Jean Yoon details "painful" experience working on Kim's Convenience
The actor who played Umma on the Canadian sitcom Kim’s Convenience defended co-star Simu Liu’s statements following The Globe’s article about the show’s end.
TV News Kim
Actor Jean Yoon shared her “difficult” and “painful” experiences on the Canadian sitcom Kim’s Convenience, defending co-star Simu Liu’s statements following The Globe’s article about the show’s end.
Yoon wrote on Twitter in response to [the article’s writer] Doyle: “Dear sir, as an Asian Canadian woman, a Korean-Canadian woman w more experience and knowledge of the world of my characters, the lack of Asian female, especially Korean writers in the writers room of Kims made my life VERY DIFFICULT & the experience of working on the show painful.”
Yoon is known for her role as Umma in the series, with Simu Liu playing her son, Jung. The series follow the Korean-Canadian Kim family, and their misadventures running a convenience store.
She continued on in the defense of Liu, “Your attack on my cast mate @SimuLiu, in the defense of my fellow Korean artist Ins Choi is neither helpful nor merited. Mr. Choi wrote the play, I was in in. He created the TV show, but his co-creator Mr. Kevin White was the showrunner, and clearly set the parameters.”
Simu Liu replied to Yoon’s tweet saying he thinks Doyle “blocked [him] so [he] wouldn’t be able to respond” to the story.
Yoon continued on in the tweet thread to discuss specific problems with “overtly racist” and “culturally inaccurate” scenes in season five that cast members fought to have removed. She also revealed that if she hadn’t said anything, all of the Korean food represented in the series would have been incorrect, writing, “Ins doesn’t know how to cook or how things are cooked, no one else in the writers room were Korean, and THEY HAD NO KOREAN CULTURAL RESOURCES IN THE WRITERS ROOM AT ALL.” She ended her thread with a reference to a final scene in the series:
“In the final bedroom scene in S5, Mrs. Kim weeps because she believes that God has abandoned her. The more she prays for something, the more certain it will get worse. That’s what it felt like. The love died. 사랑 없으면 소용이 없고 아무것 도 안입니다.”
Shortly after Yoon’s Twitter thread, the Kim’s Convenience Twitter account shared a Facebook post from co-executive producer Anita Kapila, where she praised the BIPOC and women writers on the show. Kapila is of South Asian descent, and none of the writers highlighted are of Korean descent. This is not pointed out to diminish the role of these writers in the series, but to say the response does not address Yoon’s issues stemming from the lack of Korean writers on a show about a Korean family. Additionally, treating Asian cultures as a monolith in any context is inappropriate, but especially when the series seeks to highlight the story of one specific Asian culture. It’s unclear whether Kapila’s statements were made in response to Yoon’s and Liu’s statements.
On March 8, the producers announced that the fifth season would be the final season of Kim’s Convenience, as the co-creators Ins Choi and Kevin White move forward to work on other projects. Liu shared a lengthy Facebook post on June 2, the day the fifth season aired on Netflix, detailing his experience and why the show was coming to an end. He also went on to discuss lack of adequate pay and support from the crew.
“Our producers were overwhelmingly white, and we were a cast of Asian Canadians who had a plethora of lived experiences to draw from and offer to writers,” Liu writes. “I can appreciate that the show is still a hit and is enjoyed by many people… but I remain fixated on the missed opportunities to show Asian characters with real depth and the ability to grow and evolve.”
These statements came shortly after the announcement of a spin-off series focused on the white character Shannon, played by Nicole Power, which Liu addresses this in his statements.
“The producers of the show are indeed spinning off a new show from the Shannon character. It’s been difficult for me,” Liu says. “I love and am proud of Nicole, and I want the show to succeed for her… but I remain resentful of all of the circumstances that led to the one non-Asian character getting her own show. And not that they would ever ask, but I will adamantly refuse to reprise my role in any capacity.”
171 Comments
I do like how Andrew Phung is like the Mike Wozniak of this crew and the only one who’s not like slating the product.
