actually i don’t think that’s it at all! they’re definitely connected but i think it’s a different causation/correlation than what you’ve described. sorry this is going to be long because this is a really interesting point and i’m gonna get into it…
to me, i don’t think the state of her relationship with joy is what caused the difficulties with her marriage or her inability to pursue any other dreams, but in fact those were all symptoms of the same thing—the thing at the root of it all imo is the fact that, for a lot of chinese immigrant families (probably other immigrant families as well), many of us live our lives in almost a constant state of anxiety and desperation to simply survive. to just make it through. i just suddenly thought of that quote from station eleven, “survival is insufficient,” and how that is very much the exact opposite of the worldview that was explicitly drilled into my head from a young age—to my parents, and to some extent to me still to this day, survival is all we can hope for. all we can do is make the best of the situations we are given, to not take unnecessary risks, to make the smartest and most calculated choice to avoid inevitable looming catastrophe. to make it through every day. any more than that is asking too much, is too greedy, is dangerous.
and especially for first-generation immigrants like evelyn or my own parents, the idea of “following your dreams” is a completely ludicrous and foreign idea, one that is very american (derogatory). they came here with so little and had no blueprint for a path forward and so little idea of what was even possible for them in this entirely new world that all they thought they could possibly hope for was to build some sort of foundation in order to allow their children a little more safety than they themselves had—not freedom to pursue their dreams, but security to at least never suffer the way previous generations have. it’s weird because so many of our parents came here in pursuit of some vague nebulous idea of an american dream that was sold to them, but imo they don’t conceptualize it in the same way—even though the only goal they had was to provide a better life for their children, it still doesn’t make sense for them if their children have a different / “more american” view of what that dream means, or what it even means to have a dream beyond what is right in front of you and the bare minimum it takes to survive in the least risky, most secure way possible.
there are some ways in which evelyn is very markedly different from my parents, specifically in that she did make one choice for herself, which was to go to america with waymond and marry for love. and that’s why that choice was such a huge inflection point in her life in the whole multiverse of it all—obviously the choice to immigrate, as i’ve talked about before, is probably THE biggest possible choice that anyone can possibly make that will affect not only their own life but the lives of their children and everyone who comes after, but for evelyn specifically it’s also the one time she really noticeably went against her father’s wishes and against the safer, more pragmatic path, and instead made, as i mentioned earlier, a selfish choice. something just for her own happiness. something based on her feelings and not What Was Best. and i think there is a lot of guilt and anxiety that she carries from that still, that we see in her relationship with her father, her behavior overall and the way she lives and perceives her life, and how the multiverse manifests itself. imo she carries this idea that she kind of both needs to make up for that selfishness by working extra hard and not veering from the completely unselfish single-minded pursuit of survival, and to also prove to her father that she did not make a mistake.
my parents very much did not marry for love. romantic love, honestly, is not even really a concept in their vocabulary or their entire worldview. to them and a lot of folks in their generation, marriage was again about security, about building a life and a partnership, about duty, about sharing the load, but in no way about something so vague and emotional and flighty as “love.” honestly it was just something you did because you were supposed to do it. and it’s part of why, i think, to a lot of folks in my parents’ generation, something like being gay makes no sense to them. because it is a selfish decision, to come out and choose to live your life based on that, it is something that is driven purely by your inner feelings. it makes no sense from their perspective because it makes your life harder than it needs to be. and what’s the tradeoff? love? happiness? what is happiness if not safety and security and food on the table and not having to worry—all things that, objectively, are more accessible for couples in traditional heterosexual partnerships. do not rock the boat. simply survive. (obviously there is still a healthy dose of garden variety homophobia involved, but imo that also stems from a cultural expectation to follow the path that is set out for you. to be “normal,” for your own good.)
to me waymond is an anomaly. i know a lot of people who are like evelyn. even with the one big choice she made that stands out to me, i still see my parents and myself in her. waymond, however, is entirely unfamiliar. i’m not sure if i know anyone in my family’s communities who views and approaches life the way he does. in some ways, waymond is almost a miracle. a mythical figure. and i think that’s the role he plays in the film. the one who is open to love, who is open to dreaming, to celebrating and valuing small selfish personal feelings, to the impractical pursuit of joy and happiness for happiness’s sake and no other purpose. his thesis that he states throughout the film is about kindness, most obviously kindness to those around him that bridges divides and solves seemingly insurmountable problems, but upon reflection i think what makes him so powerful is the capacity he has for kindness to himself.
and that is why at the start of the film, evelyn cannot see him, brushes him off as her silly husband who always does silly meaningless little things that serve no purpose. that dismissiveness that pushes waymond to file for divorce comes not from a place of anger or malice, but from how hard she is on herself, the standard she holds herself to in order to prove her worth and make up for her own decisions / perceived mistakes in the past, and how closed off she is to her own emotions and even the possibility for her own happiness or anything greater, even in the tiniest ways, than the life she has built, to the point where she simply cannot comprehend waymond’s worldview anymore. it’s the same wedge that has driven itself between her and joy (though tbh i think joy is built much more similarly to evelyn than waymond is, and we see that expressed throughout the film). this is something that i see every single day in so many people that i’ve known, myself included, but ultimately it’s evelyn herself—her fears and her desperation for and resignation to mere survival—that ends up isolating her from everyone else. she thinks in the beginning that the choices waymond and joy have made to be a little bit selfish, to prioritize personal happiness, have made their lives harder, more risky, but the Point of the film is that those choices are what make life worth living.
