Fresh Off The Boat vs. Gilmore Girls: Asian American Families

With the long-awaited premiere of Fresh Off The Boat this past week, a lot has been written about the first Asian American family to be on primetime TV since 1994, when Margaret Cho's All-American Girl infamously debuted. But I was way too young, thankfully, to know or care about All-American Girl when it first came out.

Instead, later on, I had another TV Asian American family to try to relate to: Lane Kim and her mother on Gilmore Girls. And as much as I love that show, I have to say how much I've always cringed at how the Kims were portrayed. Mother Kim, pressed to stand as the lone symbol of Asianness, alternates between antagonist and butt of joke. Consequently, Lane's character arc seems to be her quest to ward off everything that is represented as Korean in the show. And when Lane has to travel to Korea, it is treated as an unfathomable horror. Instead, what she wants to do is rock out to Dead Kennedys and touch the heads of blond-haired boys. In other words, she wants to be "American," forever divergent from "Asian," and never the twain shall meet.

Oh the joys of being Asian American. Also, where is Mr. Kim?

Not to say that these feelings are inaccurate, as it is practically a rite of passage for young Asian Americans to, at some point in our lives, feel angry at the fact that our parents need us to translate everything, or that we can't eat certain foods around our "American" friends, or that we have to go to <insert ethnicity> school and <insert ethnicity> church on the weekends. Some of us eventually learn how to reconcile our identities and some of us don't. In Gilmore Girls, there's actually a very rich and complex subplot in the later half of the first season where Lane unexpectedly falls for Henry, a Korean American classmate of Rory's. She dismisses him on-sight at first just because he too is Korean (a classic Asian American move), but to her utmost horror, she finds that she likes him despite the fact that he's what her mother would like. This says a lot about the conflicting identity issues within Lane and makes her a much more layered character.

The only problem is that this storyline is never pursued much further and just peters out, never to be examined again. Soon, it's back to the same old one-sided angle where Asian culture is this constant impediment to becoming American, where rock music and the Lorelai/Rory tag-team are both a figurative and literal refuge from having to be Asian. And it's not as though identity clash is a worthless topic that should not be explored. Gene Luen Yang's American Born Chinese deals with this exact same issue as well. But at the end of that story, there is a reconciliation where the protagonist finally feels comfortable enough with himself to befriend the Other Asian Kid in school whom he had previously avoided. In contrast, with Gilmore Girls, I don't know if such a comparable event happens. Culminating with her wedding (replete with her oh-so-kooky relatives from Korea), Lane seems to succeed more via escape than through reconciliation.

A painful scene from "American Born Chinese" by Gene Luen Yang

Maybe one will reflexively argue that a show like Gilmore Girls shouldn't bear these burdens: "Lorelai's parents were controlling and Taylor Doose was a nutcase too, so why can't Mrs. Kim be the same?" Sure, except the likes of Mr. and Mrs. Gilmore or Taylor haven't been absent from TV for 2 decades.



In stark contrast to Gilmore Girls, the family in Fresh Off The Boat is tight-knit and loving, despite their peculiarities. At the end of the pilot, the Huangs have expressed the utmost solidarity for each other and they proudly walk off together with the vow that they'll always look out for one another. In his book and in his public talks, Eddie Huang heavily emphasizes that singular moment when he first brought his traditional Chinese lunch to school and the embarrassment he suffered. But instead of adapting himself to become more "American"—like, for example, learning to make a better hamburger or creating some East-West fusion cuisine—he learns to unapologetically embrace his "stinky" lunch. And now, well, the joke's on his bullies because everybody loves that food now.

