Rocking the boat

When news got out that ABC would be airing Fresh Off the Boat, a Chinese-Taiwanese-American family sitcom, many Asian-Americans cheered, but with trepidation. As a 1.25-generation Korean-American, I understand the cacophonic emotions—a lot rides on the show’s success.

The last Asian-American comedy on network prime time, All-American Girl, also promised to be a game-changer for Asian-Americans, but was canceled after 19 lackluster episodes—and that was two decades ago.

ABC’s Fresh Off the Boat is a highly pasteurized version of chef Eddie Huang’s same-titled, best-selling memoir, and that’s a good thing (Huang disagrees). Huang’s book, written at the wise age of 29, is an arsenal of unbridled bawdiness and unhealed bitterness toward the dominant American (aka white) culture. Had ABC stayed true to Huang’s character, the show would have been insufferable.

In Fresh, the 11-year-old Eddie Huang (a precocious Hudson Yang) walks and talks like a hip-hop gangsta, but really just wants his mom to pack him Lunchables so he can fit in. He almost makes it to “the table”—until he opens his lunch box, unleashing an explosion of Chinese odors that leads to his immediate banishment. He then clashes with the lone black student named Walter, who spots his one chance to climb the social totem pole: “You’re at the bottom now! It’s my turn, Chink!”

Meanwhile, his parents Louis (Russell Park, who played Kim Jong Un in The Interview) and Jessica (Constance Wu) have acculturation issues of their own. Louis is a big believer in the American Dream, so he impulsively bought an all-American steakhouse in Orlando and shipped his entire family from D.C.’s Chinatown to lily-white suburbia. Although Louis believes in the inherent goodness of humankind, his good will doesn’t transfer to his slow restaurant business. Jessica is his polar opposite: She’s not interested in assimilation, and challenges people to defy her worst expectations of them.

She’s a Tiger Mom with equal parts passive-aggressive purr and straight-out-aggressive claws. When Eddie struts home with straight A’s, she’s outraged, blaming the “too easy” school curriculum. Her solution: start an after-school homeschool program.

Fresh marks a milestone in Asian-American history. For the first time, here’s a mainstream TV show portraying American culture from distinctly Asian-American eyes. Fresh isn’t shy about gleefully tackling racial stereotypes and social dynamics; its very title is based on a derogatory slur on new immigrants, a term now proudly reclaimed by Huang.

But the constant racial themes also never let me forget a character’s skin color. Fresh pokes fun at both Asian and white people, but doesn’t give as much nuance to the white characters. Its portrayal of white characters is unflattering—they’re dumb, bland, or promiscuous. I also couldn’t relate to the jokes revolving around certain Asian stereotypes, such as the overbearing, stingy mom and the family’s inability to say “I love you.”

Still, we can recognize Fresh for what it is: a caricatured story of the Huangs in 1995 Orlando, not the Kims, the Yamaguchis, or the Nguyens. Even in this internet age, nothing beats network TV in its unique ability to break boundaries and thrust a previously misunderstood and underrepresented group into mainstream consciousness. There’s something incredibly intimate and powerful about weekly inviting the same characters and their world into one’s private home.

For Asian-Americans who see silhouettes of their family in the Huangs, Fresh provides sweet gratification, relief, and hope. Many Asian-American viewers were moved to tears that their experiences were finally visible and understood. Fresh allowed that to happen, and that’s something to appreciate. Whether it’ll appeal to a broader audience and actually develop inclusive conversations is another matter, but that’s also not a responsibility just one family sitcom should bear.