THE REAL ISSUES WITH ASIANS IN MEDIA w/ Jeff Yang & Melvin Mar from Fresh Off The Boat | Fung Bros

When Hudson came up to me and said, I want to, I'd like to be on TV. And truth is, he was like trying to impress a girl. And it was a huge mistake. Now we are outside of one of the most famous Chinese restaurants in the entire country, Newport Seafood. It's been featured on a whole bunch of shows. And we got two very, very, very special guests. So we are talking about Melvin Marr, one of the main producers of the TV show, Fresh Off the Boat. And we are talking about Jeff Yang, one of the most famous Asian pop culture writers and also the father of Hudson Yang. And don't worry, we're not going to go easy on these guys. We're going to be asking them some tough questions. Let's go. Whoa. Thank you. Yes. We should have brought another camera out. Let's get into just introducing you guys. Okay. Melvin Marr, Jeff Yang. Melvin, what do you do? I produce TV shows and movies. Fresh Off the Boat, Speechless, Jumanji. I'm from Vermont. From Vermontabello. Most of the people I grew up with did what their parents told them to do and they became doctors. And it was like a long stretch where they were far more successful. There were moments where I was like, maybe I should have been a doctor. I started out as a television critic, oddly enough. And then I produced A Sun. I've had the great fortune to write about and trace the outlines of Asian America as it emerged. I launched a magazine back in 1989 called A Magazine inside Asian America. You're sort of like selling Asian American pop culture at a time where even Asian America was kind of like, I don't know. Totally. I co-wrote Jackie Chan's autobiography. His first autobiography. The reason that we did this talk is I think so often we're with actors and we're with people in front of the camera. There's this whole infrastructure behind it. And you guys are all deeply in part or familiar with that infrastructure. I'm curious, actually, what the first pitch session for Fresh Off the Boat was like. It was actually not a crazy one, because Nach Bikan, who adapted and created the show for television, is like a genius. At the time, it was just so unknown and unheard of that people were like, yeah, they're just a little afraid to say anything about it. Is there a boat? They're just like, what is this? Oh, OK, that sounds good. It wasn't until Dana Walden sort of keyed into what it was and she called me and said, I love this and we're going to make it. At the end of the season, it'll be 101 episodes and it's 100 more than I thought we'd ever make. For multiple decades, I had been providing a space for Asian Americans to be Asian American publicly. I remember in the 80s and 90s when I was covering Asian American actors and writers, the Russell Wong era. You look at Ming-Na Wen. Oh, she doesn't age. None of the Pamela Tsumina, she could get it. During that era, you would ask Asian American performers and creators about what it means to be Asian American. A lot of them would actually sit back and say, you know, I'm an Asian American writer in the sense that I'm a writer who has to be Asian American. But they would push back on the idea that Asian Americanness was something that was necessarily core to what they did or what they were. Literally until 2018, Asians were denying that being Asian had anything to do with the way they lived their lives in Western civilization. How come it seems like you were on it maybe 30 years earlier than 10 years earlier? Are you referring to Jeff Old? Yes, he is. Right before the era when Asian Americans basically became a dominant force on student campuses, we launched a student publication at Harvard, which ended up becoming kind of the core. Those people who worked on that ended up joining forces with me in launching what would become the magazine. And the reason why we did that- Basically, you started Subtle Asian Traits 40 years prior. When you look at Subtle Asian Traits today, I'm just amazed that people find these things still kind of relevant, amusing, and interesting because we were talking about that shit 20 years ago. You need a critical mass of people who are woke to what you're trying to do, but you don't need so many people there that it seems like old news. That's why I'm not surprised that fresh off the boat, Eddie Huang came out of New York. He's not from out here, he's from out there. He had a story he could tell, and the reason why I think he was inspired to tell it is because his experiences came out of a place where he wasn't the majority population, where he did experience friction and resistance. That's the kind of thing which I think inspires people to push back and to create stories. Obviously, compared to Jeff, that your Asian awakening came later. Yes, much later because I think for me it was... I grew up in a neighborhood in Montebello where I was the only Chinese kid on the street. To me, the Asian American awakening was a very personal thing. I was not thinking as big as Jeff. I got a little older, I started working, and I started seeing my parents' age. Years later, I remember reading this book. It was on my honeymoon, actually. I read this book by Iris Chang called The Chinese in America, and I have to say, maybe it's the Montebello Unified School District, but I just didn't know the