MY Michelle: Everything, everywhere, all at once, but is that Malaysian enough?

MARCH 16 — While the world now owns Michelle Yeoh and what she represents, Malaysians continue to grapple with what her career constitutes for them.

Both the “Yes, Oh Yes, Michelle!” and “So-What Michelle?” camps are well represented and the rest of the rakyat cannot choose to ignore her.

Which means the discussions will neither be short nor decisive.

About Yeoh the person and Yeoh the symbol.

Context is queen when measuring the Ipoh born, Hong Kong trained and globally serenaded star.

To the world it must be mad for Malaysians to hold anything but adulation for the first Asian to win the Oscar for Best Actress Award.

However, being Malaysian is never straightforward and judging each other through patriotic lenses is a national fixation, or perhaps disease. And the goalposts perennially move.

The best way to get stuck into it is to be equally eclectic like the Oscar winner and her vehicle Everything, Everywhere All at Once's many storylines — non-linear but critically connected.

Tan Sri Michelle Yeoh is the first Malaysian and Asian to win an Oscar at the 95th Academy Awards today. — Reuters pic

Yeoh, the Malaysian actress by rigour (not)

She is undoubtedly from Asia and ethnic Chinese, so the Asian part is fait accompli.

But was she made in Malaysia, as an actress? No.

Is that common and have nations claimed talents based on where they were born?

Comparing her with her peers shed light.

To begin with the one she beat to the award, two-time winner Cate Blanchett. An Australian who cut her teeth at the Sydney Theatre Company, Australian TV, miniseries and movies before Elizabeth made her an international name.

It’s the same over and over with all the other non-American best actress winners.

Nicole Kidman was raised in Australian TV and movies before her international breakout in Days of Thunder with Tom Cruise.

Go way, way back, the great Ingrid Bergman of Gaslight (1944), her journey started in Swedish silent movies.

And the rest after: Olivia De Havilland, Vivian Leigh, Audrey Hepburn and Julie Andrews have the same development stories made at home. All British.

Even among the men. Russell Crowe before his two Oscars, appeared among others in the famous Australian TV series Neighbours and still had time to kick Vietnamese youths as a skinhead in Romper Stomper, before being introduced to American audiences in LA Confidential.

The gold standard, Englishman Daniel Day-Lewis did time as a BBC production player before his small role as an obtuse Afrikaner in Oscar winning Gandhi, appeared in A Room with a View before his first Oscar in British film, My Left Foot.

Yeoh went very differently.

She spent more than the first third of her life in Malaysia without a link to acting — stage, film or TV. Yeoh had to go to Hong Kong to be the person she is today.

So, from this storyline, she is easy fodder for detractors.

Yeoh, the acting émigré

But she was no stranger to showbiz. She was a beauty queen.

The Ipoh Main Convent student was Miss Malaysia 1982. Which made the Cantonese entertainment world notice her and pull her to Hong Kong.

The rest is well documented.

The profile raising roles include dancing swordsman in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Aung San Suu Kyi in The Lady, and as the mega-rich mother in Crazy Rich Asians.

Why not start in Malaysia?

Rephrase the question.

Was it plausible in 1982 for a person named Yeoh to be a marquee name in Malaysian mainstream entertainment?

Is it possible in 2023, 40 years later?

The answer in this storyline reveals uneasy truths of our parallel lives in Malaysia.

If she never got her Hong Kong break, it’s highly unlikely she’d end up a major actress.

Beauty queens get much more attention in our neighbouring country.

After Gloria Diaz became the Philippines’ first Miss Universe winner in 1969, a career in entertainment was assured. A long line of beauty queens followed her to the big or small screen.

Yeoh is ethnic Chinese and success in our local entertainment was improbable then.

The unspoken rule was Malay entertainment is to be dominated by Malay entertainers.

So, it was not a case of Yeoh bypassing Malaysia to fame, rather Yeoh could have only realised her dreams in the ethnic Chinese spaces of Hong Kong, Taiwan or China.

Almost all Malaysian Chinese who made it to the top of entertainment have done so in the far east, like Lee Sinje and Fung Bo Bo.

Was national programming in Malay not ready for other ethnicities or did those in power never push for a change in how all Malaysians are welcomed into our entertainment industry?

While it was unimaginable to have an African American action hero in the 1970s, Denzel Washington, Wesley Snipes and Eddie Murphy chipped away at that premise throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

Today, Denzel Washington films crank up ticket sales among young to middle-aged white men.

But it requires brave backers for films with minority leads. Malaysia did not have brave supporters.

In Yeoh’s case in the 1980s, her beauty and obvious charms were inadequate for Malaysian screens but even without being able to write or read in Chinese or speak Cantonese well she was more than a potential for Hong Kong moviegoers.

Which speaks volumes about Malaysia’s struggles with identity, acceptance and active measures to bring inclusivity.

Yeoh, the BN yeoman

She is from a Perak MCA family.

Therefore, it was not unsurprising for her to speak up for ex-PM Najib Razak 10 years ago as her family’s party was crumbling. “Why can’t your daughter plug for us?”, would have been the request.

Add to that her partner Jean Todt ran Ferrari racing, and Malaysia was keen on Formula One with a leg at the Sepang Circuit.

If BN never lost power in 2018, the whole discussion would be superfluous.

For an actress in Asia to back a government of the day which her family is invested in is par for the course.

It does leave a sense of disappointment among many Malaysian Chinese who have rejected MCA en masse in the intervening years.

This storyline has less complexity but fuels lasting antipathy.

Yeoh the citizen

Despite her actively living abroad for almost 40 years, she remains a Malaysian.

In her Hong Kong years, when the spectre of the 1997 handover led entertainment royalty to seek escape options to Canada or Australia, a Malaysian passport was a comfort.

In this stage of her life and career, the contentions would be practical things like taxation and benefits. No need to lose the Malaysian passport, mindful Malaysia does not allow dual-citizenship.

While she remains Malaysian, her exploits and honours will always be associated with Malaysia.

She is, in light of her Oscar statuette, a rich connection for the country. Her still being Malaysian brings the honours home even if the facts are a little more nuanced.

All at once

Her storylines continue to thread on in simultaneous but unfortunately parallel universes.

Yeoh the locally made but foreign-assembled actress, Yeoh the victim of demography or recipient depending on perspective, Yeoh the spokesperson for the failed and Yeoh the MyKad owner.

Everything, everywhere, all at once, like in the movie.

In the movie, Yeoh’s characters are connected in a myriad ways, stories explained through cross-dimension tensions. They are different but same in many ways. And at the end love brings harmony to them all.

Too syrupy perhaps like that Beatles diabetes-inducing Michelle (incidentally an award winner too, Best Song at the Grammys 1966).

But still, the column realises Malaysia is too small for Yeoh to spend all her time to figure out.

Therefore, take the Michelle you want, it won’t bother her anyways.

She’s crossed the Rubicon of modern entertainment and the way Asia — and its products — is perceived in Hollywood and beyond. Already a household and certainly a cultural reference point. A time of Yeoh. Her perfunctory Hollywood Walk of Fame Star on the way.

For this columnist, it is good Yeoh ticked all these boxes -- even the contradictory ones. Her global recognition will make those conversations evergreen.

And in debating about Yeoh, Malaysia’s own issues come to the fore. That might be her endearing contribution to Malaysia, perpetual discussions of what Malaysians could have been.

There could have been more Michelle Yeohs.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.