Melissa Phruksachart published "The Bourgeois Cinema of Boba Liberalism" in the Spring 2020 issue of Film Quarterly (73.3), as part of its special dossier "Asian American Film at Fifty." Through the paratexts of Crazy Rich Asians (2018) and Searching (2018), the article proposes the concept of "messianic visibility" -- an over-investment in cinematic identification as possessing transformative, even curative, political and personal potential for liberal cisheteronormativity. The non-paywalled introduction to the dossier can be found here.
On May 22, 2020, dossier co-editor Brian Hu and FQ’s editor B. Ruby Rich moderated a virtual conversation on the landmark anniversary and ongoing legacy with dossier contributors Lan Duong, Viola Lasmana, Josslyn Luckett, Melissa Phruksachart, and Oliver Wang.
The webinar can be found here.
