As a film student, I’ve always maintained an open mind towards both movies and TV series. I appreciate art films that expose social issues and can even tolerate stand-up comedy that pokes fun at Chinese stereotypes. However, I find it utterly unacceptable when Western productions deliberately create and promote stereotypical portrayals of China.
My Disappointment with “Fresh Off The Boat”
“Fresh Off The Boat,” an American sitcom that premiered on ABC on February 5, 2015, is based on the memoir “Fresh Off the Boat” by Eddie Huang, a Taiwanese-American chef. The show chronicles the story of a Taiwanese-Chinese family who moves from Chinatown in Washington, D.C., to Orlando, Florida, in the 1990s.
After investing half a month, I’ve made it to the sixth season, and my initial anticipation has morphed into resentment and disgust, making it impossible for me to continue watching. I stumbled upon edited clips of the show on social media, where many viewers commented on its portrayal of Chinese people in an unflattering light. Intrigued, I decided to watch the full episodes online. The first three seasons were relatively normal. While they did depict some common stereotypes, such as Chinese people being overly frugal and having a strong desire to control their children, the main characters were portrayed as positive, proactive, and hopeful, with loyalty to their friends.
However, as the series progressed, it seemed to push the boundaries of what is acceptable in portraying Chinese people. The female lead, Jessica, is depicted as extremely selfish, self-centered, arrogant, never apologizes, and has a strong desire to control everything. She tricks her pregnant friend, Hani, into going on a “road trip” when she is eight months pregnant. Her only goal is to get Stephen King to write a movie review for her novel. She drags her pregnant friend around, not allowing her to rest. Even when her friend is hospitalized due to exhaustion, she doesn’t care about Hani and instead asks her to continue helping her track down Stephen King. When the family’s house has problems, they live in their friend’s house without any gratitude. They put their friend’s wedding dress in a box and put their own things in the closet, and the family acts like hooligans and robbers.
She hates Halloween and doesn’t want her family to participate in the holiday activities, even though her family is so excited. Her cold attitude is very disappointing. But she likes Christmas, so she demands that everyone pay attention to the holiday. During the Christmas choir event, she insists on doing her own solo, hurting the hearts of others in the community. She is an immigrant herself, and she thinks that she is already an American citizen. She begins to oppose the policy of foreigners immigrating to the United States, and even reports that her employees’ identities are illegal.
From a young age, she instilled in her children the idea of becoming doctors and was very opposed to all art-related courses or activities. Her appearance seems to be to destroy everyone’s happiness. When her youngest son has a girlfriend, she goes to the principal; when her second son joins the drama club, she thinks it is her friend’s idea and goes to her friend to cause trouble; when her eldest son likes his teacher, she goes to the classroom to make trouble; when the three children are very excited to participate in community ball activities, she feels that she is no longer the center of the children, so she reports to the police that the fence of the activity site violates community regulations; her husband wants to find a second career, but instead of doing gardening work according to her ideas, he focuses on the restaurant according to the manager’s ideas, so she designs to have her husband fire the manager.
I have never hated a female character in a TV series so much. Even the silly and sweet vases in domestic dramas have their shining moments, but she doesn’t. She is like a whip, spurring everyone on, and everything must follow the path she has set. I don’t understand why Chinese women are portrayed as such a deranged, strong, and narcissistic image. Chinese women are indeed more assertive, but we also care about the people around us, and we also respect the wishes of others. Our requirements are used to restrain ourselves, not to restrict others.
The male lead, Louis Huang, is portrayed as the embodiment of the American dream. However, in my opinion, he is a foreigner poisoned by American culture. He loves American culture, or rather, he is fanatical about it, and he thinks everything in America is romantic. He is jealous, likes to plagiarize, and loves to be self-righteous. His clothes are copied from others, the restaurant decoration is copied from others, and even his name is copied from others. When he returned to Taiwan to attend his brother’s wedding, he saw that his brother had married a beautiful wife and lived a happy life, and he actually wrote a curse on his brother on the blessing Kongming lantern.
He usually says that he and his wife are a team. After his wife gets lice, he abandons his family and runs to live next door. Every time Jessica disagrees with him, after a series of unreasonable troubles from Jessica, he ends the incident with this sentence - “I just want to be with my family.” I don’t know why this sentence has such great magic, Jessica immediately returns to normal, and the ending is a happy reunion. He is a very idealistic person, or he can be interpreted as a hypocrite. He wants everyone to like him and accept him, and he wants others to really treat him as an American.
Their sons have no shortcomings because their sons are “real” Americans, second-generation immigrants. Smart, independent, and have ideas. They have been educated in the United States since they were young, and it seems that they have not inherited the shortcomings of their parents.
Two moments in the play made me feel the most uncomfortable. I don’t remember the specific scenes, but probably when the family announced important news, Jessica said, “Who knows when the mainland will hit Taiwan?” When their son saw the words “made in china” on his school uniform, he felt that the stitching was meticulous, “I suspect this was made by Chinese child labor.”
The shots and scenes of this show that once made me feel interesting and happy now make me feel very sick. I don’t think I have a glass heart, but the deliberate vilification of Chinese characters makes me really angry. Looking at the faces of the male and female protagonists in the play, I think this is the ugliest face I have ever seen. This drama uses humor as a disguise, but it is full of satire on Chinese people. I am not exaggerating, I think any Chinese person who has completely watched the six seasons of the show cannot think that this is just American humor.