What project was Wozniak involved in that everyone else involved slated?I don’t like how the article is in desperate, desperate need of editing for basic readability. First paragraph: “following The Globe’s article.” Which article? Which Globe? (the Boston Globe is the most famous by that name, but it’s a story about Canada so maybe the Toronto Globe is meant?) Second paragraph: “Yoon wrote on Twitter in response to Doyle”. Who the fuck is Doyle? What did Doyle say or do that Yoon is responding to? No explanation, and not referenced in the other article linked to either. Not to mention that if you’re quoting a tweet in Korean, it might be helpful to translate it to English for those of us who don’t speak Korean!
Fair call. As an Australian, what the hell was that Simpsons episode, set in Australia?
“Yoon wrote on Twitter
in response to Doyle: “Dear sir, as an Asian Canadian woman, a
Korean-Canadian woman w more experience and knowledge of the world of my
characters, the lack of Asian female, especially…”
WHO is Doyle (who is mentioned multiple times but never introduced in the piece)? Why do I care that he blocked Yoon on Twitter, if I don’t know why I should care? It is difficult to understand what’s happening in an article if all the neccesary details are not included. It is a basic necessity of journalism, yes? One should not have to do a Google search, or click on external links so as to figure out who is who…
John Doyle is a jackass critic for the Globe & Mail who is always saying obnoxious things. This include referring to Dan Levy as fey (a homophobic slur) and this article about the end of Kim’s Convenience, where he basically called Simu Liu ungrateful.
Doyle is an ass, and you’re right in what you say about him, but the previous poster is correct about how poorly this article is written, in its unexplained references to the guy (I only knew he’s the G&M’s crappy TV hack because I’m Canadian) and to the frequently-cited-but-unlinked article that apparently provoked much of the exchange in question. It’s like there’s a sentence, or maybe a full paragraph, missing from the top of this thing.
I’ve increasingly noticed pop culture writers, particularly of the younger Millennial/Zoomer variety, tending to assume that everyone is just as Always Online as they are.
His article did not provoke the discussion, Simu’s complaints about the show did. He’s a Han Chinese Imperialist appropriating roles from Korean Canadians but he can hide his hypocrisy behind his public wokeness of course.
I’m aware that the article was poorly written. My comment was providing context.
I have never heard the term fey in my life before this comment.
Well, now you have. Ernest J is correct, it is a term that means effeminate and delicate and is very homophobic when applied to a gay man.
Well I guess I’ll never call a gay person that then.
Same entomology as fairy , which yeah would probably be a slur in that context too.
I don’t know. Calling Fairies “the fey” or “fey folk” has a long tradition in fantasy fiction. Unless you’re using “fairy” to slur gays, then yes, absolutely. It was common in noir detective fiction in the 1930’s/40’s when it was sort of like “confirmed bachelor” to allude to someone being effeminate/gay without coming right out and saying it, but I haven’t heard it in years.
“Same entomology as fairy”
Certainly isn’t.
roz called louis the 14th fey on frasier
It’s kind of an old-timey word for effiminate… In the context I’ve usually seen it, I wouldn’t have thought of it as homophobic, but times change, I guess.
“It’s kind of an old-timey word for effiminate… In the context I’ve usually seen it, I wouldn’t have thought of it as homophobic”
So, it means effeminate, but you don’t think that’s homophobic???
implying that because someone is gay (which I want to note, Levy’s character is canonically bisexual) means they’re effeminate…kinda is a slur.
Like I said, times change…In the context I’ve usually seen it (very old books) it seemed like the polite way to say effeminate… but not even necessarily that… more like a type of personality that effeminate could be part of, but I feel like “artsy” would be part of it too, at least from the context in older books. In some books it is actually just a word for fairies (the fantasy novel kind, or Arthurian legend kind)
“Artsy” would be fine, but “effeminate” iirc has pretty much always been a slur (and I perhaps wasn’t clear, it’s fundamentally problematic to link being gay with being effeminate).I’ve seen the “fey” as in literal fairy context, although not in any texts newer than 1800s folklore, I think.
At the same time…David Rose is an effeminate character (or whatever the non-rude term is for a male-identifying person who doesn’t conform to traditional masculine gender performance).Patrick Brewer is just as gay as David (maybe more!), but he presents as far more masculine.
