The two Asian characters on Fox’s Glee lock lips—a major TV milestone for Asian Americana, right? But Oliver Saria argues, the show gets “the whole Asian thing” mostly wrong.
I heart Glee…maybe more than a heterosexual man in his mid-30s should admit. I confess that I enjoy the singing and dancing, but I also tune in to watch the multifaceted portrayals of the various characters unfold on the show. Usually, they start off as broad caricatures (the Jock, the Drama Queen, the Ditz, the Slut, the Gay Kid, the Sassy Black Girl, the Asian, etc.,) but eventually develop into authentic, complex personalities.
Recently, however, the Asian characters on the show seem to be backsliding while they simultaneously receive more airtime. For the most part, I commend the writers for breaking the mold when it comes to Mike Chang (portrayed by Harry Shum, Jr.) and Tina Cohen-Chang (portrayed by Jenna Ushkowitz). Neither one is a soulless, grade-grubbing automaton with rivers of resentment for his/her overbearing parents. Tina is neither a dragon lady nor a geisha, but an angst-ridden goth chick with a fake stutter and an angelic voice; Mike is a jock rather than a hapless nerd who clearly knows more dance steps than kung fu moves. (Incidentally, the blogosphere has dubbed Shum “The Situ-Asian” for his washboard abs.) He in particular is a rare breed in the realm of television comedies. In a show with no shortage of geeks and gays, Mike is one of the few Asian male comedic characters on television that is neither.
Perhaps most surprisingly, the Asian girl on the show is actually dating the Asian guy. When was the last time you saw that on American TV? Okay, Lost had South Koreans Sun and Jin, but everything on that show was strange. And sure, The Secret Life of the American Teenager has two Asian American teens, Henry and Alice, who are not only dating, but doin’ it on the regular because cable is just freakier that way. Still, it’s kind of a rarity to have two ethnic minorities at all on any given show, let alone dating one another.
According to the Screen Actors Guild’s Casting Data Report for 2009, roles for actors of color actually declined. “White performers nabbed 72.5 percent of all roles in 2007-2008, with African American, Latino, Asian, Native American and ‘Other’ actors accounting for the remaining 27.5 percent, down from a record of 29.3 percent the year before,” the report noted. A study conducted by UCLA’s School of Law and Chicano Studies Research Center similarly reported in 2009, “Actors of color were limited to between 0.5 percent and about 8 percent of the roles [based on casting call announcements], depending on their racial background.” In short, tokenism is still rampant in Hollywood.
Since Asian couples on television are so rare, I’m curious to see how Glee handles them. As a fan, I’ve come to expect—nay, dare I say enjoy—when it dips into dangerous, stereotypical territory. For example, for all of its pro-gay messages, the show doesn’t shy away from calling openly gay Kurt “Porcelain” and “Lady Face.” So I accept that jokes will be made at the expense of different groups—including ours.
Unfortunately, when it comes to Mike and Tina (also dubbed Mina, Tike, Chang-Chang, or Chang Squared), the show gets the whole Asian thing mostly wrong. For example, when it was revealed in the second season opener that Mike and Tina started dating while working as camp counselors at “Asian Camp,” the show cut to a flashback of the two swapping spit in front of a roomful of camera phone-wielding kids. Chinese calligraphy adorning the wood-paneled walls accentuated the “Asian Camp” motif. (FYI, Asians don’t like camp. Historically speaking, camps for Asians usually come in the “internment” or “refugee” variety. Thus, we tend to avoid them entirely.)
Chang-Chang apparently also exchange “Asian kisses,” whatever the hell that means. (Everyone knows the evolution of the kiss began with the Eskimos and ended with the French.) In the episode “Special Education,” Tina suspected Mike was cheating on her, but eventually realized that he wasn’t, and they sealed their reinvigorated love with an “Asian kiss.” (In case you missed it, they basically just opened their mouths and pressed their lips together awkwardly.) For the record, Asians do not typically kiss that way. And Asians certainly do not deserve the credit for what the Urban Dictionary defines as an “Asian kiss.” Look it up, and I’m sure you’ll agree it sounds more like something those kinky Germans would be into. If anything, an “Asian kiss” sounds more like a cocktail made with a dash of soy sauce or perhaps a euphemism for a karate kick to the mouth.
Mike and Tina’s racial identity, however, is also a point of contention. The first chink in the armor of their relationship was Mike’s perceived, well, chinkiness. Tina complained in the “Duets” episode, “All we ever do is eat dim sum with your mom! I’m not saying that steamed pork knuckles aren’t delicious…[but] all I want is a normal night out, with a normal dinner and a normal salad that doesn’t have chicken feet in it!”
Natch, Mike suggested they seek “Asian couples therapy” to work out their problems. Again, I’m not quite sure what the hell that means. Perhaps it’s just like “white couples therapy” or black couples therapy,” except you have to take off your shoes?
At any rate, there is much more to Asian culture than the food, and merely labeling something as “Asian” strikes me as lazy. Allow me to offer the producers of Glee a more sweeping set of generalizations to help convey Mike and Tina’s Asian-ness since the show clearly wants to play it up:
– Mike and Tina both start smoking and spend a better part of their lunch break hacking loogies.
– Mike develops a gambling problem.
– Tina gets mercury poisoning from the counterfeit skin-whitening cream Mike buys for her.
-They both harbor quixotic dreams of becoming Korean pop stars.
-They both get accepted to UC Irvine.
These are just a few tidbits of Asian Americana the show can exploit. They may sound obscure to most Americans, but, hey, maybe people will learn to broaden their stereotypes. Perhaps, the show, now midway through its second season, can also explore hiring an Asian writer on its staff. According to the 2009 Hollywood Writers Report conducted by the Writers Guild of America, West, the minority share of television employment actually declined to 9 percent (a drop of one percentage point) since the last report in 2005. A Fox spokesperson did not return KoreAm’s inquiry about whether Glee had an Asian writer on staff.
There’s no guarantee that hiring more people of color will improve the content or produce more complex representation of minorities. (Tyler Perry, anyone?) But it’s worth a shot. Otherwise everything Mike and Tina do—from breathing to walking— might be labeled “Asian” and be preceded with a gong.
