The hotly-anticipated sequel to The Devil Wears Prada has found itself in hot water just days before premiering.
The Devil Wears Prada 2 film is receiving hefty backlash from social media users in Asian countries including Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and China after 20th Century Studios shared a 38-second teaser clip for the film on X. While it’s already premiered in Mexico, South Korea, Shanghai, Japan and New York during each stop of the press tour, its official release date isn’t until April 30.
The clip, which shows Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) meeting her new assistant, Jin Chao (Helen J Shen), was a teaser to introduce fans to “the former assistant’s new assistant”.
However, audiences are expressing on social media that they’ve been introduced to an Asian caricature instead.
Fans point out racial stereotypes
In the teaser, Andy is greeted by her unexpected new assistant Jin Chao when she steps out of the elevator, who starts yapping away. When she mistakes Andy’s confusion for dismissal, Jin Chao starts rattling off her qualifications and achievements: “I did go to Yale, 3.86 GPA, lead soprano of the Whiffenpoofs, and my ACT score was 36 on the very first time”.
The clip, which has now been viewed over 26 million times on X, has social media in a heated debate over everything from her socially-awkward nature to her long list of high achievements.
Here’s everything fans are saying makes Jin Chao an Asian stereotype in Hollywood productions.
Jin Chao’s name
The main gripe The Devil Wears Prada 2 watchers have with this snippet is Jin Chao’s name. X users were quick to point out that her name sounds extremely close to a racist slur, with one person writing “It’s 2026 already and they can’t even come up with a normal Chinese name”.
Another X user wrote that while they were originally excited to see the sequel to the 2006 film, “after seeing the trailer [they] found it so racist [they’ve] decided not to see it.”
Fans likened the writer’s careless and ignorant naming of Jin Chao to Harry Potter character Cho Chang. Controversial author JK Rowling has received her fair share of backlash over the racist naming conventions when writing the Asian character into the series. While “Cho” is a common Korean surname, “Chang” is a Chinese surname, and “the two names would most likely never be found together because they are both last names and are ethnically inconsistent”, The Spectator reports.
Her academic achievements
Her rapid-fire list of academic achievements has also become a major sticking point for viewers, who argue it leans heavily into the long-standing “model minority” stereotype often assigned to Asian characters in Hollywood.
Social media users pointed out that Jin Chao immediately listing her Yale GPA, perfect ACT score and impressive extracurriculars reduces her personality to academic excellence and overachievement — traits that Asian characters are frequently boxed into onscreen. Combined with her socially awkward delivery and anxious energy, critics say the scene paints her less as a fully-formed person and more as the “nerdy overachiever” audiences have been exposed to countless times before.
Others argued the character feels overly familiar because Hollywood has a history of portraying Asian women as hyper-intelligent, high-strung and desperate to prove themselves, rather than giving them nuanced personalities beyond being “the smart one”.
Her appearance vs her colleagues
Another aspect about Jin Chao’s character that people find offensive is her outfit. While other employees at the fictional Runway Magazine are in what can be described as low-effort yet timelessly chic attire (capsule wardrobe vibes), she is wearing a very corporate mixed-print get-up that’s at odds with her ‘cool-girl’ editorial surroundings.
One X user wrote, “striped shirt and plaid skirt? You can walk on any street in China and wouldn’t see ANYONE wearing something like this”, referencing how her outfit felt less like something a fashionable young woman working at a top fashion magazine would realistically wear, and more like an exaggerated attempt to visually code her as awkward, unfashionable and out of touch compared to her stylish colleagues.
On the flip side of the debate, X user Joseph Kahn wrote that Jin Chao is not an Asian caricature, but one of Gen Z.
“Her outfit is actually very couture in a film about fashion. Her glasses and hair clips are of the moment,” he wrote.
Still, much of the backlash suggests viewers — particularly Asian audiences — feel the character hits too many familiar tropes at once to be viewed in isolation. Between her name, academic overachieving, socially awkward personality and intentionally “uncool” styling, many online argue Jin Chao feels less like a nuanced modern character and more like a recycled stereotype Hollywood should have left behind years ago.
Image Credit: 20th Century Studios / X
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