Half-Chinese, half-Japanese American producer and writer Julie Wong recalls the day her “Chinese American, risk-averse engineer dad suggested that I try my hand at TV writing” after she had been working in politics in the US for 15 years. “I was shocked,” she says. “But he pointed out that I loved TV and I loved to write, so why not?” A few weeks later, she signed up for her first TV writing class at an NGO called Cape—the Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment. It was a decision that changed her life—in 2018, her talent would lead to her being hired as a staff writer and later on co-executive producer of the hugely popular television series Grey’s Anatomy—season 20 was released in March this year.
Wong wasn’t wrong to have doubts; conversations about racial diversity and representation in the film industry weren’t as common as they are today. “I can’t recall seeing any AAPI [Asian American and Pacific Islander] female TV characters when I was growing up. Think about the kinds of messages that sends—you’re not important, you’re not ‘normal’, you don’t need to exist,” she says.
Says Michelle K Sugihara, Cape’s executive director, “Shows like [1960s series] Star Trek were very popular, and there used to be a saying that there were more space aliens than Asians on [American] TV.” When the AAPI community did appear onscreen, they usually portrayed biased or denigrating stereotypes: the model minority, perpetual foreigner, dusky maiden or noble savage. “It’s not just a silly thing that you see onscreen. It actually shapes how people view, think, feel about our communities and act. It has a direct consequence to how we’re treated in the real world.”
Denne historien er fra May 2024-utgaven av Tatler Malaysia.
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Denne historien er fra May 2024-utgaven av Tatler Malaysia.
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