Healing Through A Bagel
Everything Everywhere All At Once has been gaining lots of attention and fame for its iconic representation of Asians in the Hollywood industry and for speaking up about dysfunctional families, more specifically Asian American families. The stereotype about Asian families can be summed up to the model minority myth where Asians have been claimed to be hard-working, goal-oriented, and the epitome of hard workers (more information about the model minority myth can read here). This idea not only pits POC against each other but makes Asians a target in diverse countries, such as America, Canada, Europe, and Australia because of the standards made for Asians picked out by Caucasians and other groups looking in from outside. Mainstream media only wants to focus on successful families and ideologies but the reality lies on the streets where many Asian American families live in poverty and poorly regulated communities forgotten by city councils and society and shunned by other ethnic groups.
Living in poorly regulated environments with no help or escape from poverty can cause families to become dysfunctional when parents and kids are always fighting each other's dreams and expectations to stay afloat in poor harboring conditions. Large families will often look to the eldest children to take care of the younger children as the parents work their low-paying jobs to provide for the family. In return, everyone has food and housing but may also lose their sanity and patience as kids are expected to act as adults to keep the family from falling apart. Aside from working logically to keep the family afloat, kids will dream about their future and success just like anyone else till they are shot down by parents to get a “real job” to gain success that meets realistic standards.
In the 2022 award winning film, Everything Everywhere All At Once, we are introduced to the protagonist Evelyn Wang who is the owner of a laundromat. Evelyn had moved from China to America with her husband Waymond Wang to chase the American Dream where they eventually have their first and only child Joy Wang. We first see a hint of intergenerational trauma through the relationship between Evelyn and her father, known as Gong Gong. The film opens on a stressful morning in Evelyn’s life, where she is multitasking multiple tasks at once such as preparing her paperwork to avoid being audited, cooking breakfast for her father, and running the laundromat to keep her daily life afloat while also ignoring her husband and daughter all in order to avoid her father's disappointment. Every second Evelyn is almost given the chance to take a breath, there seems to be another inconvenience that interrupts her train of thought, dragging her back into chaos. Then we see Joy and Evelyn’s relationship and how they are constantly bickering with their clashing personalities. Joy is clearly anxious and falling deeper into a depression as her mother's attitude constantly treats her as a disappointment.
Throughout the film, Evelyn goes through certain stages of grief. First anger with Joy and her lifestyle, then denial when Alpha Waymond introduces himself. Grief when all hell is breaking loose with the auditing and universes clashing with Alpha Waymond. Then lastly, acceptance when she believes in universe jumping where she then explains to Joy that it's not her fault but Jobu Tupacu's fault for making her life miserable. This is where she is still in denial with the fact that she is the one making her daughter's life miserable and not Jobu.
The entire relationship between Gong gong, Evelyn, and Joy represents a drip. The drip has passed down trauma and can only be stopped if Evelyn stands up to her father and apologizes to Joy which she does end up doing in the film. When Gong gong demands Evelyn to kill joy in one universe so Jobu has no access to one less universe, this metaphor can be linked to him forcing Evelyn to shut Joy down and kill Joys dreams off. To kill her personality. To become like her and Gong gong. In this universe, literally killing Evelyn's only joy.
Her self-growth can also be seen when she gradually learns to pronounce Jobu Tupaki's name, a metaphor for her growth. She mispronounces her name the entire movie until her perception broadens, learning her daughter's perception and learning to accept. Evelyn was able to protect Joy and end the generational trauma by standing up to her dad, questioning him as to why he treated her coldly growing up. Stopping the drip.
Everything Everywhere All At Once teaches us that it's not just disappointment in our parents for not believing in us and pressuring us but resentment and disappointment in ourselves for not being better and reaching our own expectations. Of course, the disappointment is learned through the parent but then turns into resentment and is reflected on both the parent and ourselves. Our actions have an influence on others which is why Joy is so affected by her mother's negativity, caused by Evelyn's upbringing by her father. Just like the influence, when Jobu Tupaki is speaking with Evelyn about why she remains in the universe as the saddest version of herself when she could be anything else anywhere, she is healing through her questions and Evelyn's answer which has a domino effect on all the other joys in the universe. That is when Evelyn settles the problem and lets Joy know that she is loved as she is for who she is in that very universe.
