Read an article about the show "How I Met Your Mother" caused a controversy by having white actors play kung fu masters with yellow faces and Asian accents. I have never watched the show and so I do not know if it was racist, poor taste or funny. But I read some of the comments to the author of the article accusing her of being over sensitive or a flaming liberal being politically correct. I think these people who wrote the comments are the same ones who think it is perfectly acceptable that Washington's football team is called the Redskins. Lets called the team Blackskins and see what happens. Since I did not watch the show, I can't say I would have been offended for sure. But I know for sure that if the characters were supposedly great basketball coaches, the writers would not have white people in black faces being the coaches!
Speaking of Asian actor roles, I still have yet to see an Asian male doctor lead in a medical show. The two female Asian I can think of, Sandra Oh and Ming Na, both played slutty women, not exactly a boost to the Asian female images. From my own experience, if a hospital show based in New York or the west coast do not have an Asian male doctor among the lead characters, it is totally unrealistic. It would be like a show about a Chinese Basketball Association team, besides the Red Army team, being portrayed without an American import player. It would be so fictional that the writers must have not done their homework or purposely tried to be inaccurate.
Sunday, January 19, 2014
3 comments:
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I am a huge fan of the show. To me, it's one of the best written comedies ever. Though the demographic is for someone around my age, so maybe that's why I like it so much.
ReplyDeleteThe show in question is one of those where I wondered if there would be any backlash after. This is why I hate politics. Because in my days as a community leader, I would be pressured to say how horrible the show was and how racist it was.
Personally, I didn't think it was that bad. The show was a parody of the old Kung Fu movies. Each character played a part from an old movie. If the movie were about Italian pizza makers, the actors probably would have talked in really bad Italian accents.
To me, it was a knock on Asians in general, so I had no problem with it. I don't even think that the characters used fake Chinese accents. They were dressed in old Kung Fu clothing and one guy had the long beard. It was not worse than what Katy Perry wore or did.
I see why some people would be offended. It can be a sensitive subject. But people need to lighten up. There was no name calling on the show.
Hopefully we will see more Asian male actors in leads soon. It's a slow process and I think there are only a few actors who are deemed "acceptable" for lead roles in American TV.
I am really happy for Daniel Dae Kim because he plays a major role in Hawaii Five-0. There are quite a few guys out there that would be great but there's a resistance in Hollywood.
Well, I predicted Seattle to win the Super Bowl so at least I am part way there. So are you going to pick Denver? I would like to see Manning win another Super Bowl, especially in his brother's stadium.
-LBOAYM
Glad that you are a fan and thus can give an expert perspective. So there was no yellow face or fu manchu involved? I think you meant "it was NOT a knock on Asians in general"? It would be too bad if politics intervene so that you or any leader have to say something that is not true. It is not right to play the race card when it us not a racist situation.
ReplyDeleteIf they had no Asians in Hawaii five o, then it would definitely be racism. Even the original show had Asian leads 50 years ago. But now, as was 50 years ago, the two top leads are still white males!
Yeah, since N.E lost, I will go with Denver. It is a good change that a major sport championship is being played by the two teams with the best record during the regular season. Has not had many of these in any sports recently!
There was no yellow face. The only thing they did was maybe made one of the girl's eyes a little more slanty with makeup. And one of the male characters had the long beard.
ReplyDeleteThe story was one of the characters had to learn how to slap one of the characters. It's a running joke that he slapped this character throughout the seasons, but the guy had grown immune to his slaps.
So Marshall, the guy who did the slapping, said that he went to China for a year to learn from three masters on mastering the most lethal of slaps. There's 5 main characters on the show. So the remaining 3 were the "masters".
Each of the remaining 3 had a specialty and with those 3 specialties combined, made the most lethal slap.
So it does play out like an old kung fu movie. None of the "masters" had accents either.
I hope that cleared things up a little bit. It's hard to describe the show in a blog. I only started watching a few years ago and the show has been on for almost 9 years. There are a lot of references each week to old episodes so there are a lot of inside jokes. Things that come up that reference back to old episodes. But I do think it's one of the best written TV comedies I've ever seen.
-LBOAYM