Fresh Off The Boat

The first two episodes premiered tonight.

I can't say I'd ever heard of Eddie Huang before this show, and I'm still only familiar with who he is on a most basic level.

Frankly, that really didn't make a difference in the end, because all things considered, I'd say the parents are the characters that I really thought were worth watching the show for anyhow.

Plus a lot of the jokes clicked with me in ways I didn't see coming.

edited 4th Feb '15 8:04:33 PM by TheSpaceJawa

I'll have to watch more before I really assess if this is brilliant work containing well crafted caricatures, or if it is just a show full of embarrassing stereotypes.

Some light research suggests that maybe this show does know what it is talking about.

EDIT: Anyone else now interested in the book? I heard it contains stuff ABC won't show on television.

edited 4th Feb '15 9:27:23 PM by Worlder

Oh hey, it's the guy from Wong Fu Productions.

So how do, uh, white people like it?

I'm from a bi-racial family so my (very white) brother-in-law said he thought it was funny, but partially because he's fairly familiar with Asian culture, people, and stereotypes. I'm sort of wondering how someone without a peek into the culture feels about it.

Holy shit I love this show so much. I love that the family is a bit "stereotypical" sometimes, but it never treats that as a joke in and of itself. Like, the parents have accents, but that's never treated as something inherently funny. There's so much about it I can relate to, too, I went through a phase where I would only bring sandwiches to eat at school because my friends said my food looked like dead grass or something like that.

According to the showrunner white test audiences felt "a bit persecuted", which made me laugh. Apparently it's been doing really well for its timeslot, so I hope it'll keep going for a long time.

I feel like this is going to face the same problems from white audiences that, say, Chappelle's show did. They're going to be tuning in and thinking "Haha those silly immigrants!" when that's... really not the joke at all.

This show has me thinking about The P Js.

Mainly because of the subject matter (sitcom from a specific ethnic Po V).

edited 14th Feb '15 7:22:14 PM by Worlder

I've only seen the first two episodes thus far (between not recording the second week and ABC making people wait a week to watch them online), but I know I found at least a few of the 'white people jokes' to be absolutely hilarious - most notably some of the bits about the grades, including both the part where the 'C' was treated as being a great thing and the impossible to understand sticker grading system - because of how true they came off as.

Another part about the show I liked (again, based on just the first two episodes) is how they didn't dump the dad into the now-steriotypical 'bumbling dad' role, but actually manage to balance both parents out.

There's also something entertaining with the way the Dad is all friendly and trying to be the kind of boss you'd actually enjoy working for, not entirely unlike what was fun about Mr. Sampersand(sp?) from Selfie.

Maybe something will change when I get a chance to watch things past Episode 2, but if there's any kind of persecution going on with this show, I'm not seeing it.

Filipino-American. Just dropping by to say that I LOVE THIS. If they cancel it too early, there will be fucking riots.

Sure, there's stereotypes dropped in this show, but the difference between other shows doing Asian stereotypes and "Fresh Off the Boat" doing stereotypes is that they know WHY the stereotypes are there and how they work.

I think the family in general has WONDERFUL group chemistry. Randall Park is fantastic as the dad.

So much of this show connected with me from the first episode. Plus there's a lot of tiny things that resonated with me right away. After I watched the first episode, I needed a few days to realize I don't eat Filipino food in public unless it's "tame" (no strong smells or unusual colors, because Filipino food can get heavy on both) or I'm among other Asians. And that's because I don't want to get weird looks or be made fun of, like poor Eddie.

Then the Asian Success Perm just made me laugh, because for Filipinos it's Asian Success Straightening.

And definite score for the hip-hop soundtrack. I love blues/soul and musicals, and I have a very blues-y voice—as an Asian actress, casting directors won't know what the fuck to do with me because my voice (loud, raspy, somewhat low) doesn't match my appearance (tiny youthful Asian girl).

I think the problem white audiences would have is that this isn't for them. The target audience is, surprise-surprise, Asian-Americans. For once, white people are outsiders looking in on a family of outsiders' daily lives. They don't understand some of the stuff that goes on in Asian-American households. Sure, parts of the show are toned-down, but the essence of Asian-American life is there.

AND GUESS WHAT, IT'S NOT A PERIOD PIECE. Not in the sense of "long ago and far, far away" like in a slavery movie or a kung-fu movie.

This shit happens to a fuckton of Asian-Americans all the time. Our food is different, our appearance is different, our cultures and families are different. That means we are the Other, and we are treated like the Other and that means feeling lonely, isolated, and being mocked.

White people tend to live in a bubble of "NO MORE SLAVERY THAT MEANS NO MORE RACISM."

edited 24th Mar '15 9:11:41 PM by Sharysa

Gotta say, Jessica hunting down the dine-and-dashers is probably my favorite TV moment of the 2014-2015 season.

Is that 9To5 game real in any way? Seems like a really random reference.