story of Chinese people immigrating to America, and it was something that really connected everything for me. But I thought she was brilliant, and I had to just write this note there and say thanks for connecting all the dots with me. People are showing up. I get so excited now when you hear about an Asian American person that you've never heard of. Right, you think it's crazy that you don't know her because there was a time where it was... It was a time you knew everybody. Because I always said that I thought the whole CRA thing, I thought that was going to be five years ago for sure. I've been thinking that this thing was going to happen every five years for the last 25 years. The first time everybody thought that it was finally going to happen, an Asian American show on network television... You talking about the Marvel Channel? I'm talking about Margaret Cho on All-American Girl. The first review I was asked to write was on All-American Girl. I knew Margaret. We were friends in that way that the five Asian Americans who actually are kind of in that space are friends, right? And I told my editors, I don't feel comfortable writing this review because I'm concerned. I have a confidentiality. I want the show to succeed. And he was like, look, this is your first big opportunity. You can choose not to do it, but at some point you got to decide whether you want to be friends with celebrities or to do a professional job. Watched the show. Amazing. And I ended up writing this like really bad review. I was the only Asian American, you know, with a regular TV beat at the time. She called me up the next day and she was like, I saw your review and, you know, she like tore me a new one. She said, you don't understand. It's not that it's a negative review. We've gotten a lot of negative reviews. The fact that it's coming from you, an Asian American with a platform, makes a huge difference because when they cancel our show, they're going to throw this on the table and say, even your community doesn't support it. That will be the killing blow. I'm like, that's not possible. But then 19 episodes later, more or less that happened. People who are not involved in the industry, a lot of them sit back and say, oh man, why don't you just put more Asians in your shows? Why don't they just do this and this and make it, they make it sound so easy. Sure, absolutely. We should put more Asians on TV. We should put more Asians in everything, right? But it's not as simple as like, hey, replacing this character with an Asian face. It's got a test in our face. Well, it's no, well, that's part of it. That's one of the variables. It's a bunch of things. I think it's like, there are two separate work streams here, right? How do we get more Asian Americans out there, period, in stuff, right? That I actually think is an act of will. Look, it's never been about lack of talent. It's always been about lack of opportunity. If people actually chose to, they could have cast Asian Americans in many more roles. That's a separate conversation though, which I think brings up the question of Trash Off the Boat and Melvin's uniquely humble approach to it. You know, for Trash Off the Boat, again, it was the first. It really was to make that work. And there was a cascade effect afterward. There was a shifting of the direction of the flow of Hollywood. I mean, you were at the center of that. And I think history will look back and say, this was a moment that changed the course of our community. My philosophy has always been like, keep your head down and just get it on the air or get it made and get it up, get it released. I guess that's a little bit of what my parents thought, which was just like, keep your head down and work hard. They, for the first time really acknowledged that this was necessary because they all of a sudden saw people around them saying, we're watching from that TV, we've never seen it before. And it's us. We're seeing ourselves. And I didn't know that I needed it until I saw it. Exactly. Well, that's what a lot of people said about CRA too, right? They're like, damn, why am I getting this weird feeling? Oh, I'm being humanized in this country, in media. And that wasn't even something that I thought I cared about. Who's like a lot of the people watching Fresh Off the Boat? You're competing with Netflix, you're competing with YouTube and Instagram, at least for the kids who aren't here. What I've been told, I've heard a lot. I mean, obviously the Asian American audience is huge for us, as well as the African American audience. Jeremy Lin was really funny that time he was on. You know what's really funny? All my teammates come up to me all the time and say like, yo, is your mom really like that? And he goes, yeah, we go on road trips and like all the guys on the team just like binge it. I was like, that's cool. Cory Brewer told me that was his favorite show. I said, all right. The top three shows for Asian Americans, like what they were watching in the first season, were all episodes of Fresh Off the Boat. If you actually looked at it the other way, who's watching Fresh Off the Boat? And actually the plurality is still white because the white audience is, you know. African Americans were second, Asian Americans were third. But I had a funny story about this. Eric Liu, a friend of mine who runs this group