A Little Asian-American Solidarity

I was all geared up to write a post on the twentieth anniversary of "The Joy Luck Club," which premiered back in September, 1993, and remains one of the media touchstones for my generation of Asian-Americans. Then, upon further reflection, I decided I really didn't have enough material for a whole post, so I decided to fold it into something a little bigger.

The thing is, I never really much liked "The Joy Luck Club." The book was great, but the film version never quite matched up. I loved seeing so many different Chinese actors together in one project, and the portrayals of Asian-American childhood, but from early on I knew that the film was more important that it was actually any good. However, for a brief period it was mandatory viewing. All my relatives saw it, either in theaters or on video. My family ended up with a video copy, which Dad habitually put on when we had relatives over. I remember watching it at Christmas a lot.

But it's the twenty years since that I'm very interested in. Are we getting anywhere with the portrayal of Asian-Americans? There's been precious little since "The Joy Luck Club" that has achieved the same kind of mainstream visibility and success. "All American Girl," "Vanishing Son," "Martial Law," "Outsourced," "The Mindy Project" and "Nikita" on television, perhaps. Smaller films "Better Luck Tomorrow," "The Namesake" are only really known among Asian-Americans of a certain age. I guess that means the "Harold and Kumar" movies win by default. Projects that have been explicitly Asian-American themed haver really gotten much traction. Asian-themed, yes. See "Memoirs of a Geisha" for starters - but not Asian-American themed.

And yet, there have been major Asian-American characters that have penetrated, mostly in supporting roles on television. There's Christina Yang from "Grey's Anatomy," Boomer from "Battlestar Galactica," Chang from "Community," Raj on "The Big Bang Theory," Kelly Kapoor on "The Office," the new Dr. Watson on "Elementary," Tom Haverford on "Parks & Rec," and the gang over at "Hawaii Five-0." We're a long way from Apu at the Kwik-E-Mart. Heck, only Raj speaks with a noticeable accent these days, and he's probably more well-versed in American pop culture than the rest combined.

And they've been showing up in greater and greater numbers. In the newest crop of network shows this year, there are at least a dozen titles that have Asian-American secondary characters, including "Super Fun Night," "The Tomorrow People," "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.," "Ironside," "The Blacklist," "Sleepy Hollow," and "Dads." Ah yes, "Dads." It's 2013 and the "Dads" pilot made it to air. This is not a good sign, but I do take some comfort in the fact that it got called out for being racist so quickly, and that there has been a pretty strong consensus that it was inappropriate for prime time.

How about the portrayals of these characters? I was watching "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.," which features Ming Na-Wen, who played Jing-Mei in "The Joy Luck Club" all those years ago. Here she plays Agent Melinda May, and it struck me that it had been four episodes and nobody had acknowledged her ethnicity in any way. The character could have been Caucasian, black, or Latino from the way she's been portrayed, and it never would have made any difference. I've seen this a lot more lately, where Asian-American characters are shown as completely assimilated into American culture.

On the one hand this means no funny accents and less stereotyping, though the old "Asians are smart" business comes up pretty regularly. On the other, it also reveals a reluctance to really delve into the cultural baggage of these characters. Many exist in a strange vacuum where they're the only Asian-American presence. On "The Mindy Project" we've met Mindy's brother, but not her parents. Joan Watson is a central character on "Elementary," but we've seen her mother and brother only once apiece. Mostly, Mindy and Watson remain the only minority characters on their shows.

Of course, "Elementary" is primarily a mystery show where the personal lives of our lead characters isn't as important as the case of the week. And there are plenty of second and third generation Asian-Americans like Mindy who don't maintain very cultural strong ties, or simply don't consider their ethnicity a big deal that needs to be addressed very often. It does tend to be grating whenever one of these characters tries to make any kind of stand against stereotyping and racism, because nobody has done it well.

Overall, though, I see little I can complain about on television. Strides are being made, slowly but surely, and the level of awareness and attitude about ethnic diversity overall has definitely improved. Things could be better, but we're getting there. The movies are a different matter, still much more xenophobic and wary of anything beyond token recognition. If we do get another "Joy Luck Club" one of these days, it's far more likely to be on the small screen than the big one.
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