One may argue that Eddie's love of hip-hop is the same thing as Lane's love of rock. But the key difference is that hip-hop is never presented as the antithesis to Eddie's Asian Americanness. In fact, his parents even sometimes gamely try to adopt some of his lingo. More importantly, the whole reason Eddie becomes enamored with hip-hop is that it's his only means of articulating what it's like to be Asian American, which is to say, to be non-White. In contrast, Lane's passion for rock is pitted against her Asian American identity as an incompatible force, as her way of expressing how she's not like all those other Asians who exist in her world. Whereas Eddie's exuberance for hip-hop is his way of asserting his unique racial identity, Lane's affinity for rock just ends up neatly fitting her in the pre-existing mold of Lorelai.

The Huangs are going to do it their way

Eddie Huang has railed against how ABC has bowdlerized his life story. And yes, I too would like to see the HBO version with the Psycho Gangster Dad from real life. But this family-friendly version of his life story also presents something that I've never seen in American pop culture before: a warm and loving Asian American family. No abusive parents, no maudlin story of having to sell body parts to escape from Asia, no loveless marriage because Asians can't be romantic... This is all the more galling when you consider the fact that Asian Americans are stereotypically thought of as the Model Minority with strong "family values." I guess not in TV-land. It wasn't until Lost that we saw that rare depiction of an Asian couple in a complex relationship. Fresh Off The Boat goes one step further by giving such a couple a family of their own. This is a huge step forward.

And in the end, it is those seemingly incongruous aspects—the Defiantly Asian element wrapped up in a Wholesome Asian family—that are so refreshingly powerful and resonant in Fresh Off The Boat. No longer is your Asian American family something you have to overcome or escape from. Instead, they're the ones who'll have your back as you teach all the fools to appreciate your "stinky" lunch.

My Love From Another Star: American Cast

Apparently, ABC is going to make an American version of the superhit Korean drama, My Love From Another Star. I've already kind of reviewed the drama before (verdict: very good). If you want a quick synopsis, it's essentially a romantic comedy that asks what would happen if a Superman (who chooses to hide his powers) and a famous actress fell in love. If you're a fan of Korean dramas, go see it.

Generally speaking, American remakes of Korean entertainment have been reliably putrid (e.g. My Sassy Girl, The Lakehouse, Oldboy), so I don't have high hopes for this one. Nor will I be disappointed when, inevitably, all the things that made the original popular are lost in translation and the end product is a bland rom com. Besides, with sites like Viki and DramaFever, anyone can go directly to the source and cut out the American remake middleman, (subtitles included for all the non-Korean speakers).

But it'd still be fun to speculate as to what the ideal American cast would be. So here are my choices.

The Jun Ji Hyun Character

The JJH character is the biggest celebrity in her country. If there's a huge Chanel billboard in Times Square, then she's on it. If there's a hit TV show or movie, then she's the star. She is beautiful and always has a parade of suitors that she has fend off. And she knows all this, meaning she has a very, ahem, healthy ego and won't hesitate to tell you about it. But she's not perfect. She has a bad temper and is easily irritated because she's very used to getting what she wants. She's been in show business all her life, so she's not all that knowledgeable or curious about the world outside her spotlight, which often results in her exposing her ignorance. This doesn't mean that she's a bad or dumb person, though. In fact, she has strong principles and never fails to stand up for those whom she loves. She's just been in a pretty toxic industry for too long and doesn't have many people whom she trusts, including her own mother.

In casting the JJH character, two things are most important: she has to be believable as a beautiful superstar actress, and she has to be funny. She has to simultaneously be able to be strong and ditzy, without being annoying. If I were in charge, I'd cast Lizzy Caplan. She's obviously gorgeous, she can do comedy (Janis Ian from Mean Girls!), and she can pull off "attitude." Also, she is around the same age as JJH. She's established her prime time TV credentials with Masters of Sex, so she'd fit right in with another TV series.