in Seattle, invited me up once. You guys both know Eric, right? I do know Eric. Big, burly, white guy comes up to me and goes, I love your show. I'm so sorry. And I go, oh, awesome. And he was like, you know, I'm so excited. I forget his name, but he was like the head of the Democratic Party in Seattle or something like that. And then without skipping a beat, I go, oh, so is your wife or your partner Asian American? Well, the best part is he looked at me and was like, no, why, why? And I was like, I'm really sorry. I completely just stereotyped. No, he's like, no, I just love it. Like, just a big white family in Seattle. And I was like, yep. Funny because the discussion has changed. But you know, for a while, maybe even, I'm not saying Jeff did, but he might have called you like for a number of years in your career. A lot of people have called me a lot of worse things in my career. And then I always look at it this way, which is like, if I believe in it and I'm passionate about it and I believe in someone's vision, in this case, I believed in Eddie's vision of that cast of actors, I would have done anything possible to get it on the air. I actually feel strongly that call-outs of sell-outs are a mistake. One of the things that I became very aware of was we need more, not less. We need more voices. And the way to actually address, if you don't like something, support something else, right? Don't tear down that thing. You can give a critique. You can try to make it better. If you kill all the vegetables coming out of your garden, you will eat lean for a long ass time. When I hear things on Twitter or read things about me or read things about the products you guys make, I do think a lot of those people kind of enjoy hating on things. And they're not necessarily creating an alternative project. And if those people did create an alternative project, I would support it. And I just see that a lot on Twitter from a lot of Asians in particular. No, their whole feed is just negativity towards anything. Like we've gotten it, Wong Fu gets it, anybody who's been doing it gets it. Creating something at this level or just like from the infancy level, being an artist or being whatever it is, is not something that I think culturally, for me, where I grew up, like seeing or being encouraged to do that. Do you feel any responsibility to take care of and or help them gain representation that won't have that? Because if you look at the groups that are kind of getting on right now, we see what Koreans are getting on and then Taiwanese in general, which kind of tend to be kind of the bougie group in general are getting on. South Asians too. I mean, specifically Brahmin class South Asians. I don't see Punjabis getting on. I don't look at it as somebody who spends a lot of time trying to figure out like the next television show or the next movie or the next whatever. To me, it's about the story in a point of view. So whether it's like Punjabi or hood Asians or whatever you're saying, it starts with a story in a point of view. Like for Speechless, it was like, you know, after Fresh Off the Boat had been on a year, they were like looking for the next family show. And Scott Silveri, who created the show, grew up in Yonkers, you know, Italian American family. And his family was not his family. And if you watch that show, it's not about like an upper middle class family. They're always, you know, blue collar jobs, everything. And it's a show about like a kid who has cerebral palsy, you know? And to me, that was a very distinct point of view. What I'll say is this, I have the luxury, because I'm not on the inside, of literally feeling that way. That is, I don't have to actually go out there necessarily and make the story or find the story. I can advocate for those things from the outside. And I do feel, frankly, that, you know, one of the big challenges with inclusion across the board is that it's easy to sort of say, we've done it, we've been there, we're good, let's move on. We are in the kind of a weird place right now where post-Crazy Rich Asians, searching, 12 Boys in Love. So we've seen certain stories out there. They're distinct and new and interesting stories. But Hollywood works in a certain way. If something works, they're like, let's find the five things that are exactly the same as that thing. With one tiny change, it's gonna be Crazy Rich Asians. And they'll be like, you know, there'll be a family of witches. That's a good idea. Do you think, Jeff, that privileged East Asians, do you think they care about the non-privileged Asians? I guess my answer to that is no, but it's not necessarily in a malicious way. It's just, in Asian culture, if you look at it, it's very hierarchical. Nobody cares about anybody who's doing worse. No, I'm gonna go harder on that. I'm gonna say that I do think we have a huge problem in Asian America with privileged individuals just totally shitting on those who are less privileged, even within Asian America. You gotta begin with some stories. And I will say this, the most exciting stories that I've been seeing and reading outside of film and television more recently have been coming from Southeast Asian community. What's a much more different experience? Okay, in theater, for instance, right? Viet Cong, Cambodian rock band. These are two modern classics that are