What If You Could Change Your Race? w/ Amy Wang
The Sam Sanders Show
KCRW & Sam Sanders
4.9 • 707 Ratings
🗓️ 13 March 2026
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A twisted new horror film is being described as a mix between 'The Substance' and 'Mean Girls.' Sam can’t stop thinking about it.
'Slanted' follows an insecure Chinese American teenager who desperately wants to fit in, but faces constant bullying and discrimination. Then she finds a drastic solution — ethnic modification — surgery that makes her appear white. Pale skin, blue eyes and blonde hair included.
Amy Wang wrote and directed the wildly brutal movie. She tells Sam how the script was inspired by her own experiences living in Australia with her Chinese immigrant family. She also explains why satire and body horror were the perfect combo to tell this story.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's so interesting watching your movie. |
| 0:02.0 | Yeah. |
| 0:02.4 | I was like, all right, pose the question to myself. |
| 0:04.7 | As a kid, would I have had a surgery to make myself not black, to make myself white? |
| 0:11.9 | Yeah. |
| 0:12.2 | And I said, no. |
| 0:13.4 | But I would have had a surgery to make myself straight. |
| 0:17.7 | Wow. |
| 0:19.1 | How does that feel for you to kind of have to come your terms? |
| 0:23.2 | I mean, at 41 in Los Angeles, homosexual and childless, I made the right choice. |
| 0:30.1 | Hey, y'all, Sam Sanders here. Thanks so much for listening. I want to talk to you about a movie that's in theaters right now that I cannot stop thinking about. |
| 0:42.3 | It's called Slanted. |
| 0:43.9 | The team behind this film says it's part the substance, part mean girls. |
| 0:48.5 | Whatever you call it, it is a ride. |
| 0:50.7 | You can tell from the very start of the trailer. |
| 0:53.6 | Have you ever suffered the injustice of being a person of color in this world? |
| 0:59.0 | Have you ever had someone tell you how impressed they are, how well you speak English without an accent? |
| 1:05.0 | Or are you just tired of the way of white folks look at you? |
| 1:09.0 | Slanted is all about a Chinese American teenager facing bullying and discrimination at school. |
| 1:15.4 | She finds a solution to that that is drastic, to say the least. |
| 1:19.7 | Welcome to ethnic modification. |
| 1:23.8 | She undergoes a surgery that changes her race. |
... |
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