All American Girl vs. Fresh Off the Boat

All American Girl is a sitcom that came out in the 90's which stars an Asian American cast. Margaret Cho stars as an Asian American character named Margaret Kim. All-American Girl highlights the life of Margaret, a progressive twenty-three year old Korean American woman living with her conservative and traditional family. I watched the first episode and it brought up the the culture of the family right away and the traditions that they have. Margaret wants to date this American boy named Kyle but her mother doesn't approve because he isn't Korean. Margaret is tired of her mother always trying to set her up with Korean boys who are smart and successful. She goes on a date with Kyle and then reveals to her mother that she loves him and will be moving in with him. Even though she knows deep down that she doesn't truly love him, she is saying this to scare her mother. She wants to be able to make her own decisions without her mom going against her all the time. 

The show got mixed reviews at the time. The show could be improved especially when the actors try to speak with a Korean accent; it didn't seem natural. Some of the cultural references in the show are confusing as well. Despite this, it's great that a show like this was even on the air because it revolves around an Asian American family. Much of the criticism surrounding the show seems to be coming from people who feel All American Girl doesn’t match their vision of what a Korean or Asian American show is. This is only one program that cannot have all the things that people want. 

Twenty years later, the ABC network  ordered a pilot for a new sitcom named Fresh Off The Boat. It is based on comedian Eddie Huang’s autobiographical book by the same name. The sitcom focuses on Huang’s childhood moving from a racially diverse neighbourhood in Washington DC to a predominantly white neighbourhood in Orlando, and the culture shock that occurs there. Years after All-American Girl, a show like Fresh Off The Boat as well as other sitcoms of its kind are long overdue. There are only a handful of television shows and sitcoms that star Asian Americans and as Chang wrote, each show must“be all things to all people” which is an impossible task. When Fresh Off The Boat was on the air it broke the trend of having only one or two Asian American sitcoms on TV at a time. This is the first step to creating a genre of Asian American primetime cinema in which each show has the freedom to speak to of the Asian American experience, and not depend on any single show to speak for our community in its entirety. I enjoyed the two Fresh Off the Boat episodes that I watched. The characters are bold and the pacing is snappy. It's a sitcom so it's not without its corny sitcom trappings and maybe half of the jokes really worked for me. But it seems worth making the time for. It has promise and the show has some quality actors.

Falling For Grace

Falling for Grace is a romantic comedy directed by Asian American director Fay Ann Lee in 2007. The film first appeared at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2006 as the original title East Broadway. Fay Ann Lee also plays the role of the lead female in the film Grace Tang. She had this vision as a director to make the first successful mainstream romantic comedy with an Asian woman leading the mix. In doing so, the film doesn't bring up any race issues. If anything, it's a classic story about an educated, hard-working woman from lower middle-class parents who still yearns for social acceptance among the Upper East Side elite.

Grace Tang is a successful investment banker who was raised in Chinatown. She dreams of living among the social elites in New York City. One day she is accidentally mistaken for an heiress from Hong Kong, also named Grace Tang. She is invited to a party where she falls in love with a lawyer named Andrew James Barrington, Jr who is dating committee-member Kay Douglas. Grace hides her true identity from him, but he also has a few secrets he keeps from her. 

Grace and Andrew begin to see more of each other, but her families interests become a conflict. Andrew happens to be the son of a prominent attorney who works in the NY State Attorney General's office in Manhattan. He has been pursuing a case against a network of Chinatown sweatshops, which happens to be the one Grace's mother works. Grace ends up lying saying that her parents are an old couple whom she visits as a volunteer and she eventually finds herself in the middle not knowing what to do. Her brother Ming ends up telling the truth to Andrew and he leaves the romance, which Kay is unaware of. The film concludes when Andrew leaves Kay to move to Hong Kong, where Grace has a new position with her company.

Falling For Grace is a delightful film that is fun to watch. It’s an entertaining alternative to a $100 million movie that stinks and draws so much attention. What I love about it, is that it has two main characters who fall in love, the female is Asian and the male is a white man. In my opinion, this is a cute mother daughter film but can also appeal to a broader audience. 

Better Luck Tomorrow

Better Luck Tomorrow is a film directed by Justin Lin in 2002. A boy named Ben is an overachiever but is part of a group of other boys who get into mischief. Ben is the stereotypical "model minority" Asian American — an intelligent, hard-working high school freshman, confident that he will get into an Ivy League college. Daric is the savvy senior valedictorian who gets Ben and his friends Virgil and Han to start selling cheat sheets. This "business" spirals into scams at stores, stealing a new shipment of computers from the school, and eventually into selling drugs. Between working at a fast-food restaurant and volunteering at the local hospital, Ben discovers that kids who are smart enough can get away with anything. Throughout the film, their lives consist of a mix of drugs, sex, violence, and Academic Decathlon tournaments. Ben and his suburban gang challenge the stereotypes of youth, Asian Americans, and suburban life. 

Ben falls for this girl named Stephanie in his class, and he wants to win her over but she is dating this jerk named Steve whom could care less about her. Even though Ben excels over everything else, the film makes it seem like Ben has never been in a true relationship before. For half of the film, Ben is in fact a virgin. When he loses his virginity to a prostitute, he becomes more confident in himself because he finally did it and he enjoyed it. Stephanie and Ben are good friends but he never takes advantage of her and he respects that she has a boyfriend even though he knows Steve is no good for her. Ben even accepts Steve’s request to bring Stephanie to the formal. Ben ends up getting into trouble the more he hangs out with his group. At the end of the film they end up murdering Steve and burying him in the backyard. He never tells Stephanie what happens and she seemed to care less that Steve has not returned her calls, so at the end of the film she drives away with Ben not knowing where Steve is. She seems more content with Ben. 

According to director Lin, ”The theme of Better Luck Tomorrow is identity. You have to develop your identity, whatever you're trying to grow into. If you adopt an identity and don't have the patience to grow into it, the identity can overtake you.” I watched this film twice because I was really impressed and loved it so much. The story was different than anything else I’ve seen especially amongst the Asian culture. Yes there were some stereotypes in the film of Ben being an overachiever and being really smart, but there were other aspects of the film that were more important. The fact that this group seemed to be like the “asian mafia” surprised me. I hated Steve’s character and I didn’t think they would do anything about it but they did and I loved that choice from the director and writers to kill off that character.