New Pittsburgh Courier: TV’s “Fresh Off the Boat” creator Nahnatchka Khan was reveling in Oscar host Chris Rock’s deft comedic assault on White-fixated Hollywood. Then three Asian-American kids were brought onstage for a gag mocking them as ethnic stereotypes.
“It’s like going on a road trip with your fun friend, and halfway to Vegas he pulls over and shoots you in the leg,” Khan said, recalling her reaction to last weekend’s ceremony. “It was completely shocking and just so unnecessary.”
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The lack of Asian- American representation in entertainment in media is something that I don’t think enough people are aware of. This is, of course, not to say that there is enough attention on the blatant racism against black people in media, because I definitely think there still isn’t, however, I do think that many people still tend to think of problems with racism as a literal “black and white” issue when there are so many other groups of people who are discriminated against, including asian- americans. I am half- asian, and having a mother who immigrated from China and a white father has definitely exposed me to the different ways in which asian people are perceived. What definitely resonated with me with this article is the “lack of imagination” in casting asian americans that producers and directors and writers have; so many people have this idea that a character has to be a certain kind of person in order to be asian; very smart or uptight or technical or boring, while white actors continue to get roles of all shapes and sizes since they are considered “default”, and aren’t confined by such strict constraints based on their race. In addition, something that happens more with minorities such as asians and hispanics is the casting of white people for roles meant for people of these races, showing, again, how people continue to perpetuate the idea of illegitimacy of certain people’s ethnic backgrounds. I personally didn’t watch the Oscars so I didn’t see what seems to be a terribly and blatantly racist skit, but I can only hope that we continue to try and make progress in all aspects of racism, even when things like this happen and make us lose hope.
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