everyone feeling that way because it just freaking sucks, but it is part of life. Once you get through it, you feel almost this sense of calm, because no one else can tell you who you are but you. You get to decide what you like, what your hobbies are, what your favorite song is, how you dress, what makes you feel good, and that is a power that literally no one can take away from you.
Slanted is out in U.S. theaters as of March 13.
