Just a quick note from TFP to remind you all that Fresh Off The Boat on ABC enters into it’s HISTORIC FIFTH SEASON tonight! Friday October 5th!
Every show loses viewers every season, but what TFP would ask, as a personal favor is that we bring some of that #CrazyRichAsian energy to this evening’s premiere because what we want to prove is that being supportive and AAPI is something that we can maintain and grow.
Not to mention, the cast is adept and funny and deserves support – as do ALL AAPI Actors who are brave enough to take the plunge and enter into this oftimes rewarding and equally hideous career.
That being said, TFP wants to address NAGINI and the casting of the role with South Korean Actress, Claudia Kim – who is, by the by, cute as a button.
She spent six years in the USA as a child, and has appeared in several franchises including AVENGERS; Age of Ultron, THE DARK TOWER, and in Netflix’s MARCO POLO where she portrayed the character of Khutulun.
TFP understands the fervor around Nagini’s human side being the only Person of Color in this film, FANTASTIC BEASTS: The Crimes of Grindelwald, is an issue.
Before that – LOOK HOW HAPPY CLAUDIA KIM IS TO BE IN THIS FILM!
Now everyone is going to ‘yuck her yum‘ in regards to being in this film, so get ready.
That this is sort of a new issue for Asian Descended actors is cause for celebration and the occasional groan. It is not that one POC in a film is unusual in the United States, however if there there WAS, ahem ‘one person of color’ – the color was not ours. We are new to this ‘game’. A game that all other POC Actors have been playing for a while – they let one in, the rest get the door slammed shut.
AAPIS are very far behind in this concept – not that it is ‘right’, but this is the game that we are new to play. We have seen much advancement and change for various other groups, and now we are invited to play in a limited way. That will grow. It will, simply by dint of the success of ‘a certain film’ and because, frankly, there are more AAPI Executives in play than ever before in American Entertainment.
No one is perfect. Diversity is a growing concept. That the Harry Potter World is growing in representations of People of Color is fantastic, if slow.
In short – J.K. Rowling is not the enemy here.
Look to the White House for that.
TFP is concerned with the backlash over Nagini, because it falls in line with the backlash almost every AAPI Actor or Actress has had, and she wants to ‘remind’ people what was said about people that are now lauded for the work they are doing.
Tiger Fans are the best, and the worst and it is worth revisiting to ‘remind’ ourselves that actors and actresses are real people, and while they try not NOT take things personally, it is almost impossible, if you hear these criticisms over and over for joy not to vanish as you continue on in the roles.
So this is a small list of criticisms that the AAPI Community has voiced in the past towards AAPI Actors and Actresses, who are doing their best just to survive….
- That Daniel Dae Kim‘s Korean fluency was not good enough to be on LOST
- Margaret Cho was attacked about her ALL AMERICAN GIRL sitcom, and we would not have another sitcom on the air about an AAPI family for 20 years.
- That Lucy Liu is both a sellout and only works with white people so she is ‘not really Asian’
- That Randall Park should not be on FOTB because he was of Korean descent
- That Ming Na Wen’s Doctor on ER was too inept and it set a bad example for Asian American Doctors.
- That Kim Miyori‘s Doctor on St. Elsewhere should not have passed from AIDS.
- Why did Constance Wu have to use an Accent of FOTB and by the way, is that a ‘real’ accent?
- That Gedde Watanabe was responsible for all bullying of AAPI males ever and he is a sell out
- That Grace Park was just on Hawaii 5.0 so they could see her in a bikini
- That Masi Oka on HEROES was a stereotype, even though, he is an immigrant and yes, does have a slight accent.
- That Masi Oka was responsible for white washing on a project he produced, when TFP personally knows that he is very involved and concerned with representation in projects he produces and acts in.
- That James Kyson Lee was not Japanese so he should not be on HEROES and his Japanese fluency was ‘awful’.
- That Chloe Bennett is ‘not really Asian”, even though she identifies as such
- That Connie Chung is a ‘sellout’, because she rarely does AAPI events, but she did write a blistering and sobering support of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford
- That MISS SAIGON should never be performed
- That Anna May Wong just played the Dragon Lady
- That the JOY LUCK CLUB bashes Chinese men.
- That the JOY LUCK CLUB‘s cast was slightly mixed and therefore ‘not accurate’.
- That Karate Kid Two is full of “tropes’ and not an accurate representation of Japan.
- That Kelly Marie Tran does not belong in Star Wars
- That you hate that THE KING AND I is still performed
- Lana Condor should not be cast in TO ALL THE BOYS I’VE LOVED BEFORE because she is Vietnamese heritage. Also, the character only liked non Asian boys, so that was offensive to some, regardless of the fact that an AAPI teen girl was the star of the film.
- That Mindy Kaling is a sellout and only likes non-Indian men based on her TV show
- That the Cast of OUTSOURCED were sellouts and non authentic Indians
- That Crazy Rich Asians only represents a small, elite subsection, it has non ‘pure’ Asians in it, and it ignores racism in Singapore so no one should give it any sort of credit even though it is the highest grossing RomCom in years!
- That Keanu Reeves never acknowledges his Asian heritage, but then he goes and does 47 Ronin, and people went crazy with ‘who does he think he is”
- That even though The Rock is Samoan, he was not ‘authentic enough” to be in Moana
- That Awkwafina was talking like she was ‘not Asian’. When she was talking like she was a rapper from Queens. Which, she is.
- That George Takei was ‘too fey’ for Space.
