Laufey's “Madwoman” Is More Than Just a Music Video. It's a Statement on Asian-American Representation.
The singer’s newest music video rounds up some of this generation’s hottest Asian and Asian American stars, including Hudson Williams, Alysa Liu, and Lola Tung – but the real story isn't who's in it. It's why.
For most of her childhood, Chinese-Icelandic singer-songwriter Laufey rarely saw anyone who looked like her on screen. Now, the 27-year-old Grammy Award winner is using her platform to spotlight Asian culture and representation – both in front of and behind the camera. The music video for her latest single “Madwoman” features an all-Asian cast, including Heated Rivalry’s Hudson Williams, Olympic gold medalist Alysa Liu, The Summer I Turned Pretty’s Lola Tung, and Megan Skiendiel from KATSEYE. You’ll also spot cameos from Havana Rose Liu (Bottoms) and Chase Sui Wonders (Bodies Bodies Bodies) on the magazine covers in the video’s opening scenes.
The main cast of the “Madwoman” music video with director Warren Fu (Source: warrenjfu/Instagram)
The decision to exclusively cast Asian and Asian American talent was deliberate and deeply personal. “Growing up, I felt a general lack of representation for people who looked like me in music and media. With the ‘Madwoman’ video, I wanted to be that representation,” says Laufey in a press statement about the video. Laufey extended that same intentionality to the crew, tapping director Warren Fu, cinematographer Andrew Truong, production designer Evaline Huang, and executive producers Christine Yi and Maiqi Qin from Gold House – a prominent AAPI nonprofit – to lead the project behind the scenes.
The result is a cinematic music video that brings to life the song’s story about an endless cycle of attraction to a toxic lover through a unique Asian American lens. Despite the setting being 1960’s suburban America, we see subtle nods to Chinese culture sprinkled throughout the video, like the bamboo steamers on the kitchen counter, Alysa and Lola playing mahjong by the pool, and Megan’s green jade bangle. During the flashback to a past date with her lover (played by Hudson), Laufey is wearing a traditional qipao, and the scene's alignment with the lyric "I remember how together we're so handsome" highlights the beauty of the dress.
What’s great about these cultural references is that they blend in seamlessly with the overall aesthetic. Even though Asian elements are not normally the kind of things you see in a classic mid-century Americana context, they don’t feel jarring or out of place here. It’s the kind of race-agnostic representation that transcends stereotypes – where Asian characters just exist without question, instead of being required for the storyline. It also reflects a feeling that many young Asian Americans can relate to: growing up between two different cultures and naturally incorporating elements of both into everyday life. As director Warren Fu explains in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, “I think whether you’re Asian American or of mixed ethnicity, you often feel like you’re between two worlds, and I wanted to capture that feeling in this video.”
Mahjong scene from the “Madwoman” music video (Source: Laufey/Youtube)
A Win for “Wasian” Representation
An important thing worth noting is that the lead actors of the video are all “Wasian” – a term colloquially used to refer to people of mixed White and Asian background. Laufey, who is Wasian herself, made this a conscious part of her creative vision because of her own experience in an industry without many faces like hers to look up to. The fact that Laufey could cast an entire music video with famous Wasian Gen-Z talents – each already a household name before the video – is a testament to how much has changed for a group that American media long overlooked. Many people who identify as Wasian are finding community in their shared heritage through this video, endearingly calling the cast the “Wasian Avengers” and celebrating 2026 as “the year of Wasia”.
This increase in Wasian visibility in pop culture reflects a real demographic shift in the U.S. population. With every new generation, the Asian American community is becoming more and more multiracial. According to MyAsianVoice’s analysis of 2023 U.S. Census data, 19% of all Asian Americans identify as multiracial, but if we zoom in on Asian Americans under 35, that number jumps to 28%, which means that over a fourth of all millennial, Gen-Z, and younger Asian Americans are of mixed race. And overall, Wasians make up the 4th largest multiracial group in the U.S., so it’s no surprise that they’re becoming a more recognized part of the cultural conversation.
A Mixed Blessing for Hollywood Diversity
If it feels like you’ve been seeing more multiracial characters in TV and movies in general, you’re not wrong. The UCLA Hollywood Diversity Report for 2025 found that multiracial actors (of all types) made up 22% of streaming film leads in 2024, second only to White people, and that this actually exceeds proportionate representation of the multiracial population in the U.S. However, this report doesn’t break down the multiracial category into more detail, so we don’t know how many of them are mixed Asians or, within that, specifically Wasian. This distinction is important because Wasians only make up a part of the mixed Asian community, and their experiences do not represent all multiracial Asians as a whole. So, even though the recent rise of Wasians in pop culture represents a win, many mixed Asian folks who are not part-White continue to feel that their experiences and identities are being overlooked. A more granular breakdown of the multiracial category would help shed light on which subgroups are still not getting the visibility they deserve. Meanwhile, the report does note that non-mixed Asian leads still remain underrepresented at only 2%, which raises an uncomfortable question: is Hollywood truly embracing Asian talent, or just the version of it that caters to White audiences?
