A Deep Dive into the Messaging in the Film Slanted
Note: This post may contain spoilers for the film Slanted.
I don’t recall when I first heard about the movie Slanted, but I do remember I wanted to see it based on the trailer.
Slanted (2025) is a horror-comedy film written and directed by Amy Wang (The Brothers Sun, 2024). The story follows Joan Huang, a Chinese- American teenager, who is constantly faced with the reality of not being white in America. When she gets the opportunity to become white, she jumps at the chance, even lying to her mother to get her to sign the medical release for her surgery.
She wakes up from surgery completely transformed. Actress Shirley Chen’s Joan is now revealed to be a blond-haired, blue-eyed, white girl, played by Mckenna Grace.
Although I am not Chinese, the film's subject really appealed to me. I understood how Joan felt. I’d been the other. I’d been the minority—the different one. I’d grown up as one of the only (and sometimes the only) Black girls in my class. That is hard anywhere, but growing up in rural Texas in the ’90s made it even harder.
I grew up in a very segregated town. There was the Black side of town and the white side of town. The lines felt very clear. It wasn’t legal segregation, but it was just how things worked. Places weren’t off limits to either race, but it was rare for white people to have their homes on the black side of town or vice versa. You might visit, but you didn’t stay. We all went to the same school and the same 2 stores we had in town, but we lived separately and worshiped separately.
While my friends had dramatic playground relationships and fake weddings by the big tree, I was always just a friend because no one wanted to date the Black girl. It wasn’t even an option. So I kept my crushes a secret and talked about Bradley from S Club 7. It never even crossed my mind that one of the boys in my class might like me. I had a lot of guy friends, but even when my prepubescent heart wanted more, I kept it to myself. I didn’t even tell my friends for fear of them telling the boy, and him saying the quiet part out loud, “I don’t date black girls.” It was just the way things were.
Mostly it was silent, but sometimes it would be so loud. Like when my cousin, Bryson, brought his Mary Mary CD to school and our classmate, Jason, said, “They are cute for Black girls. They aren’t all Black and dark like Dia.” That was in the 6th or 7th grade. I’m 36 years old, and I felt my chest tighten as I wrote that, the same ache I felt when he said it. Of course, I said nothing, and neither did my cousin. As an adult, I’d say, “We knew we were outnumbered and second-class citizens. “ But back then I didn’t have the words, but I knew I was different and that was bad.
Watching Slanted, I kept coming back to three ideas that hit extremely close to home. I feel like anyone who has been in the shoes of “the outsider” during their life may recognize themselves in June as well, at least in the past if not currently. The idea that who you are by nature is wrong, and the world shouldn’t change but you should.
The “Model of Beauty”
One thing this film highlighted in a new way was the experience of not being the “Model of Beauty.” I think back to my insecurities and my experience growing up the way I did. What I mean by the “Model of Beauty” is white. When I was growing up, it was the Kelly Kapowskis, the Buffys, the Topangas….
Because for as long as I can remember, the definition of beauty was “Blond hair, blue eyes, skinny and white.”
“Sorry, Robin, your hair looks like poop…try some hair dye and come back and see us.”
“Ginger, we might let a few of you pass.”
“Kemiko, it’s not going to work.”
“Sorry, Kadijah, it just isn’t possible.”
I wasted so much time throughout my life doubting my own beauty because it didn’t match the “model of beauty,” constantly rammed down my throat.
By highlighting the power of the “Model of Beauty,” Slanted forces us to take an honest look at how we enforce this toxic standard or push against it. We’re forced to examine how the systemic ideas around beauty in the United States have affected us, our perceptions of ourselves and the people around us, for people of any ethnicity. It is not in anyone's control what color their skin is when they are born into this world or where they are born in this world.
The Invitation and How It’s Received -
When the “Model of Beauty” is not attainable for all, there is no opportunity but to embrace your own beauty.
Slanted poses the question of, “Would you change everything about your physical appearance, culture, and more words that aren’t necessarily race-specific, but more about culture and identity. Would you become white?”
What would you give up to belong?
If someone walked up to me today and said, “Hey, would you like to be white? We have the technology.”
I would 100% say, “No, thank you.” Okay, I’d probably be more like, “Hell naw!” Because I am so grateful to be Black. Is it the easiest path in America? No. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.
But when I was Joan’s age…. I might have jumped at the chance. Because here is the thing: when you’re an “other” in a society where few people look like you, and you don’t feel chosen or seen, and you’re 17, all you want is to belong.
At 17, I wanted to be chosen. I’d had a complicated relationship with my father. I had un-diagnosed ADHD, and my brain translated the symptoms as anxiety. I doubt I would have had the words for it back then, as I struggle with them now, but it felt like if I were the best, did the best, worked harder, checked the boxes, I could regain some of the worth the world told me I lacked. It was my mission to impress society and to not be a stereotype in any way. I was your garden-variety overachiever.
Luckily, I wasn’t presented with this question in high school. I don’t know how I would have responded. Even as I write these words, I can’t help but feel a soft sadness for 17-year-old Dia in my heart.
One aspect of the movie I really loved was that this wasn’t some genie/alternate universe. After Joan agrees to become white, she doesn’t wake up the next day in a world where she is and has always been white. Her parents are still Chinese. She can’t go to school and say she is Joan; she has to create a whole new persona. Because the film went this direction, we get to experience the reaction of her parents when a random white girl walks into their home and the crushing realization of what their daughter has done, hitting them.
We get to see how her best friend, another person of color, reacts and internalizes her actions.
Joan is through the moon! She creates a fake persona and goes back to her school as the new girl. Almost automatically, she has a new crew of white friends and a white boyfriend. But as time goes on, she quickly realizes she is living a nightmare. A nightmare that many of us find ourselves in sometimes: she wasn’t being true to herself. She had lost her identity. She had lost her culture. Eventually, she'd lost herself.
The Importance of Culture
Culture is defined as the customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group.
Slanted is categorized as a Horror film. And it is. Because by losing her culture, she loses herself. Yes, your culture is more than the color of your skin, but it’s fair to assume that rejecting the uniform means you’re saying you’re ashamed of it?
I remember being June’s age and avoiding the Sun like the plague, so I wouldn’t get darker. Honestly, I probably felt that way until I was in my early thirties. Now as a Gardening auntie, I see the places on my skin getting darker as the sun gets brighter and I smile. Because it’s evidence of my journey, it’s a gardener’s battle scars.
We are all a sum of our parts, I see that now. I think you have to live a little to get it. I’m black, I’m a woman, I’m a sister, a friend, a daughter, a niece, an auntie, a writer, a CEO, a dog mom, a project manager, and so much more. But it would be a bald-faced lie to say that the black part hasn’t significantly shaped my experience and who I’ve become in this life.
I am me, and that will always be who I want to be. That is where the true beauty is.