Is it just me, or are things getting worse? 

Some background: I love television.  Like, so much.  It’s kind of my best friend.  So I have a big blind spot for it, I love to give it the benefit of the doubt, laugh things off, roll my eyes and think, aw television, you will get better and be better, just take your time.  I will wait for you.  

But I’m kind of getting fed up.  I can only ignore so much, television!  You may be shiny and exciting but so much stuff is just lazy, and unfunny, and I’m getting tired of making the same excuses for you. 

***

So my genre of choice after a long day of dastardly lawyerly deeds is the 22-minute sitcom.  It’s easy to digest, it makes me chuckle, and it’s easy to forget so that I can rewatch it again and again.  Fast food for the brain.

This week I was flipping through the usual channels: CBS, Fox, etc.  And within a 2-minute window of lingering on 2 Broke Girls, I heard 2 racial stereotype jokes said by 2 extremely white ladies (so many twos!) and I just roll my eyes.  (If you are interested, one joke was about how Asian folks are good at taking the SATs, and the other joke was about how Hispanic people are good at cleaning.  Real creative, smart comedy here.)  Then I start watching Raising Hope, a show I actually really do like, and there are these 2 Chinese gymnastic twins who don’t really have any lines, do a lot of acrobatics, eat noodles out of bowls that look like they were crafted in medieval China, and only listen to Chinese pop. 

Of these 2 shows, I infinitely prefer Raising Hope, and while I couldn’t help but roll my eyes a bit (I swear they will get stuck that way one day), at least the humor in the ep was not at the expense of the Asian folks.  2 Broke Girls on the other hand….with their ridiculous portrayal of an Asian diner-owner named Han Lee (which translates to “Rice” Lee apparently) and the constant racially charged jokes at his expense….that I have little to no patience for.  Just because the main characters are disenfranchised in some way does not mean they have free reign to target other disenfranchised communities.  Being poor doesn’t allow you to suddenly be a card-carrying member of every minority. 

And where Raising Hope at least occasionally has other Asian representation (i.e., an Asian American pawn shop owner that spoke English just fine and whose race was completely irrelevant to the plot), 2 Broke Girls makes lazy pan-Asian jokes about racial stereotypes (karaoke, notions of “honor,” his accent, his general emasculation), and all we get is Mr. Fake Accent.^*

Wow I lingered longer on 2 Broke Girls than I thought I would.  Working out some inner angst here.

But it certainly is not the only perpetrator.^**  I caught some Mike and Molly a while back, and within the first 5 minutes of watching this show, I saw another Asian restaurant owner with a thick (and methinks, very fake) accent.  And then his pretty daughter comes on the screen, and she also has a thick accent.  Now this is kind of where I draw the line.  Sure, immigrants are real.  And have real accents.  And a portrayal of that is not unrealistic, or offensive per se.  But then to have a younger daughter from the next generation also have an accent, be an Other—it made me think, man, Asian will never just be Normal!

Even though the majority of older Asian immigrants came over in the 70s and 80s, and there are now several generations of Asian Americans that speak perfect English (well maybe there are still some issues with grammar, I can’t speak for all Asian Americans but my grammar kind of sucks, but I’ll blame that on Mrs. Hildebrandt, my third grade teacher), we still feel so comfortable with the image of the Asian American with an accent.  How have we made zero progress from the days of Pat Morita?  Seriously, in the last 2 years, 2 NEW shows have come out with Asian restaurant owners that put on fake accents to fit some comfortable yet distorted racial notion.  When will we age out of this portrayal?

Read More

Kurt: There’s this new kid Sam in glee club. He and I are singing a duet together.

Dad: Is that a problem?

Kurt: Finn practically begged me not to.  He said it would ruin Sam’s reputation.

Dad: Does he play for your team?

Kurt: Undecided.

Dad: Oh. Maybe Finn has a point.

Kurt: You’re siding with him? After what he called me in our basement?

Dad: I was talking to Carol and you weren’t totally honest with me. She told me you had a crush on Finn and you weren’t afraid to show it? Is this true?

Kurt: So a gay guy can’t be friendly to a straight guy without it being predatory.

Dad: You gotta understand most guys don’t know how to deal with unwanted advances.

