Revisiting: “Why ‘Rush Hour’ Was Light-Years Ahead of Its Time”

Summary

Allison reflects on her article about the "Rush Hour" franchise's progressive casting against the backdrop of Black Lives Matter and Stop Asian Hate, expressing disappointment in its lack of engagement on Medium despite her other race-related articles being well-received.

Abstract

The author, Allison, addresses her audience as "Second-Story-Chancers" in an introspective piece about her article on the "Rush Hour" series, which was released amidst ethnic tensions in the 1990s. She notes the significance of the film's diverse casting with Black and Asian leads at a time when Hollywood was predominantly White. Despite the article's relevance to contemporary movements like Black Lives Matter and Stop Asian Hate, it did not resonate with the Medium community, unlike her other articles on race. Allison ponders whether her newcomer status on Medium, the choice of publication, the article's image, or the headline's effectiveness contributed to its underperformance. She also questions if the writing itself could be improved and seeks constructive feedback from readers.

Opinions

Allison believes that the "Rush Hour" franchise was groundbreaking in its diverse casting choices during the 1990s.
She is surprised and disappointed that her article did not gain traction on Medium, especially given the relevance of its subject matter to current social movements.
Allison suspects that her lack of followers on Medium might have affected the article's visibility and engagement.
She questions if publishing in a larger publication would have led to better reception of her article.
Allison considered using the "Rush Hour" movie poster as the article's image but was unsure about the legality of doing so.
She made efforts to optimize the headline but remains open to suggestions that it might still be a point of improvement.
Allison is uncertain if the quality of her writing or the clarity of her message could be factors in the article's performance and invites feedback for potential enhancements.

Why didn’t this story take off?

Hello, fellow Second-Story-Chancers!

This is an article I wrote about Rush Hour against the backdrop of Black Lives Matter and Stop Asian Hate.

I start this article off by pointing out how this franchise’s two male leads are Black and Asian in a time where Hollywood was mostly White.

I then continue to build on this thought by evaluating what the state of ethnic tensions was in the 1990s (the first Rush Hour movie was released in 1998) and pondering the director’s mindset when he cast Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker.

I was quite excited about this story actually and while I got a lot of views from my personal connections (i.e. not Medium readers), this story didn’t fare so well in the Medium community.

This story wasn’t curated even though all my other articles that touch on race have been.

A few thoughts about this story’s lackluster performance:

This was one of my first published articles — was it penalized because I didn’t have any followers?

Do you think it would have done better in a larger publication (and if so, which one)? I like the message of United States of Race but it is a fairly small publication.

Should I have gone with using the Rush Hour movie poster as the image? I contemplated it but wasn’t sure if I had the right to use it.

I tinkered with the headline quite a bit and even used CoSchedule to improve it. Any suggestions if the headline is the problem?

Or is “the problem” with the writing? Any suggestions to improve the flow of the piece? Is the message clear?

Thanks in advance for your constructive feedback!

Cheers, Allison

Revisiting: “Why ‘Rush Hour’ Was Light-Years Ahead of Its Time”

Why didn’t this story take off?

Why Rush Hour was Light Years Ahead of Its Time

Against the backdrop of Black Lives Matter and Stop Asian Hate