created in distinctive story frames that are uniquely Southeast Asian, coming out of history. But these are not historical. I mean, they're historical, but they're funny as hell. They're musical. That shit is gonna pay off. I mean, these stories are there, but you're right. We as Asian Americans have to think beyond Fresh Off the Boat, in order for some of that stuff to happen. If we crack that code, do you agree that in general, full Asian dudes are considered black in America socially, not professionally? What role does media have to play in changing that order? Is it more on the people? I do agree with that. That has been the stereotype. I remember saying to Johnny Davis, who is our executive at 20th TV, he said to me, you can do anything in second position. I was like, okay, I would like to do a show. Basically, the kernel of an idea was an Asian American male. At the time, I was even thinking, I want to develop something for Jon Cho, because that dude is good ******* looking, right? I was like, how do you? Ironically, he was in Selfie, the spot that Fresh Off the Boat would eventually take. But that was the kernel of the idea, because I do believe and I do agree that that has been the stereotype. Is it changing? Absolutely. Steven Yeun, sorry, not Daniel. Steven Yeun on Walking Dead. He's a badass and he's awesome. It's shifting away from that. It is something that was at its purest form, a motivator for me in terms of developing something and looking for a project. If you think that aspirational representation is just about bougie, upper class-ness and everything, yeah, it is that, but it's also like we want to be seen as hot and we want those guys with the cut abs and the high cheekbones to represent Asian America. Media has, quite unfortunately, highlighted a pretty atrocious perspective, pretty atrocious view of what Asian American maleness looks like. I'm not sure the answer is to necessarily flip the switch and say, okay, we're only going to put our perfect genetic specimens. The single biggest breakthrough that we're going to see in terms of romantic comedy, it is Randall and Ally's romantic comedy that's coming out from Netflix, Always Be My Maybe. I haven't seen it yet. Randall and Ally, not necessarily supermodels. Not exceptionally, not on that tier. I'll say this. They're both really hot. I love them both. Has Randall been working out? What's been going on? He is like a silent workouter. Yes. The thing that you will see when the movie comes out is they are three-dimensional characters and it's not about what they look like or whatever. It's about the story and the journey that their characters are going through. Are the Asian kids becoming so comfortable in their skin that they're not doing the work enough? That's going to push. All right. So when I go to college and I speak and I'm talking to a lot of 18 to 22-year-olds, I'm just like, listen, guys, being Asian now for you guys is even more comfortable than it was even for me. And then for me, I look at the 40-year-olds and the 50-year-olds, I'm like, yo, it's way better to be me. So it just keeps getting better and better. But is there some fear that the young kids are just going to stay on Instagram, live a fun life, go to festivals? I mean, I'm not all the way over on the do what you want to do, live how you want to live in the world. You know, they haven't seen it. We will turn into our parents. Because there was a moment where we were shooting Speechless in London and Chris Gernon, who directed the episode, Penny and I were in the scene and at the end of it, Penny, she's sitting there and then Chris goes, do you want to be an actor, Penny? And she goes, no, I would like to be a doctor. I'm like, thank God. Yes. That's just for rebellion, right? It's like, thank God. Because you know what my dad was just telling me about? He was still convincing me at the end of the other day to try to go back to school. He's like, you guys are all superstars. You just did OK. Because you know how he was trying to tell me about STEM professions. He was like, you know, the reason that Asians, we love STEM professions because there is a right and a wrong answer. He's like, Hollywood is all about story. People like your story. That's it. People generally don't like Asian guys' story. People don't like it. Why would you go into a game that doesn't want Asian guys' stories? You're an Asian guy. That seems like a horrific move. That goes to the what makes you happy. And you want to do this because it makes you happy, right? And same for me, which is I learned very early on on top of not being smart enough, like just I didn't want to be in the medical profession. I didn't want to be an architect. I trained to be an architect. I didn't want to do that. And it took me a long time to figure out what I love doing. And I love doing this. And it's as simple as that. That's the conversation with your father because when he's like talking about it objectively the way he is, sure, it makes a lot of sense, right? He doesn't have to live your life. You got to be happy with yourself. You want to wake up every day and be excited about what you're going to do, whether you fail or succeed. I really, I not only agree, that actually happened, right? Where when Hudson, who had never shown any interest in performing whatsoever, you know, came up