- That SAVING FACE, which starred Joan Chen, Michelle Krusiec and Lynn Chen was ‘a problem’ because it was a love story about young AsAm women falling in love with one another. (It’s an awesome coming of age film)
- Things have been said about openly Gay Actors like Nico Santos, Alec Mapa, Rex Lee, that TFP will not repeat – but they were said. She saw and heard. She remembers who said them. They are on ‘the list’.
- That Priyanka Chopra was not proud of her heritage because she had a nose job.
- That Dr. Ken played a stereotype in the films he was a gangster in
- That John Cho was thinking about a white lady in SELFIE so he was a ‘traitor”
- There was backlash about a film called BETTER LUCK TOMORROW from the APPI Community and the Caucasian Community about representation, and you know what happened? The Director, Justin Lin, went on to become a powerhouse film franchise director and the founder of YOMYOMF.
These all sound completely ridiculous now, and they ARE.
TFP gets it- everyone is a sellout. Everyone is a trope. No one gets credit for talent. No one gets credit for taking a part from the page to the stage. We are all, AAPI Actors, literally ‘the worst’ and responsible for everything anyone has ever did, EVER.
This is but a sampling. Imagine how many more there are or were!
They were, and they ARE.
These were all Actors doing their jobs, and doing them so that they were hired IN SPITE OF the fact that people could have used their ethnicity to NOT cast them.
TFP was hopeful that kind of thing was in the past…and then, most recently, TFP heard a descriptive of Claudia Kim that had her reeling.
She will not repeat it.
BUT IT WAS NOT COOL!
Stop bringing down our own so that you can prove some racism happened somewhere in the past, present and future – we know, ok?
TFP knows that the REASON you are upset has to do with the LACK of representation on the big and little screens and thus you are placing SO MUCH on EVERY performance that it is literally making you CRAZY – but it has to stop.
That you are laboring under the belief that whatever AAPI face shows up on the screen, they are going to represent you, and you want them to get it right. You want them to be exactly you.
Which is, by the way, impossible.
TFP gets that white washing is still out there, and Tilda Swinton is lurking around every corner to steal our stories, but we, the AAPI Acting community still have to be free to make choices. We have to be allowed to play the villains. The shady characters. The morally corrupt. The comic relief.
Because we are ACTORS and that is what we do!
Sometimes, parts are parts. Sometimes your Agent calls with an opportunity and you HAVE to take it, because BILLS. Because it will lead to something BIGGER. Because it is on the journey and the journey is never complete.
AAPI Actors know we do not live in a perfect world and that we do not get access a lot of times to be the leads – and that is changing– however we are still trying to work. We are still trying to create. We are still trying to grow. We are writing, we are producing, we are working on it.
Give us some time to breathe.
You want to change the parameters – make every single television show and film that has an AAPI in it – ANYWHERE IN A SIGNIFICANT WAY – make it a monster hit.
You want SANDRA OH to get that MF Emmy? The one she FULLY DESERVED?
Watch KILLING EVE. Watch it and tweet about it and blog about it until your eyeballs fall out. Send letters of support.
Make Entertainment in America have it’s own form of a #BlueWave.
Let’s put a #AAPITsunami out there for American Entertainment.
Buy tickets. Watch shows. See who advertises and buy their products.
Support THESE shows new and old because there are AAPI Actors on Them:
CRAZY Ex-Girlfriend, CHARMED, SUPERSTORE, CHILLING ADVENTURES OF SABRINA, THE FIRST, GOD FRIENDED ME, I FEEL BAD, MAGNUM P.I., MANIAC, MANIFEST, A MILLION LITTLE THINGS, THE MAGICIANS, MR. INBETWEEN, MURPHY BROWN, NEW AMSTERDAM, THE ROOKIE, SINGLE PARENTS, SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS, TITANS, YOU, CHICAGO FIRE, THE GOOD DOCTOR, BILLIONS, IRON FIST…ETC ETC ETC
Attacking the people who are trying to figure it out along with all of us, how to get ‘us’ in there, seems counterproductive. Try not to j’accuse the helpers, the ones who are trying, but who may fail a bit, or…frankly, completely. When you accuse people of trying to shoehorn diversity into a project, what you do is negate that the actor and their talent had anything to do with them being cast.
If they have ‘us’ in there, then they are ‘caving to diversity and trying to shoehorn us in’ – if they don’t have us, they get accused of white washing or abject racism. Why would anyone want to use AAPI Actors and walk that tightrope of the never happy, AAPI Audience?
TFP wants to know what YOU are going to do to raise the profile of AAPIS in Entertainment….
Have you purchased tickets to plays by David Henry Hwang? Lauren Yee? Young Jean Lee? Leah Nakano Winkler? Rick Shiomi? Lloyd Suh? Philip Tan Gotanda? Chay Yew? Denise Uyehara? Lane Nishikawa? Frank Chin? Jessica Hagedorn? Jeanne Sakata?
Do you support Pan Asian Rep? East West Players? NAATCO?
Annual gifts? Endowments?
Pan Asian is having a big benefit dinner on OCTOBER 18th, you could still buy a ticket!
Have you gone to see Kate Rigg down at La Mama?
Do the work yourself, before you go full tilt boogie with what you do not like.
Let’s get more APPI Actors on the screen.
Do as Lynn Chen has done and go and film something yourself.
Yes, there is a learning curve happening and we are all bearing witness to it.
Bearing witness is not easy… and none of us had to testify and then be ignored before the Senate Judiciary.
Just saying.
Thank you Dr. Ford.
Bearing witness while something is changing is a hard thing to do, you want it to just be all fixed already.
It does not work that way. Nothing works that way.
Casting is hard.
Acting is hard.
Acting while being AAPI is effin impossible.
You can start TONIGHT with FRESH OFF THE BOAT
TFP out.
fairyprincessdiaries 
You must be logged in to post a comment.