The Kim Soo Hyun Character

The KSH character is actually centuries old, so he's more intelligent and experienced than any human being alive. Plus, he has Superman-like powers, everything from super-strength to super-speed to time-stopping. Problem is that he's learned over the many years that revealing his powers will only bring pain and suffering not only to him, but to those around him. So he has chosen to hide his abilities and bide his time on Earth until he can return to his home planet. As a result, he has also chosen not to establish any meaningful relationships. As a professor at a university, his youthful appearance, due to a slower aging process, also works against him as it causes others to not take him as seriously as they should. Including the JJH character.

For the KSH character, the actor needs to be able to play the straight man since the JJH character will be initiating most of the comedy. He has an affected sense of detachment that is often betrayed by how easily he's flustered, especially in emotional situations. I think Nicholas Hoult would work. He's already played "bespectacled brainiac" as Hank McCoy in the X-Men movies, so we'd buy him as a young clean-cut professor type. He's done comedy before in About A Boy, which was a fantastic movie, as well as TV with Skins. And the age gap between him and Lizzy Caplan would be almost exactly that of KSH and JJH. This perceived age gap is very important because it's a crucial element to the comedy between JJH and KSH. In the beginning, JJH treats KSH like a junior, which he clearly looks like. Of course, he is extremely annoyed by this since he is hundreds of years older than she is, but has to play along in order to maintain his cover.

***

It feels almost impossible to expect the American remake to capture what made the original so popular. Trying to successfully translating certain cultural norms (e.g. Korean celebrity culture, formal vs. informal speech, references to other dramas, the whole chicken and beer thing) might as well be a pipe dream. Moreover, a famous actress like JJH already has an established reputation among Asian audiences, so she could play with or against type for (meta) comedic effect. In an international remake, that's much harder to duplicate.

So in hopes of getting you more acclimated to the original, I'll end this post with a music video of the show, even though it makes it seem like a pure melodrama when it's more of a comedy (at least in the beginning). Enjoy!

Gilmore Girls has male fans too!

To all male fans of Gilmore Girls: I am one of you!

In the past few weeks, the internet has had a mobgasm over the fact that Gilmore Girls is coming to Netflix. A library's worth of articles and tweets have been created to commemorate this historic event. But speaking of tweets, here is a blatantly prejudiced one:

Hey! Levels of testosterone and Gilmore Girls fandom are not an inversely proportional relationship! Just because I'm a guy doesn't mean that I can't fall in love with impossibly charming mother-daughter duos, encyclopedic carpet bombardments of cultural references, and heartwarming Carole King theme songs played over images of sepia-toned foliage.

And I'm not some bandwagon jumper. Starting way back in my early high school years, I've been telling people that I like this show. Yes, some people snickered at me. Some even outright laughed. But I just had to be true to myself. Plus, I had some covert allies around the school as word was that my 10th grade English teacher, who was an ex-football player and looked like a nose tackle, watched it religiously.

Yet I never watched the show regularly. In fact, I barely followed any shows at that age, even though I watched a fair amount of TV. Perhaps being deprived of cable for most of my childhood and thus having to live off of syndicated reruns on basic channels made me afraid of commitment when it came to TV shows.

Syndicated Simpsons reruns... Where would I be without you?

Anyway, so I would just catch Gilmore Girls reruns whenever I stumbled upon them, which meant my chronological grasp of the show was often messed up. Look at Rory making out with some guy named Dean. Now, she's in college and wondering what to do with her life. Oh wait, now she's back in prep school and fighting with Paris while her mom is going out with her English teacher. And where did this Jess guy come from all of a sudden?

But I still really liked the show, even though there were significant gaps in my understanding of the overall narrative. Why? Well, there were lots of other reasons. Okay okay, let's the obvious out of the way and say that Lorelai Gilmore is the MILF to end all MILFs. She's funny, she's irreverent, she's got an attitude that'll cut you down while she has the sweetest smile on her face, and yeah, she's really hot too.

♫ And here's to you, Ms. Gilmore... ♫

All right, requisite fanboying over. The show can also be very educational because of its mad index of references. I learned who Nikolai Gogol was because of an episode I watched! It's amazing what TV can teach you. For example, you can get a Ebertesque level of film knowledge just by learning many of the movie references in The Simpsons.

