The Family Bland

I was reading this article from The Onion which pokes fun at David Simon's (The Wire, Treme) fictitious move to gritty dramas about happy, upper-middle-class white families, a natural transition from his gripping series about colored folk in Baltimore and New Orleans.

I chuckled of course. I'm allowed to. Because I like watching white families on TV. Some of my favorite shows are about white families.

The Bluth family from Arrested Development is especially dear to my heart. Alcoholics, felons, never-nudes, an adopted Korean kid named An-yong? Come on! Also, the Fishers from Six Feet Under. The Pritchett/Dunphy clan from Modern Family and their Vietnamese baby. The Simpsons. I even like the Bravermans from Parenthood who happen to live in a mystical, imaginary version of Berkeley that has no Black, Latino, or Asian American people minus an adopted Asian daughter. [Note: please count the number of Asian adoptee references made in just the last two paragraphs]

All of these families are hilarious and/or indescribably dysfunctional, and that's what makes them compelling. We people of color don't get to see that kind of family on television because any families that look like us that actually get air time are either a hot foreign accented mess (e.g. the Kim family from All-American Girl) or, most often, are trying painfully hard to dispel negative stereotypes. A lot of the time these families of color are a little too perfect. The utopian Cosby family. The loving, overly supportive Suarez family from Ugly Betty. The super affluent, preppy Banks family from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Sure they had quirky archetypes: a harried dad, a sassy mom, precocious kids. But in society's attempt to ameliorate centuries of horribly racist portrayals of minorities, they've made Black, Latino, and Asian American families pretty fucking bland.

Basically, the white families get be interesting and find themselves in bizarre predicaments and life crises, the kinds of situations that keep us glued to the TV set and invested in characters' lives. The families of color we do get to see have to be everything to everyone: kinda ethnic, but always morally upstanding. The same can be said for film. In terms of Asian American cinema, if I see one more film about how Asian parents just don't understand, I'm gonna set a DVD copy of The Debut on fire.

I understand the significance of course, but I'd die a happy woman if I ever saw an Asian American The Royal Tenenbaums or Magnolia in my lifetime. Having deeply flawed characters of color doesn't necessarily mean the portrayals are racist or "pushing _____ back ______ number of years." It just means it's less hackneyed and actually interesting to watch.

Most importantly, let's bring this subject back around to me: I'm sick of identifying with these white families. It totally gives me a complex! From an Asian American perspective, sometimes I feel like art directed toward my demographic is working on some kinda Lowest Common Denominator tip. The Asian families I've known have had a lot more pressing issues in their lives other than who So-and-So Lee is marrying or that What's-Er-Face Chan isn't a doctor.

Do we have any other story lines as a race? If it's between that and a story about a white family in a VW bus trying to get to a kiddie beauty pageant, I'm definitely going for the latter. This is where you get indignant and yell at me for not understanding the plight of filmmakers/television producers of color in the industry. There could crazy interesting scripts featuring complex families of color floating around out there, neglected by an industry that doesn't support them. And yes, that sucks. But if no one critiques the drivel that's being pumped out to us -- drivel that's supposed to be about us -- then all involved parties will think that that's what we, as an audience, want.

And for those of you that do want it and are spurring the industry to continue producing it: please, cut that shit out. Or at least stop spending money on it and contributing to a market for derivative ethnic programming and films. Go watch cheesy, non-threatening Asian American YouTube stars mug for their webcams. Please. It's the least you can do for me in my quest to see an Asian American family of big bad mothafuckas or crazies or druggies or hippies or cultists or polygamists or vampires or criminals or radicals or just someone that doesn't joke about egg rolls or how they've disappointed their parents. Please?

P.S. I kind of wrote about this already in an issue of Hyphen a few years ago but with less swearing and more praise for Asian American cinema. Yes, I am running out of ideas...