On ‘Kim’s Convenience' aka this is why we don’t let white people have our nice things
Photo via Yelp
Yes, I’m slow, but I finally finished watching ‘Kim’s Convenience’. Oh boy were the last few seasons a shit show.
For those who don’t know, ‘Kim’s Convenience’ was a Canadian sit-com, focusing on a family of Korean-Canadians. Father and Mother own a convenience store and their kids are figuring life out. It was a show made in the West that starred an all East-Asian cast - which is unheard of and why ‘Kim’s Convenience’ was such a historic show.
‘Kim’s Convenience’ was originally a very successful theatre show by Ins Choi before being adapted for screen. The TV show ran from 2016 to 2021 and had five seasons until it was cancelled when Choi left.
The cancellation has been talked to death by now so I’ll just summarise to get everyone up to speed.
It emerged that the cast had a horrendous time due to structural and systemic racism behind the scenes. Aside from Choi, the production team and writers room were entirely white. Simu Liu has spoken about being underpaid, not listened to and the lack of diversity behind the camera. Of course, some white man who had nothing to do with the show but is a TV critic (so of course his views are more important than a cast member’s lived experience as a Canadian-Asian man) had to attack Liu for daring to speak out. I’m not going to bother linking to it because it doesn’t need more views and it’s behind a paywall anyway.
In response to that, Jean Yoon talked about how the lack of diversity made being on the show “painful” and how “THEY HAD NO KOREAN CULTURAL RESOURCES IN THE WRITERS ROOM AT ALL” (all caps by her not me). She talks more here with NBC News.
And response to Yoon’s comments, the ‘Kim’s Convenience’ Twitter page came out with a “SEE LOOK WE DID HAVE WOMEN OF COLOUR IN THE WRITING ROOM, YOU’RE WRONG'“ post. Urgh.
Photo via Kim’s Convenience
So yeah. And this was last year in 2021. This kind of thing is still happening in one of the industries that has the biggest influence on public opinion.
As an actor, pretty much every set I’ve been on has had an all white crew. The film and TV industries are changing slowly - I’ve chatted with some veterans who have noticed things are better. One lovely lady left back in the day because it was so racist. She only returned to acting in the last year or so because diversity was improving.
But apparently, we’re still here. Even after ‘Black Panther’ where the vast majority of the team were Black and were able to tell their own stories (and the results were absolutely glorious), we’re STILL STUCK HERE. By the way, this is something I’ve noticed a lot, especially when there were so many atrocities committed against East and South-East Asian (ESEA) people across the world as a result of COVID racism. People are very very very slowly learning that it’s wrong to be racist to Black people (although a lot of people still aren’t at that stage) but they are absolutely unable to transfer their learnings and apply it to other marginalised folks. So “yes we know it’s bad to imitate accents, paint ourselves to mock them, appropriate their clothes - but it’s fine if it’s ESEA cultures! What do you mean we can’t?” For example, last week there’s been a white man pretending to be a Japanese geisha up in Edinburgh Fringe and no one stopped or challenged him except our own people.
Here’s a wild card idea - don’t be racist to any of us?
The issue of the White Male Writers Room has been a long, long running issue and we are so tired of trying to make people understand. I’ve spoken with people who have left script development teams in huge film and TV corporations because they are so sick of how it works. A brilliant script from a writer of colour will come in and those in charge will give it to their mates. These old white dudes will rip away any colour from the story because they’ve been in charge for so long, they can only handle what is familiar. There will not be People of Colour or from the relevant culture in the room because, of course, what could we know about telling our stories?
Yes, these men have been in the industry for a long time and have an incredible wealth of experience. But they’ve been in the industry writing the same stories and characters and worlds. We the audience are bored. They aren’t equipped to write stories like ours. They are ill-educated and ill-informed about the real world.
These institutions think they can change things by letting a few of us into the room. Adele Lim, co-writer of the groundbreaking film adaptation of ‘Crazy Rich Asians’, turned down writing the sequel. She was being offered 86% LESS than her co-writer who is (surprise surprise) a white man. Lim comments on how people like us are being used like “soy sauce” - we’re brought in to sprinkle a bit of authenticity and Asian-ness on top. But if you know how to cook and how to write a story, you know this is a shit technique.
We are never allowed to tell our own stories.
Now, don’t worry. We don’t hate all white male writers. Some of our best friends are white male writers! But for them to assume they just know better than any PoC writers is poor writing and research. It’s juvenile behaviour, the equivalent of sticking their fingers in their ears and going “lalalalalala can’t hear you". They’re no longer putting the story first but their own egos. Not to quote myself, but to quote myself I said this in The Bookseller on the importance of having a diverse range of voices when creating work:
“To believe one’s worldview and imagination can provide enough, or even better, source material than someone’s actual lived experience would be delusional arrogance.”
And it really is down to delusional arrogance, the belief that because they’ve sat in that writer’s chair for so long that they know everything and we’re just silly foreigners: “We’re all the same underneath! I don’t see colour, you’re the one making it all about race! Just tell stories!”.
So why are the stories they tell and the way they tell them so horrendous? The ‘Kim’s Convenience’ writers were including awful, awful jokes that were only cut by Choi. It’s no surprise that when Choi left he ghosted everyone, including the cast. It’s a horrible thing to do to your team but when you’re that exhausted, you’re completely done. The thing you loved and did so much good is now the thing that’s hurting you.
If we speak out we’re punished, silenced and mocked. Simu Liu was one of the most outspoken cast members and after season one, his character was completely stunted and not allowed to develop. It was like Jung (his character) was in a continuous loop. It definitely felt like Simu Liu did something and the team decided to punish him.
Actors who speak out are seen as silly puppets and difficult, ungrateful children who won’t do as they’re told. ESEA people are expected to be the model minority, the good immigrant, the example white people can hold up to other marginalised people and say “see? They can make it so why can’t you? If you just listen to us and follow our rules, you can have this too. It can’t be about race - look at them!” So when ESEA people reject being “the model minority”, the backlash is explosive, violent and furious.
No more protecting white fragility. No more “we’re listening to the community” PR apologies. Those writers have all got to go. They have to get out of those seats. They’ve sat in their chairs for so long their arses are wearing away the wood. It’s unstable. Burn it all down.