The show is also funny in way that's more subtle than a traditional sitcom but not as cynically smug as modern non-sitcom-coms. There are so many crazy people in town who would be murder-inducing in real life but are great comic relief in little morsels, like Michel and Taylor and Miss Patty. Also, in retrospect, it's really funny watching Melissa McCarthy play all nice and sweet as the adorable chef, Sookie.

The show's location was also a main factor. Stars Hollow makes small New England towns seem like the coolest place ever. And why not? The trees are colourful, the townsfolk are earthy and quirky (and not in a forced Zach Braffian kind of way), and it's so cozy that it's like living in a little Lego set full of factory-inked smiles. Okay, maybe in real life, that town would be a drab grey for 10 months out of the year, the townsfolk may be provincial and possibly racist, and the small community may get suffocatingly gossipy a la The Scarlet Letter. But it looked so good on TV!

Stage 4 bibliophilia

And then there was Rory. I thought that she was the kind of girl I would want for a girlfriend. By "kind of girl," I don't mean in terms of looks. Rather, I mean someone who was bookish and smart, but also full of heart and feelings. Rory was an academic superstar, but she also had romantic persuasions too, like when she stopped wanting to go to Chilton because she met Dean. Plus, her character was just a few years older than me, so when she was fretting about college admissions, that was something I could immediately relate to. Maybe I too would get to study in New England and meet someone like her in class...

So many other reasons too! The whole Gilmore family reconciliation saga that slowly developed throughout the series was wonderful, and I think everybody (especially young people) can relate to having to not only deal with parents' expectations but also coming to terms with their point of view. Hey, maybe mom and dad aren't that way just because they're jerks who want to sabotage you. Maybe they're human too and they're the way they are because they have had their own disappointments and unfulfilled desires to deal with.

Oh she could be so mean. Or so sweet.

Seven seasons is a daunting challenge for any TV viewer to try to tackle, and perhaps that's why I have been reluctant to go from start to finish with Gilmore Girls. But this could be the perfect opportunity to catch up on a show that I've really liked and admired but never properly watched.

So let's all of us guy fans of this show NOT sit on the sidelines on this joyous occasion. Proclaim your love too!

Since we have to wait another year for Game of Thrones... (Warning: Spoilers!)

Was season 4 of Game of Thrones spectacular or what? The Battle of Castle Black in episode 9 was probably the most tense TV experience I've ever had because I was genuinely thinking that this could very well be the end for Jon or Sam. I don't think I've ever been as heartbroken by a duel as I was after Prince Oberyn vs. The Mountain, except for maybe Rufio vs. Captain Hook. 

It's a shame that we have to wait a whole year before we find out what happens to the surviving characters in this universe. But since we have nothing much to do except to mull over the season that has been, here are some of my thoughts.


1) Lady Olenna was a BABE

British actress Diana Rigg

Lady Olenna quickly became a fan favourite because she was one of those whip-smart grannies who just didn't give a shit anymore and told it like it was. In a society where everybody is scheming and lying, she seemed like the only honest one (and not in a dumb and naive Ned Starkish way). Moreover, this past season, she proved to be the one with the ovaries to do a certain deed that everybody, including God, wanted to do but lacked the courage or intelligence to do so. MC, if you're reading this, you still owe me that drink!

But did you know that she was a total heartbreaker back in her day? I mean, sure, she's still an adorable granny now and still breaks hearts, albeit mainly by puncturing fragile egos with an acid-tipped verbal stabbing.

Take this little monologue of hers from episode 4:

"So the evening before Luther was to propose to my sister, I got lost on my way back from my embroidery lesson and happened upon his chamber. How absent-minded of me. The following morning, Luther never made it down the stairs to propose to my sister because the boy couldn't bloody walk. And once he could, the only thing he wanted was what I'd given him the night before. I was good. I was very very good."

