So on last night’s episode of the popular CBS sitcom 2 Broke Girls, Asian American actor Tim Chiou guest-starred as a handsome web designer who hooks up with Caroline, the blond broke girl. I know Tim and it’s great to see him play that rarity in Hollywood—a sexy Asian American dude with no accent who gets to kiss the girl (and a blond white girl to boot) and a whole lot more.
That should normally be the end of the story, but things get complicated by the fact that this positive Asian American male character is on a show where one of the other regular characters is…Han:
We’ve discussed Han on this blog before (here and here) and personally, I think he might be one of the most stereotypical and, yes, racist Asian American media image out there right now. As the character has been attacked by folks from both within and outside the community, I’m not alone in my opinion which leads to this question–is this “positive” Asian male character just a token attempt by the show’s producers to get their critics off their backs?
I do have sympathy for the spot the producers are in—short of creating a storyline where the Han character is violently killed off in some sort of fittingly poetic way (he contracts yellow fever and dies? Gets run over by a rickshaw? Murdered by the ghost of Mickey Rooney in yellow face?)—it’s still going to be a case of too little, too late for many.
As for me? I’ll give the producers a small benefit of the doubt. As it is, it looks as if Tim’s character will be just a one night stand—never to be seen again, but it’d be nice to see him on a recurring basis so that his presence will actually turn out not to be a one-time attempt to placate angry critics. Better still, why not just bring in more Asians? The show’s supposed to be set in New York City, right? The last time I checked, you can’t walk a block in New York without running into some Asian person delivering Chinese food doing their calculus homework playing b-ball like a badass mofo.
Oh, and if the producers do decide to kill off Han and need ideas for the right way to do that? Just shoot me an email ‘cause I definitely got that covered.
So what do our readers think? Does the inclusion of a positive Asian American male in 2 Broke Girls make up for the show’s stereotyping of Asians or is it not enough? Chinky or not chinky?
So, has
“I slept with a hot Asian guy”
replacing
“My wife is Asian”
which replaced
“Some of my best friends are Black”
—
I have never seen the show, beyond clips,
but
Could Han suddenly drop his current accent
(“hahaa broke girls, I was fakin’ “)
and suddenly get a new accent?
Like Tawkin’ like he’s from Bushwick (Rosie Perezland)
or
Like he’s from Dorchester (Wahlbergs)
“Yoah retahded if ya ‘think the Yahkees are bettah than Bawstin. Sawx ah frickin wicked.”
TV shows have done odder things including changing actors for the same character (Darrin of Bewitched), made the entire season a dream (Dallas) appearance of characters/actors from another network (Community and Cougartown) so there’s no reason why Han can’t just lose his accent. If the producers just said “yea, this character was ridiculous but we like Moy and wanna keep him”, that would be more honest and accepting to us whatever premise they decided to use.
I’ve never watched the show, but I agree with the above statement. It’s the “some of my best friends are Black” comment all over again.
It’s like 24 and the “good” Muslims, the damage is done. Don’t try to stick a pacifier in my mouth with the “Awesome Asian” and hope I forget the mess that came before.
praise ALLAH! the brother gets with a white BLONDE woman and there’s world peace!
yeah, ethnic men need YT womyn for validation, but let’s not kid ourselves to be brainwashed so much…
baby steps are better than nothing, i suppose
I don’t see the issue. I work with small Asian guys who still have heavy accents even after being in this country for several years. Han is played up a bit for the show, much like every other character on every sitcom ever, but that’s just how those sort of shows work.
Can we get back to talking about Kat Dennings’ amazing rack?
well if rob works with a bunch of short accented asian dudes, then it must be all good…
the problem isn’t about whether there are short asian guys with accents in the world, of course there are…the issue is this is the only type that is ever represented.
and even from a writing pov, it’s lazy writing. like talking animals and babies in commercials.
and to bring it all back for you rob, this shitty show has made it so ridiculously hard for me to watch kat denning even tho i been crushing on her since 40 year old virgin….and that is the greatest crime of all.