to me and said, I want to, I'd like to be on TV. I want to be an actor on TV. I looked at him, I was like, what are you talking about? You don't like, you don't even want to play piano. You know, you've never performed anything. The truth is he was like trying to impress a girl and whatever, I'm going to back him on that. So tell me he got her. It was a huge mistake. No, no, no. What happened was like after he actually got cast as a pilot, you know, he's like coming back to school and everything. And everyone's like, oh my God, I can't believe you're gonna be on TV. This girl's like, I never talked to him again. It's like you overshot, dude. You know, got a commercial or something. It's fine. Was you white? Yeah. He said, you want to do this? And I said, look, I'm not going to tell you not to do it. Not only am I not going to, I can't, right? I mean, I fought that fight for myself. I'm fighting that fight. So you can say you want to do this, right? But I will tell you that I have a lot of Asian American friends who are actors and they're really good bartenders. You know, it's like you're an Asian American, you're male. You will have your pick of roles, but you'll be fighting thousands and thousands of other actors who are in your same boat. You'll see them again and again in auditions. One out of a hundred auditions, you might get a callback, one of a hundred callbacks you might get, you know, to play a third waiter from the left. It is a bad life, but some people make it. And if you love it enough and work hard enough at it, you can succeed and I'll support you all the way if you want to. Fast forward a couple months later, after all this has happened, you know, this is like press of the boat, blah, blah. He's like, dad, I thought you said it was gonna be hard. It's like, you've just ruined hours of parental attempt. The fact is it was hard though. Cause like even after he got the role, he had a lot of growing to do. And yeah. I guess what's the one thing as we wrap this up, what's the one thing, let's say for example, you know, cause me and Andrew go to colleges and a lot of people ask us questions about being outside of the box of being Asian American. Both you guys have made a successful career outside of the box of conventionally. A lot of them will enter STEM fields. Some won't, they're worried. What is your thing, the happiness thing? My thing is the happiness thing. More than, more than anything else. It's just, what do you want to wake up every morning and do? If you wake up every morning and you're like, you know what? I want to make sure everyone has the right glasses. Go be an optometrist, like do it. It makes you happy. Like for me, it was just like, I didn't, wasn't happy until I figured out what I wanted to do. And it was going to be hard, but I, you know, stuck with it. Every, every place you are, you are someone, you are somebody who represents certain things. You know, whether that be your community, your identity, just even in public life, in public life, whether you got came on, you know, it could be whatever profession you're doing, whatever space you occupy, just showing people that you can speak up and speak out and be somebody who is worth listening to. That's important. Loving what you do is important, but loving it also in a way to not be afraid to have that on your outside. That's the thing which I think Asian-Americans maybe have been most challenged with. They need to be vocal about who they are and what they represent, what we represent. Do you think it is fair for Asians to come from the East to a Western country like America and be generally pretty much disengaged from media, voting? A lot of them are. A lot of them are and a lot aren't. Be engaged with it. Like, like figure out a way to like make, because that's how this country works, right? My, my family, you know, struggled to get here. They immigrated here and like, it's my duty. It's my like respect to them to be a part of this. I am an American and I may look like this. And there are people in this country who don't think I'm American, but they're wrong. I'm American, you know? And I need to do my part. Would you, would you be, go so far and some Asian activists would like to create unhappiness in the people who don't want to be engaged as a way to encourage them? I would not go that far. Okay, you would not want to? Because I do think there's a fine line of like, it's your right in this country to not be engaged at all. Like, right? It's like- Or be engaged just to the levels that you want, whatever level it is. And do I agree with you? No, I think you should be engaged. I think you should participate. And I think that that is a, that is a right that like, if you looked around and looked at the motherland or looked at every other place, you don't have the right to look at other places. You just, that's not given to you. And this is like an amazing opportunity here in this country to do that. So do it. But if, you know, I'm not gonna create unhappiness for you and force you to do it. Because then that goes against the whole idea. And I don't want to just- I'm on the side of making people unhappy. I mean, look, because my business is not selling happiness. My business is telling a different kind of story and pushing people and maybe getting people uncomfortable. You do have the right