The Asian One Drop Rule

B.D. Wong explains how any actor who is the slightest bit Asian means that any role he plays is reserved for Asians forever.

Gay Chinese Broadway actor B.D. Wong is really, really angry that now that Darren Criss is leaving the Tony Awards winning Broadway sci-fi musical Maybe Happy Ending about retired robots in Korea, he is being replaced by Andrew Barth Feldman, who is Darren’s Chinese leading lady’s Jewish boyfriend:

How come Wong is so filled with racist hate toward the Jewish actor?

Because Wong views the Jew as white, and therefore his enemy.

Although Criss looks like a handsome white guy and Feldman looks like a not quite as handsome white guy, Wong is adamant that the majority white Criss having a mostly East Asian (but partly Spanish) Filipina mom therefore privileges the Asian race to possess all the major roles in Mostly Happy Ending eternally. But not the Korean race (Wong has no objection to Chinese-Americans such as himself or Feldman’s girlfriend Helen J. Shen playing Koreans). This is according to the highly scientific Asian One Drop Rule, even though nobody had ever heard of it before:

Last week, MAYBE HAPPY ENDING announced that its Tony-winning hero, the charismatic Darren Criss, ending his run, will be replaced by Andrew Barth Feldman.

This essay concerns the fact that Mr. Criss is of Asian American descent, and Mr. Feldman is not.

The Asian community has had quite a passionate reaction to this. It's screaming to be heard.

MAYBE HAPPY ENDING is a magical "little" Broadway musical rendered by inspired writers

Here are the show’s writers/composers, Will Aronson and Hue Park:

It’s almost like one author is Jewish and one is Korean, so the idea that one robot is played by a Jew and one by an Asian seems pretty reasonable.

and a masterful director. It features delightful leading performances by Asian actors. It's a rare feat of representation. In challenging times, it deserves survival.

The Asian community, particularly actors, feels rather betrayed by the news. The show's Asian-ness barely enjoyed, this came as a shock. I celebrate MHE's many merits while responding honestly to this news. Wish me luck.

Re Mr. Criss' racial identity: if you believe an Asian person with two Asian parents is "more Asian" than an Asian person with one (etc.), this essay isn't for you. We don’t gauge someone's Asian-ness on a “gradient scale” in my house. As for "how Asian" an actor “reads on stage"? Don't be so shallow! Those who process race this way might be less exposed to race, understood. When one's open to the multi-racial-ness around us, one will encounter diverse racial self-identities...but please don't label someone a "percentage" of something. Percentages are for comparing historical family facts.

In other words, although nobody noticed that Darren Criss wasn’t 100% white, so he never experienced white racism, he’s OURS. And therefore any role he ever played is racially OURS forever and ever.

So simple, so true: an Asian Person is an Asian Person, "periodt." [Sic] There aren't "degrees."

I despair explaining this today.

Indeed.

Similarly, the New York Times news section reports that Criss is Asian and nothing but Asian, while Feldman is white:

‘Maybe Happy Ending’ Casting Change Ignites Debate About Representation

When the show said Andrew Barth Feldman, a white actor, would replace Darren Criss, who is of Filipino descent, alarms were sounded by some Asian American actors.

By Derrick Bryson Taylor

July 31, 2025

The Broadway musical “Maybe Happy Ending,” about two helperbots who form a bond at a robot retirement home in Seoul, has been riding high after winning six Tony Awards in June, including the coveted best new musical honor.

But the show’s recent decision to cast Andrew Barth Feldman, a white actor, as one of the helperbots after the current actor in the role, Darren Criss, who is of Filipino descent, departs next month has raised alarms among Asian American actors and spurred a weeklong conversation about representation.

In other words, Jews shouldn’t hope to ever be seen as anything but white.

It’s almost like this whole multiracialism thing, while it all makes sense in theory, isn’t going to be allowed to work out in practice due to racist anti-white animus and B.D. Wong-style career grifting.