and more straightforward when the film has an all-Asian cast." Salons John Semley wrote, "What the reaction to Downsizing['s Asian character] suggests are the real-world growing pains that accompany North America's increasing reliance on the arrival of non-European immigrants." Semley highlighted a 2010 study that showed that participants found statements with "heavy Middle Eastern, European or Asian accents" were less truthful than those from native English speakers. He said, "It seems reasonable enough to believe that viewers calling out Alexander Payne, or Thai-Vietnamese actress Hong Chau herself, as troubling or in poor taste are in fact dealing with their own built-in cognitive mis-recognition, as they struggle with internalized accent discrimination." Tran is depicted as Christian, despite 85% of Vietnamese people practicing Buddhism and less than 7% of them practicing Christianity. Bright Lights Film Journals Malcolm Alsett said Downsizing "has a Christian message of goodness" and criticized the Christian depiction of Tran, "Yes, a broader American audience gets to perceive her actions in a way they can identify with as churchgoers. Unfortunately, it aids the persistence of a construct of goodness and social responsibility being the sole domain of Christianity, the font of all that is moral and ethical according to many Westerners." Portrayal of disability Literary critic Adam Mars-Jones said while films like Forrest Gump and Logan Lucky have "contorted messages that are sent when physically unimpaired actors occupy non-standard bodies thanks to the magic of special effects", the addition of Hong Chau as Ngoc Lan Tran to Downsizing was "putting this multiply marginal existence close to its centre". Mars-Jones said, "This angry woman becomes something infinitely rarer in films than a sexual object – a sexual subject, whose desire rather than her desirability takes charge of events." Performance recognition Hong Chau was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and for a Screen Actors Guild Award for best supporting female actor. Vanity Fair wrote, "Chau steals every scene away from Damon and her other starry co-stars, including Kristen Wiig, Christoph Waltz, and Laura Dern." References Female characters in film Fictional activists Fictional amputees Fictional Vietnamese people Film characters introduced in 2017 Science fiction film characters Race-related controversies in film Casting controversies in film