to opt out of the responsibilities and opportunities afforded to you by living in a country where the very kind of fundamental aspect of being here is to be engaged. Civically engaged, politically engaged, and ultimately engaged in conversation, right? You have the right to opt out of that. But if you opt out of that, you do not have the right to complain about what you get afterwards. Whenever it comes down to the same thing, I fail to pick up my clothes and therefore they didn't get washed so I can't wear them tomorrow. I did not do my homework and therefore I have to wake up super early and I can't go to this show I wanted to go to. You know what? If you did not make your bed, you did not get to sleep, you know? If you do not take the responsibility to participate, you won't get the rewards of participation. America expects a lot of immigrants, right? That's why we get this bullshit narrative going on all the time about how immigrants come here and take everybody's, you know, the spoils of Americana without whatever, whatever, whatever. The truth is, if you're born in this country, you get everything without having to pay it. You never had to take a citizenship test. You may pay taxes and all that stuff, but the reality is you have every, from birth, every reward of being American. Public schools all the way up through to, you know, great highways you can drive on here in LA. And you never had to actually struggle by and large to get those things. Those are vacant your Americanness. If you're an immigrant who came here, you came from somewhere else, which didn't have those things. You had to earn your way to America. And you know what? Those are the people who frankly, I think tend to believe in what it means to be American even more. One major takeaway about where this whole Asian movement's going. Real quick, where do you predict it's going? I guess, you know, I hadn't had this analogy until you kind of said it, Jeff, like the doors open and all Asians are in a line. Obviously some of us are more in the front of the line. Some of us are in the back of the line. I just hope that people in the front of the line care about people in the back of the line. And if the door were to ever close, they prop it open with their arms because they're already in there. And I, well, what you're saying is right. And I think time will tell what will hatch. And, you know, I think what's exciting about it is a lot of things are being pollinated. You know, and I think you have to go with that. And I think part of it is you also have to be patient. You know, it's not going to happen overnight. None of it has happened overnight. And if you look at the history of these things, it's never been immediate and that's okay. You have to, you have to stick with it. And agent Tom Strickler once said to me, you know, years and years ago, that it is America. And you just have to stick with it. It's not a sprint. And if you think of it that way, you're just going to, you know, burn out really quickly. To Melvin's point about a lot of things being pollinated right now, you may not like the one thing that's in front of you. You may not be a fan of Fresh Out the Boat. You may not have enjoyed Crazy Rich Asians, but there's a lot of other shit that's coming along now, right? And you love something. You will love something. You need to love something because this is what you fought for, right? I mean, you know, we talk about stuff that could never happen, you know, 40 years ago. Well, you know, maybe the biggest example of that to me is that Justin Lin is finally making Warrior, which is Bruce Lee's, you know, storyline that he imagined and could never make in Hollywood before his death, right? And he and the Lee family, you know, have kind of taken the story in homage to this dead icon of ours, Bruce Lee, and brought it to life. That's happening now, it's possible, but it's possible because finally that door is open. I think that, you know, if I had anything to say to Asian Americans, it's, you know, okay, you can't afford apathy. It is your luxurious right, if you choose to, to do nothing. But if you don't do nothing, if you do something, the rewards are so much greater. And they're not just for you, it's for all of us. There's gonna be a lot of Asian projects that come out. They're not gonna be for everybody. And they're probably not gonna be all good. And they're probably not gonna be all successful as the couple of home runs that we've had recently. And this comes from a creator who has been blasted on the internet a few times. We can take the blast, but we wanna know that you guys are out there supporting something. Like if I know that all those Redditors or those Twitter accounts are also supporting other things that are making a movement, I will feel better about it. You know, you need analyzers, you need attackers, but you need people to just support. You need an audience. That's the other A. Thank you so much for watching this very special episode of Funbro's Food. Thank you so much to Melvin Barr. Shout out to Jeff Yang for coming out here. I mean, make sure, just let us know what you thought of the discussions in the comment section below. And make sure you let us know one project that you would like to see come to life in 2019. All right, everybody, thank you. And until next time, we out. Peace.