Yes, obviously, they don't celebrate Christmas in Korea

[the_great_elk]

From Angry Asian Man:

cbs pilot two broke girls: seriously, you named the asian character "rice lee"?

From what I've seen, the running joke appears to be that Han Lee adopts a new, more "American" name ("Bryce Lee" -- which at some point becomes "Rice") and is constantly getting his funny-but-lovable bad English corrected.The post continues to

Comments

[lunawolves10th]

Wait what?

That's ridiculous. :

[the_great_elk]

But isn't it just so charming! Think of how endearing a character that can't speak English and doesn't know anything about American ways is!

Seriously, CBS, you run shows with Asian/Asian American characters in them that speak English just fine. Figure your shit out.

[lunawolves10th]

Doesn't Korea also have like waaay better access to the internets than we do anyway?

[the_great_elk]

Yeah. Lots of countries do, I imagine.

[leafing]

What the fuck is this

Is low-brow "foreign people sure are weird!" comedy the in thing right now or what

[the_great_elk]

I don't know. Sometimes The Big Bang Theory flirts with this line, but since they're generally self-conscious about it I usually let it pass. I watched one episode of Outsourced though and haven't touched it since.

You'd think we'd be over it. On the one hand, it's encouraging to see producers trying to actively cast Asians/Asian Americans (as opposed to, say, Friends where there is maybe one Asian American woman in the whole 10 seasons). On the other... do it like this, and I'd almost rather you ignored us.

The best thing networks and writers can do is learn from huge mistakes like this. That's my positive spin on this, because otherwise I'd just be weeping for humanity.

[leafing]

I was specifically thinking about Outsourced when I said that. I can't believe that hasn't been canceled yet.

But will they actually learn from it? I'm not so sure about that.

[the_great_elk]

I haven't seen it - people keep telling me it's gotten better, but I still wonder how "accurately" they portray life in India and Indians.

Yeah... I can dream? Otherwise I will just be sad.

[snowflakie06]

....Wow. Seriously? What the frick is their problem? And I don't mean just CBS but the creators and the writers and just... wow. Please please please tell me this show is never going to get aired!

[inefuori]

wow. just wow.

[the_great_elk]

Oh the joys of television.

[the_great_elk]

As far as I've heard, the Korean education system has mandated the learning of English for a number of years now, such that young people (my age and younger in particular) now speak perfectly acceptable English. (At the time, we were also comparing them to Japanese students, who, despite learning English in school, still do speak with accents and rarely use their English.) It's likely that a slightly older generation doesn't speak as well, necessarily, but I'm not sure how many of them are still immigrating in large numbers without children who do do speak English.

This is only what I've heard from classes/community organizers and my friends and professors, though.

[the_great_elk]

Regardless of whether or not it's true, the assumptions about why people, particularly from East Asia, immigrate to this country in addition to the assumptions about what kind of people are immigrating is also generally discomforting. A huge number of people that come here are professionals, yet they are continuously portrayed overwhelmingly as market owners, beauty parlor workers, laundromat owners, or some variation thereof.

And even if they did have accents, it doesn't particularly excuse using that accent as a pivotal point of comedy.