The Hallmark Channel has faced criticism following the announcement of its new original romcom All’s Fair in Love and Mahjong, which features a majority white cast.
Set to premiere May 9, the movie stars Fiona Gubelmann, Paul Campbell, Yan-Kay Crystal Lowe, Tamera Mowry-Housley and Melissa Peterman, and follows a school nurse who turns her love of the Chinese tile-based game Mahjong into a new path, according to a logline. Invented in China in the mid-to-late 19th century, Mahjong was developed from older Chinese card and domino games and features 144 tiles, each marked with Chinese symbols representing currency, numbers and cultural values.
While Lowe, 45, is half Chinese, the network is being criticized on social media for not having greater Asian representation in its main cast and “appropriating” Chinese culture.
“This slap-in-the-face Hallmark movie is coming out during AAPI Heritage Month,” one person wrote on Threads, adding that “the whitewashed tiles and cast are not surprising from the studio.”
“Lord what in what in the West Caucasia is this,” someone quipped on Instagram, with a second similarly echoing: “No because seriously, what in the colonization is going on?”
“Ah yes, nothing says Happy AAPI Month like appropriating Asian culture,” a third commented.
“Because when I see a picture of these women, I think Mahjong,” a fourth joked.
“Why don’t yt [sic] ppl just stick to their culture instead of profiting off of others?” a fifth questioned, with another adding: “There was always a choice to NOT greenlight this film #justsaying.”
The Independent has contacted Hallmark for comment.
The day before the movie’s latest promotional post on Instagram, the e-commerce website Miss Mahjong revealed that it was partnering with Hallmark to release Miss Heirloom, a special purple, green and white Mahjong set featuring non-traditional symbols — the same set used in the movie.
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“Yall couldn’t even use a traditional mahjong set or what? Or work with an Asian owned company?” one person questioned. “Are there Asian writers on your team? How much of the cast is Chinese, and is it a Chinese leading story? Cause this poster is giving yall didn’t put thought into this.”
The backlash comes years after the network upset conservatives by releasing its first original Christmas movie focused solely on an LGBT+ love story.
At the time, former Hallmark darling Candace Cameron Bure, who left the network for the “more conservative” Great American Family network, addressed the 2022 LGBT+ movie, telling the Wall Street Journal that GAF would likely not follow suit and instead keep “traditional marriage at the core.”
In the same interview, the Full House star addressed her departure from the network, saying: “It basically is a completely different network than when I started because of the change of leadership.”
Following her comments, Mean Girls actor Lacey Chabert defended Hallmark, saying she “found a real home.”
“Any shift I’ve felt has been embracing our creative ideas, and it’s my responsibility to the audience who continue to tune into my movies that I give the best I have to offer,” Chabert said in an interview with Vulture. “That’s always my mission.
“I’ll never abandon what Hallmark means for me, which is that everything is centered around the heart. I don’t think there are any plans for that to change anytime soon.”