It is what it is, praise for the positive roles and criticism for the negative. Let’s push for more of the positive. Even if the producers were just pacifying the Asian Am community, at least they heard. Let’s wait to see what happens next.
I happened to miss this episode (this show entirely), but when have we EVER seen an Asian American depicted that slick (whether they exist in real life or not)? Isn’t it sad that it takes stereotypes to teach people about the truths? Hunky Asian might not even like blondies, maybe gingers. Who knows?
This is a hard subject with very fine lines. I’ve never seen the show and don’t really care to. But what comes to mind for me is sometimes I feel like as an Asian-American and specifically as an Asian-American actor/performer/artist/writer/whatever, I enjoy having a sense of humor about my Asian-ness (is that made-up word offensive?) Sometimes it brings me some kind of twisted comfort to poke fun at myself by cracking Asian jokes based on Asian stereotypes (i.e. Don’t get in the car w/ me when I’m driving…seriously). But the key word there is MYSELF. I am also an Asian-American who grew up in a ALL White, small town in the Pacific Northwest. Until I was about 10 years old I thought I was White (no joke). Then until I was about 20-22 years old, I actually resented being Asian. I took me moving down to LA and hanging w/ other Asian-Americans to grow-up, get over it, and start accepting (much less appreciating) my heritage. So, yeah, I’m THAT Twinkie (was that offensive?) And sometimes I still revert to that “wish-I-was-White” attitude and it helps to crack a joke or comment on a stereotype to get me out of it, for whatever weird psychological reasons. Plus, I’m guilty of playing THOSE roles before…twice. I played a blind Kung-Fu master in a play (comedy) and a massage-parlor prostitute in a short film (drama), and I don’t feel ashamed or wrong for doing it. I enjoyed them and am actually very proud of both those roles. But there comes a limit for us all – for me, I’ve completely stopped submitting for prostitute roles. Just tired of it – been there, done that. Of course, that doesn’t mean I won’t go out for that type of role if my agent gets me an audition for a SAG-scale renowned TV show. I guess what I’m saying is, sometimes, I’ve gotta just make fun of myself. It keeps me sane, especially after I get out of an audition where I wasn’t told in advance that I needed an Asian accent, but it was assumed because, well, I don’t know, don’t all Asians speak in broken English? And know martial arts, and scored 1600 on their SATs (I just dated myself), and speak their great-grandparents’ native language, and put soy sauce on everything…
Julia, you need to learn to use the “return” key, sister.
and I get it, you aren’t offended so other Asians are being overly sensitive to the constant dehumanizing racist caricatures.
it’s all meant to be a joke and it’s our fault for not recognizing the humor.
but maybe had you thought you’d earn more money being a real AMP prostitute than playing one on TV, you’d thought twice about taking on a SAG scale procedural day player gig.
so “john” has no problems with TV and movies from now on constantly depict all white males as middle aged creeper pedophiles then?
it’s also based on true stories in the news. don’t mainstream audiences love that, based on true events?
Tim Chiou seems really talented.
Wait, wasn’t he in that Ninja Say What?! http://youtu.be/5Ns-kXeQCMk video!! Yes, he was! I knew he was talented! And now he is one of my favorite American actors.
Oh my gosh, he’s so attractive… hook me up, Philip? LOL.
How about the character Kimball Cho portrayed by Tim Kang hooking up with the former blonde hooker now turned CBI asset Summer Edgecombe portrayed by Samaire Armstrong in the hit series The Mentalist?
lolz, so an asian-american guy hooks up with a white woman and there are critics who find wrong in that and try to equate it to the billions of scenes of asian women with white men or any non-asian man.
“Oh, an asian man needs ‘validation’ from a white woman”!
Wahhh.
Some people miss the point. It’s like someone bitching about starving, homeless kids in Africa wearing Nikes or eating something with cholesterol.
While asian women are being shown over and over again paired up with white men in everything from VW commercials to indie movies to mainstream Scott Pilgrim movies to dating reality shows to print and web ads, some guys (or gals) want to bitch about one episode of an asian guy dating a blonde woman.
Amazing.