Probably because people have realized how offensive it is and mostly stopped using it.
John Doyle is a jackass critic for the Globe & Mail who is always saying obnoxious things.
With opinions like that, I’m surprised he’s not writing for the Toronto Sun or National Post.
Calling Doyle a jackass is being too nice. He’s an absolute shithead and I hope this is going to encourage Globe & Mail to only let him write about soccer, or at least not TV which he’s demonstrated time and time again that he has no place doing.
Just an empty, joyless writer.
*Off-topic word nerdery*I don’t think fey is a slur, because it has a meaning outside of sexuality. But it has a history of being used as a coded term for gayness that means that you have to be mindful of how you use it. The problem with how Doyle used it was how he loaded it up with unsaid meaning. If used in a straightforward manner (i.e., not hinting at a subject’s gayness), it’s a perfectly fine descriptor.I always think of it as a similar word to twee.
It should say this in the article. The article just opens up talking about “Doyle” with no context or even a first name. It’s honestly pretty bad.
Yeah, I searched him out. He is terrible, and is clearly a “consevative”.
Fey is not a homophobic slur. Webster’s defines it as: excessively refined, precious (e.g. a fey, self-indulgent dandy). I’ve met plenty of straight people who were self indulgent and precious, and plenty of gay men who weren’t.
Looks like he deleted his Twitter as well. I guess he might take it even more poorly than he gives it!
It wouldn’t be as infuriating if Doyle’s article wasn’t unwittingly proving Liu and Yoon right: responding to the point about the pay difference, Doyle points to Schitt’s Creek’s established stars and safer bet status, but isn’t that the heart of the problem? When a significant proportion of Canada’s population are East Asian (and have been for decades), why did it take until 2016 for a series that stars East Asian Canadians?He also dismisses claims that the writers lacked diversity, pointing out 13 women (1 of which he noted as Iranian-Canadian). Putting aside that 1 out of 13 is a pretty poor argument for diversity, it also implies that out of at least 26 writers at various times, they couldn’t make room for a single East Asian Canadian writer on a series about life as an East Asian Canadian.Loopy stuff to try and use for gaslighting…
Really? I’m a gay man and I had no idea that fey is now considered a slur. It’s difficult to keep track of what words we can and cannot use anymore. Fey means to possess a vague unworldliness, and if someone called me fey, I certainly would not view that as something awful, nor would I view that as that person promoting hatred and violence against me. But then again, I’m not of those people who feels the need to be constantly pearl-clutching either.The other F word? That is absolutely a slur, but fey? I guess I’ll leave it to all the not-gay people to tell me what words I can and cannot use anymore.
After reading this I also have no idea what Simu Lim said and how this is a defense of it (I can infer, but I don’t know the details or the impetus)
It’s linked in the “Read More” block in the middle of the story. Not sure if that even shows up if you are on mobile though…
I’d blame it on Nu-AVClub, but shoddy copy-editing has been AV Club’s thing for…ever.
I’m still gonna blame it on nu-AV because it’s entirely on brand.
My context was reading another article earlier today. What shitty writing Jesus.
I scrolled back up at the first mention of “Doyle” because I assumed I’d skipped over the person’s full name and relevance to the story, but nope.
The writer he couldn’t even get the name of Yoon’s character right. Yoon plays Mrs. Yong-mi Kim. Umma is Korean for Mom.
The writer he couldn’t even get the name of Yoon’s character right. Yoon plays Mrs. Yong-mi Kim. Umma is Korean for Mom.You probably should’ve watched the show before parachuting in with your “well ACKshually.”
If I had to guess, I think Doyle references were omitted because the writer didn’t want to reward the globe’s negative article with free clicks. Now the question is whether it is possible to quote an article without linking it or not, because if not, I can see why the writer didn’t mention or reference it.edit: and the globe article itself if behind a paywall.
I thought the same exact thing. Isn’t there one or more other folks reading through this stuff before it gets thrown up on the web as an article?
I’m going to pile on, as well. I really didn’t understand this article; there simply wasn’t enough context provided in order for me as a reader to know what the “who, what, why, and where” was of this article. As some other folks stated I was able to infer a few things but I needed to Google who Doyle was and what he said.
