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Prof. Miliann Kang Discusses Representations of Asian Americans in Mainstream Media in Huffington Post
Friday, February 27, 2015
Friday, February 27, 2015
The collective sigh of relief by many Asian Americans after the first few episodes of Fresh Off the Boat contrasts with the anger and anxiety that followed Amy Chua’s book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. But is relief the best we can hope for?
Unless you’ve been there, it is hard to understand the conflicted feelings that Asian Americans, and other people of color, experience when we see representations of ourselves in mainstream media. Most of our TV and film viewing experiences are of invisibility (we are left out) or of hyper-visibility (we are extreme caricatures — usually villains, victims or buffoons).
As with most things related to parenting, the stakes are even higher when these images impact our children and families. It is one thing if you disrespect or make fun of me, but if you do anything to hurt my kid, all bets are off.
Like many Asian Americans, I was holding my breath to see the pilot of Fresh Off the Boat, the first sitcom to focus on an Asian American family since Margaret Cho’s ill-fated “All American Girl“ 20 years before. Fresh Off the Boat premiered February 4 on ABC, and was widely praised as “bold, funny and not afraid to take on race.“ Based on chef Eddie Huang’s memoir of growing up in Orlando with his Taiwanese immigrant parents who ran a steak house, the first episodes covered racial bullying, the struggles of immigrant entrepreneurship, and inter-generational culture clashes.
Much of this is standard fare, but Fresh Off the Boat does take a few notable risks. It insists on seeing things from the point of view of the Asian American protagonists. This includes depicting the white customers and workers at the restaurant - and white culture more broadly - as curiosities, rather than the taken-for-granted norm. Overall, the show deserves credit simply for consistently addressing race. The only two minority children at the school—a black and an Asian American boy—spar over who belongs at the bottom of the rung. The father hires a white maître d’ as he believes a white face will attract more business than an Asian face.
