“Fresh Off the Boat” is good — at times, very good. Without question, it’s one of the best new shows of the broadcast network season: funny, well-acted and promising on a number of levels.
But I will confess to more personal concerns about “Fresh Off the Boat.” My husband, who was born in Malaysia and has a Chinese mother, is in the final stages of becoming an American citizen. I didn’t want him to set fire to his new passport after watching this show. (And let’s face it, based on American TV’s track record with Asian characters, there was every chance he would have been justified in doing so.)
There are exceptions, of course, but for the most part, American television has never been all that concerned with depicting the personal or interior lives of non-white characters. Within that history of cluelessness and racism, Asian characters have been particularly marginalized. They’re routinely shoved into limited supporting slots (sexless nerd, humorless scold, mysterious villain) — and that’s if a show featured any Asian characters at all. It’s rare to see a character of Asian descent get a reasonable amount of screen time; it’s even more rare to see his or her culture woven into the fabric of the show in a skillful and informed fashion.
To see an Asian man as a romantic lead in a mainstream program, as John Cho was in “Selfie”? That’s basically like spotting a unicorn in the wild. Thus it was disappointing when the show, which improved after its unfortunate pilot, was canceled so quickly. (Even now, I ask myself: When is the talented Cho going to get the chance to play the lead in a romance again?)
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Ryan McGee and I discussed “Fresh Off the Boat” and “Allegiance” on the latest Talking TV podcast, which is here, on iTunes and below.
