The Devil Wears Prada 2 is still a week or so away from general release in theaters worldwide, but is already sparking backlash in some Asian countries over a minor character supposedly playing into racial stereotypes about Asians.
On April 16, the main 20th Century Studios account tweeted out a short clip from the hotly anticipated sequel to 2006’s The Devil Wears Prada, featuring Anne Hathaway’s Andy Sachs interacting with her new assistant Jin Chao, played by Helen J. Shen.
In the clip, Jin explains to Andy how she came to be her assistant, and after misreading Andy’s hesitance and feeling like her boss might have wanted someone else, Jin fires off her credentials. “If you don’t want me, you can interview someone else. That’s totally fine,” Jin says. “I did go to Yale, 3.86 GPA, lead soprano of the [Yale singing group the Whiffenpoofs], and my ACT score was 36 on the very first time.”
The Jin character is also dressed in a way that is somewhat at odds with her high-fashion surroundings, wearing glasses and seemingly sensible office attire, compared to some of her colleagues.
The X clip, which has now been viewed over 25 million times, has set off a firestorm of debate in China, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and elsewhere, with social media up in arms over everything from the character being named Jin Chao — with some suggesting it sounded too close to the highly racist and offensive phrase “Ching Chong” — to the way she dresses, her awkwardness and her being a extreme academic high achiever, all of which many people felt played into age-old Hollywood stereotypes of Asian people.
In a tweet viewed a whopping 16 million times on X, one Japanese user tweeted, “The Devil Wears Prada, the promotion up to this point was really great, but right before release, they suddenly hit us with blatant anti-Asian racism and flipped the car.”
Replying to the Prada 2 clip, an X user based in South Asia tweeted simply, “we are in 2026… what made them think we’ll find this kind of racism funny?”
Another Korean user tweeted, “All the East Asians are fucking pissed off, and the fact that a few quotes from those living in the West are turning it into “overly sensitive snowflakes” is the perfect finishing touch.”
“The way they draw Asians is so blatantly stereotypical it’s gross,” tweeted one Japanese user on X in a highly viewed post. “I lived in NY until recently, but these days it’s harder to find young Asians like this in NY. Everyone’s out there working their asses off, looking clean and cool as hell. Kills my motivation to watch. I mean, this actress probably dresses way more stylishly in her private life, right?”
In another Japanese tweet that has been viewed over a million times on X, a user wrote:
“The Devil Wears Prada 2,
・Asian (Chinese)
・Name is Chinchon
・Glasses
・Nerdy bookworm
・Even if they graduated from a prestigious school, they’re uncool
hits us with the most blatant racial stereotype racism in 2026 and it gives me chills. Did they use this scene in the promo because it’s “funny”? #BoycottTheDevilWearsPrada2″
The social media backlash and calls for a boycott have also been picked up by media in some Asian countries. Hong Kong’s English-language paper of record, South China Morning Post, posted a widely shared article from their reporter based in Beijing. Japan’s The Sankei Shinbum and South Korea’s The Chosun Daily, Korea JoonAng Daily and The Korea Times have also reported on the backlash.
The fact that X now autotranslates tweets has led to some of the posts criticizing the Jin Chao character reaching a much bigger audience. Korean-American filmmaker Joseph Kahn (Bodied, Ick, Torque) also highlighted the controversy on X. “There’s an uproar with Japanese Twitter about this Asian character,” Kahn tweeted. “They feel she’s a caricature, which she is, but not about Asians but Gen Z.”
But Kahn pushed back on many of the criticisms. “[Jin’s] outfit is actually very couture in a film about fashion. Her glasses and hair clips are of the moment. The body shape disparity comes from Anne Hathaway who mandated there would be “diversity of sizes” which could either be taken as genuine virtue signaling or an actress wanting to be the skinniest and tallest onscreen. Nevertheless, the Asian character is being depicted as a fashionable, striver in the fashion world with typical Gen Z neurodivergency. Nerds don’t exist in Gen Z because they’re all awkward freaks and all dress like Nintendo cartoons. Anyway Japan, welcome to America.”
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