Yes, Lady Olenna. I very very believe you.


2) Maybe Tywin Lannister just needed more freedom to express himself

I wonder if his face aches from perpetual grimacing

I wouldn't exactly call Tywin a joyless human being because he seems to be very happy when extinguishing other people's bloodlines. But that's not a very pleasant life, is it? I don't think you could say that anybody loved him, nor that he loved anyone. His children's attitudes toward him range from severe dislike to outright murderous. Generally speaking, if you meet your demise by being shot by your own son while on the toilet, you probably haven't led the most fulfilling life.

So why was Tywin such a miserable man? Perhaps it was because he felt constantly repressed by the strict and backwards social mores of King's Landing and Casterly Rock?

The evidence is below:

Okay, he doesn't look too pleased to be dressed in a leopard print top and red leather skirt. But maybe he just has Resting Bitch Face Syndrome. Maybe he's actually feeling very happy and liberated inside. Perhaps Tywin Lannister would've been better off having been born in Dorne.


3) Westeros needs campaign finance reform

Where's John McCain when you need him?

Big shady ultra-wealthy organization is unhappy with a certain person in power. Organization decides to get rid of the current office-holder, even if he is doing a decent job and/or popular with his constituents. Organization empowers a small-but-dedicated group of extremists by giving them endless cash to viciously oust the office-holder out of power.

Astroturfed Tea Party primary challenge? Or Iron Bank of Braavos?

It seems rather unfair that some foreign financial institution can wreak havoc on Westerosi politics. Therefore, I think there needs to be a campaign finance reform movement in King's Landing that would limit the Iron Bank to contributing no more than 2600 oz. of gold to any single violent usurper rebellion.

After all, a wise man once said that Whoever-Has-The-Dragons-Wins Monarchy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.

HBO's Girls: The Perfect (Anti) Etiquette Guide

There's a great Seinfeld episode in which George, in order to not be such a repugnant human being, decides to do everything opposite of what he'd instinctively do. The result is that he gets the job of his dreams and starts dating women way out of his league.

The entire series of Girls could be approached in a similar way. While I enjoy its bleak and cringe-inducing criticism of self-absorbed Brooklyn hipster culture (as well its female-centric focus, which the media needs more of), the show is also quite useful in dishing out life lessons as a guide on how NOT to live. If you want to be perceived as a compassionate and mature human being, you would do well to carefully take note on how the characters on the show (to be honest, mainly Hannah and Marnie) behave and do exactly the opposite.

And if you find that your behavior parallels theirs too much, you should probably take a moment to ponder a serious turn in the arc of your life.

So here are some anti-etiquette lessons from Girls:

***Spoilers Ahead***


1) When friends talk about their problem, actually listen and get them to open up more if they want to; absolutely DO NOT pivot to talk about your own issues or experiences

2) Don't tell rape jokes at job interviews

3) Don't use funerals as professional networking events (or at least be very tactful about it)

4) Don't only call your parents when you need something

5) Don't live through life's moments as chapters to be written in your grand memoir about your great self that's lived all of 25 years

6) Don't use other people's celebrations as opportunities to promote yourself

7) What's good news for you may not always be good news for others; and if there's any doubt, DO NOT drop this news on them before their Big Moment (like a Broadway premiere)

8) Don't say aloud about how you wished you spent a semester abroad in Africa and saving the continent if you want to sound intelligent

9) Don't assume that you know better when people tell you that their family members are fucked up; they've only known them for, you know, their whole life, while you're clueless

10) Don't steal, especially from people less well-off than you

11) Don't ask for feedback on a piece of writing from the person who's the object of ridicule in said piece of writing

12) Don't let others treat you badly just because you think having a sad backstory makes you a more interesting person

13) Don't resort to the "Your dad is gay" insult if you want to seem non-childish

14) Don't remain best friends with people you hate