Kurt: So you’re saying I shouldn’t sing with the Sam guy because it might upset a couple homophobes. I thought you said no one pushes the homos around.

Dad: No one does. I’m not saying that.  I’m saying that maybe it’s you who is pushing this kid Sam around, trying to take advantage of him because you’re interested in him.

—Glee

Take advantage! What? “Romance” isn’t taking advantage, and in heterosexual portrayals of romance, everything that’s been described in the episode would be seen as “romantic” (which is very problematic in itself, but I will address that in another rant (coming soon!)).

Interestingly, if you look back on Finn’s character (who was so scandalized by Kurt’s advances, even to the point of saying “no means no” in the cafeteria), he clearly does not actually believe that “no” indeed means “no.”  He blatantly chased after Rachel even after she repeatedly told him that she was with Jesse.  I mean, he even sang “I wish I had Jesse’s giiiiiirl!” in front of the whole class. Whaaaaat.  Don’t get me wrong, I support him using “no means no” in the Kurt context, I mean I’m all about no means no!!  I am the championer of no means no to the nth degree!  But don’t conveniently say something that “helps” you in one situation but that you don’t actually believe when the shoe is on the other foot.  So “no means no” right?  Then why the heck did you say, “I don’t give up that easy” after getting shot down by Rachel?  It’s a pretty ridiculous double standard.  But if his homophobia has actually made him feel that everyone’s opinions should be taken more seriously, should that be considered a win?  Is that the silver lining on the ugly homophobic cloud?  Can we actually use a lack of respect and empathy to fuel respect and empathy?

Maybe we can use homophobia for good!  I know that sounds ridiculous, but hear me out.  If certain men are made extremely uncomfortable by the thought of a gay man hitting on them, then maybe they can channel that creeped out feeling when they in turn hit on women!  (Same goes for women to men).  The bottom line is gauging the interest of the other person.  This is not an easy feat, by any means, but it is sometimes made wildly easy when the other party has said they are not interested.  At this point, if some men or women find it difficult to stop and also happen to be homophobic, they should just imagine their advances being the same as homosexual advances on a heterosexual person.  Because at the end of the day, the two are simply the same thing: an unreciprocated advance.  Homophobia is sad and…just pathetic, but maybe we can use it as a tool to enlighten some and ironically teach empathy for the receiving end of unwanted attention/harrassment.  I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say the venn diagram of homophobes and perpetrators of unwanted advances has a huge middle overlap.  It’s the perfect audience!

Returning to the Finn example, why didn’t “no mean no” to him in Rachel’s case?  And why were Kurt’s “unwanted advances” seen as being so predatory and threatening to him?  As Kurt’s dad responded, “You gotta understand most guys don’t know how to deal with unwanted advances.”  But then why are women expected to “deal” with unwanted advances so comparably well?  Traditional gender roles that designate men as “pursuers” and women as the “pursued” may be at the root of this homophobic double standard.  Society essentially tells us there is no such thing as an unwanted advance for a woman; as the perpetually “pursued”, women learn to measure their value through any type of male attention.  As a result, unwanted attention is often portrayed as merely “flattering” and self-affirming, instead of creepy and/or scary.  At best it’s “romantic,” at worst it’s “harmless.”

But let’s look at the unwanted advance double standard and its real world consequences, shall we?  I’m gonna say heterosexual acquaintance rape is a prominent example of what can happen to women if unwanted advances continue to an unacceptable point.  (And I don’t mean to sweep female-on-male rape under the rug, it’s just statistically less common).  On the other hand, I’m actually curious to know the statistics of rape of heterosexual men by homosexual men.  If I had to guess, I would say it’s pretty darn close to zero (and even if I’m wrong, I’m gonna say its a comparably less frequent occurrence than other types of male-on-male rape).  Ironically, the statistics of rape of homosexual men by heterosexual men is considerably higher, and is a well-documented anti-gay hate crime. 

So in conclusion: unwanted advances for women are often seen as harmless and flattering, but unwanted advances for heterosexual men by homosexual men are predatory.  But the stats show the opposite is true.  Erf. 

Society is annoying. 
 

rant by Liz (wearing her double-stitched, double-standard rantpants)