I
finally found the time to watch the first couple of episodes of "Fresh
off the Boat," the new ABC sitcom that has been trumpeted as the first
Asian-American family sitcom in two decades. This has been a banner
year for minorities on television, and Asian-Americans are getting a
second shot at the spotlight after the sad demise of "Selfie" a few
months ago. Based off the memoirs of Eddie Huang, we follow eleven
year-old Eddie (Hudson Yang), his parents Louis (Randall Park) and
Jessica (Constance Wu), two younger brothers (Forrest Wheeler, Ian
Chen), and their Grandma (Lucille Soong) after the family's big move
from Washington D.C. Chinatown to Orlando, to run a cowboy-themed
steakhouse.
Eddie's background matches mine pretty
closely. We both had families with Chinese immigrant parents
originally from Taiwan, American-born kids, and a family business to
keep afloat. While I wasn't a fan of rap or hip-hop music, I sat next
to boys who wore Wu-Tang Clan gear at school, and while I didn't have a
Tiger Mother, several of my friends did. Stories were often swapped
about the various tirades they subjected our school principals to. I
can vouch for the fact that all the Chinese spoken in "Fresh Off the
Boat" actually is perfectly comprehensible Mandarin Chinese, though the
accents vary. And despite various exaggerations and simplifications, I
think the show essentially got all the important stuff about growing up
Asian-American in the '90s right.
I should point
out that I haven't watched any family-themed sitcom regularly in a long
while, so it's difficult to make comparisons to other current shows.
The dynamic of the Huang family is similar to "Malcolm in the Middle" -
outsider main character trying to fit in, multiple brothers, and an
overbearing but ultimately loving mother. A lot is made of being
Chinese-American in an overwhelmingly white Orlando neighborhood, but
the characters' basic archetypes are very familiar ones, and the Huang
family is easy to sympathize with. They aren't exoticized much -
Jessica is the only one who speaks with a noticeable accent - and the
show pokes fun at a few of the Caucasians neighbors and stereotypical
American culture too. You can tell that the real Eddie Huang had a big
hand in keeping the show as grounded in reality as it is. I think it
helps that more TV is high-concept these days and a certain style of
rapid-fire dialogue has come into vogue, making it easier to add the
necessary qualifiers and disclaimers when the show tackles potentially
touchy subject matter.
I'm very heartened at how
accessible the "Fresh Off the Boat" is. I understand that Eddie Huang
had some major concerns over how his family was depicted - father too
milquetoast, mother too acerbic - but I like that the creators have
figured out how to make the Huangs fit into the template of the usual
sitcom family while still remaining recognizably Asian enough that they
could have been people who I knew growing up. Twenty years ago,
Margaret Cho's "All American Girl" placed her as the normal,
American-born girl trying to deal with all the wackiness caused by her
Korean family. This time all the Huangs are treated as the normal
ones. They're just a different kind of normal than what's usually found
in Orlando. Is it the American viewing audience that has grown used to
Asian-Americans in the media enough for this to happen, or is it
Hollywood that has finally realized that creating more realistic
portrayals of Asian-Americans can attract an audience? Probably a
little of both.
"Fresh Off the Boat" isn't
perfect, but it's a major achievement already. I especially like
Constance Wu as Jessica, who humanizes the Asian mother with impossible
standards and makes her funny too. Randall Park hasn't had as much of a
chance to show off his comedic skills, but there's a lot of potential
there. I really, really want to see what this show will look like in a
couple of years with multiple seasons under its belt and the initial
jitters behind it. And a little part of me wishes I could have grown up
with Eddie Huang on television to commiserate with.
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