From its beginnings in the early 20th century, Hollywood has had a long and well-documented history of “whitewashing”: casting White actors in roles originally meant for non-White characters. When the Charlie Chan films of the 1930s surged in popularity after White actor Warner Oland replaced the Asian lead, Hollywood producers became convinced that casting White actors was more favorable to audiences and could generate bigger profits. Institutional racism in the U.S. at the time contributed to this trend, with regulations like the Hays Code cutting off non-White actors from major roles. This essentially created a self-fulfilling prophecy where studios claim that actors of color aren’t successful while removing any chances for them to prove their success. Racial equality has progressed significantly since then, and the push for diversity in Hollywood has only grown stronger over the past decade – but the practice of whitewashing still remains, leading to controversial casting decisions like Scarlett Johansson in the Ghost in the Shell and the recent Hallmark movie about mahjong. As a result, there’s a legitimate concern that the increase in casting Wasian actors is a new, more subtle form of whitewashing in which the actor is diverse enough to deflect criticism, but White-passing enough to appeal to mainstream audiences.
But what does it actually mean to “appeal to mainstream audiences”? A big factor is relatability – when viewers can see themselves in a character or storyline, it creates a positive emotional connection that keeps the audience engaged and deepens their enjoyment of the work. Since the majority of the U.S. population is White, studio executives naturally assume that White characters will resonate most with the audience whereas narratives centering minority groups will not connect as broadly. There’s also the mindset that since White-led projects have consistently done well, deviating from the “tried-and-true” formula is an unnecessary financial gamble. From a numbers-only standpoint, the logic makes sense, but in reality, the situation is more nuanced. Even if audiences prefer seeing characters who look like them on screen, that doesn’t necessarily mean they won’t still enjoy characters of other ethnicities. For decades, people of color have managed to relate to predominantly White stories in Hollywood, so there’s no reason for White viewers to be any less capable of connecting with minority-led ones.
Perspectives on race and diversity are also shifting in our society; people are becoming more outspoken about diverse representation in Hollywood and actively seeking out and supporting works that highlight minority experiences. Plenty of recent movies and TV shows featuring non-White leads have proven to be both critically acclaimed and commercially successful – like Sinners (2025), Beef (2023), Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022), and Never Have I Ever (2020) – so the belief that only White-centric media are guaranteed to succeed is becoming obsolete. A study looking at the top films from 2007 to 2018 even confirmed that minority-led films are positively correlated with box office revenue and that “biases regarding women and people of color are driving decision-making rather than a sophisticated understanding of the marketplace.”
Recent successful movies and TV shows featuring non-White leads (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
How Media Trends Reflect Societal Trends
Unfortunately, major studios still seem reluctant to let go of the misguided assumption that White characters are the baseline for mainstream appeal. A detailed study by USC on Asian representation in streaming content in 2023 found that Asian characters where race was mentioned only briefly or not at all were more likely to be depicted with lighter skin tones, while darker-skinned characters were more likely to have their race central to their story. This suggests that when a role can be played by an actor of any race, Hollywood tends to choose more White-looking individuals. Overall, only 13% of Asian characters in the study were dark-skinned. Hence, even though Hollywood is making an effort to hire more non-White actors, the representation within those groups is still skewed towards those who align more closely with White appearances.
These trends call back to an even larger cultural discussion, as there may also be connections that contribute to the harmful “model minority” stereotype that Asian Americans often face. I recently came across an NPR podcast episode, “Welcome to ‘The Republic of Wasia’”, that dives into the history of Wasians in America and why the surge in Wasian popularity matters. (I highly recommend a listen!) In it, one of the hosts explains, “I think there's this idea that if Wasian people look white enough or if we fit in well enough, we'll eventually just assimilate into whiteness. It's a kind of model minority idea that's often attached to non-mixed Asian people too, that if we're well-behaved and white-acting enough, Asian people can just, like, assimilate. But that's not actually how things work.” Wasian people (and other part-White mixed people) still deal with racism and stereotypes tied to their non-White side, and often struggle with feeling like they're not “enough” of any one race to truly fit in. Meanwhile, mixed folks who aren’t part-White navigate these same struggles without the social privileges that come with being White-passing, and with even less visibility in mainstream culture.
Continuing The Fight for Inclusive Representation
So, while more on-screen Wasian representation is a meaningful step forward, it's essential that Hollywood recognizes it as one piece of a much larger, more diverse Asian American story. Wasian visibility shouldn’t be mistaken for complete representation of the mixed Asian community, as many multiracial Asians who are not part-White continue to feel overlooked. And ultimately, representation shouldn’t depend on how acceptable a character’s appearance or background is to the target audience – it should challenge stereotypes and reflect the full spectrum of the Asian American experience.
Fortunately, several organizations are stepping up to enable more inclusive AAPI representation. For example, Mixed Asian Media serves the multiracial Asian community by amplifying mixed AAPI voices and perspectives, cultivating a space where they can feel seen. At a broader level, Gold House – a collective of Asian and Pacific Islander founders, creatives, and leaders – has become a major force in championing Asian-led stories, including Laufey’s music video. They recently released their “Gold100” list, celebrating the 100 Asian leaders most responsible for shaping global culture over the past year. Another impactful organization is the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM), which funds and distributes films and media created by and about Asian Americans, focusing on presenting stories that convey the richness and diversity of Asian American experiences to the broadest audience possible. Their work is a reminder that representation is something worth actively fighting for.
The “Madwoman” music video was Laufey's love letter to her younger self – a chance to put the identity she grew up with front and center on screen. Now it's time to keep that momentum going, especially when it comes to making space for the ones who don’t fit Hollywood's current mold.