The link to the previous article is in the first paragraph. This is a followup/update.
“Actor Jean Yoon shared her “difficult” and “painful” experiences on the Canadian sitcom Kim’s Convenience, defending co-star Simu Liu’s statements following The Globe’s article about the show’s end.”
Meanwhile the same writer went through the trouble of explaining what “Rickrolling” is in another article.“The trend is very reminiscent of the late 2000s meme called ‘Rickrolling,’ a popular bait-and-switch prank using Rick Astley’s ‘Never Gonna Give You Up.’”
modern gmg and journalism lol
I second this. I can parse the stuff about Korean’s not being hired as writers and that’s obviously a problem. But as recounted above, this is an indecipherable mess of a story.
First paragraph, writer for the Globe that disparaged criticisms from the cast.
More glitches with Kinja: There are five (so far) replies to my comment, that I cannot view outside of the notifications page (to reply to or give stars to. They simply do not appear on my end in these comments page, so here is my response to some of those replies…
Suffice to say the article has been tweeked since my initial comment, one tweek in bold:“Yoon wrote on Twitter in response to [the article’s writer] Doyle”
I don’t know what else was added to the post since my comment, but the article is still poorly written, and since it has been edited/updated, there ought to be an “Updated” disclaimer added to the headline as well.
Some have responded to my comment with a link to more information, but again, my point is that one should absolutely not be made to click over to external links to understand an article. A basic rule is that the information in the post itself ought to be thorough enough without linking or searching out additional information.
amen, Critifur–there are clearly no editors to remind the writers of basic requirements.
We’re a few episodes into Season 5, and it definitely feels like a step down in terms of quality; not unlike the dropoff that was the most recent season of the Last O.G.
I thought the most recent season of Last O.G. was pretty great. Do folks not like it?
I’m glad you enjoyed it; I thought it was a nosedive in terms of heart and wit compared to season two. A lot was missing after the kids were gone.
It’s pretty depressing to hear about what a miserable experience it was to work on this show. I loved the first few seasons, and then it became obvious that the characters weren’t growing, I still enjoyed it, but it no longer became must watch for me. It gets compared to Schitt’s Creek a lot because they are the only Canadian shows Americans have watched in recent years, but there really is no comparison. SC, for all of its flaws, did a great job of having all of its characters evolve over 6 seasons.
And SC started strong and then sucked from the middle to the end. It started as a fish out of water story, which is a funny premise. Then there was all this growth and development, and the family came to be part of the town, and now you’ve got a fish in water story, which isn’t a thing – because it’s boring and stupid.As one example, you can only ride so far on the brilliance of Catherine O’Hara. When they went back to Herb Ertlinger in S6 it was like a slap in the face to her amazing S1 work.
Is it nice that David found love? Sure. But watching him sit and smile and bite his lips while Patrick works his way through the entirety of “Simply the Best” was excruciating.
my friend worked on the set and said it was competitive to get placed there because it was such a pleasant workplace. But that probably speaks more to professionalism of its cast, who still made it a great experience for others while clearly being very frustrated with how things were progressing.
Can also give credit where it’s due. It’s completely possible that the production company, cast, etc… did a great job at making a pleasant workplace, while having a HUGE blindspot in actually consulting Korean-Canadians in writing a show about the life of Korean-Canadians. It’s possible they were very competent in one area and completely arrogantly incompetent in others.
Yeah, all of this is interesting (if not all that sadly surprising) since I heard many unhappy experiences from people who worked on the Schitt’s set in various capacities, but the opposite with Kim’s. But that has nothing to do with the actual writing, and listening to the actors.
And yeah, Doyle is the worst. I feel like he’s been writing about TV for the Globe since I was a kid… which he probably has, but has never been a good critic.
>> It gets compared to Schitt’s Creek a lot because they are the only Canadian shows Americans have watched in recent years…WHAT?!
Ten-ply.
https://tenor.com/view/letter-kenny-embarrassing-gif-14972085
I forgot about Letterkenney! Apologies.
To be fair, in the world of the show, that’s what the rest of Canada probably says about Letterkenny.
Is “How It’s Made” off the air now?
The last season was the worst. They had Umma’s MS storyline which went nowhere. They made Janet bi, and then that story never went anywhere. They also had Jung and Shannon’s breakup that was just them shrugging and saying “we should stop seeing each other”.The core of the show should’ve been Jung and Appa’s relationship, which was the original main storyline, and produced some of the best moments, but got shoved into the background.
I think I saw another commenter put it this way on a related KC/SC story – KC starts out sweet and likeable and stay the same through the whole series. SC starts out as kind of monstrous and they grow and evolve throughout the series til you love them.
Miserable? To have the easiest job in the world? To say a few lines?Miserable that the ‘evil producers’ are not ‘taking notes’ which is they ire of every showrunner? There’s never any expectation that actors get to give notes, that’s a bonus.All creatives get upset when their audience starts to dwindle, very few can end on a high note like Schitt’s.
Who’s Doyle?
The worst TV columnist at one of the worst newspapers in Canada.
WTF are you talking about?Globe & Mail is as close to a legitimate national newspaper as Canada has.
spiky faced guy from angel.
No, he’s the guitarist from the Misfits…
ah poor old Glen Quinn 🙁
Pretty sure they were talking about this guy:
Isn’t that the family from all the Chevy Chase Vacation movies? Or was that “O’Doyle” rules?
I’ve never watched Kim’s Convenience, but I’ve been looking for a show that combines that quality of an engaging cast and a comfortable watching experience. This show seemed, from friend’s recommendations, to be that kind of a show and I’d like to watch it. Based on what I understand from this article, though, I’m not sure if watching it is helping to show support for a show with a majority-Asian cast, or tacitly accepting the exclusion of East Asian writers and input in the creative process about an explicitly Korean/Korean-Canadian experience.
I binged the crap out of 1-4, then read they cancelled it, then more stories came out while waited for s5. I binged season 5 in 2 days. It’s bad, what they did to it. and i watched with dread as ZERO things get wrapped up.They killed a good show and will use the mehness of season 5 which they caused as the reason.Also, while Nicole’s character is good, its not spin off worthy.
I’m still watching s5 and there’s no mention of any rapprochement between Jung and Mr. Kim. I had so been looking forward to that storyline. To a lesser extent I was hoping Janet and Gerald got over their terror of admitting their feelings to each other, but looks like nothing there either.
I’ve been watching the show as it was released since S1. S5 is fine, the finale is very good. No, it doesn’t “wrap up” everything – but it changes tone a bit it goes a bit deeper, more personal, and is a last loving look at a rich set of characters.This whole fixation on wrapping stuff up makes no sense to me. I’ve never seen it work well when it was tried – it always comes off as forced.
she is very much worthy of a spin off, she’s got that adorkable thing going for her. I’m sorry to hear about their displeasure though. I have to give them credit, because they did a hell of a job.
I think Shannon is good but I always felt that her character worked really well in the context of her being this refreshing take on the “one white person in a show mostly about people of color”. What I really appreciated about the show is that they let Shannon be this really great, funny, interesting character but didn’t do the thing that I feel like alot of tv shows/movies about POCs do where they become too enamored with the one white character as a “fan favorite” and almost make too big of a deal about the character not being abhorrently racist or being able to dance. However, it feels like in a meta sense, they’re going to do that with Shannon’s character by giving her a spinoff when to me the only characters deserving of a spinoff on that show would be Simu Liu’s character and his homie.
Exactly this, Shannon’s adorkability works best imo when she’s trying to fit in, but as the main character where all of the minorities are side pieces meant to boost her appeal? Good grief, did anyone think that through??
We can disagree, and that fine, but character is rather 1 dimensional. Her random stories about her past are great but the future of her character is pretty limited. Single cat lady(super Orig, though never see the cats), is a tired trope. If it hits NFLX or such ill check it out, Nicole Powers is a good actress, but Shannon wasnt exactly sitcom goldmine.
the mehness of season 5 which they caused as the reason.After watching Season 5, I learned that it was shot during pandemic and all related limitations. In one of the cast interviews, it seems that it was hard for the cast to bond and work as closely together as they did in previous seasons, so that may have accounted for some of the meh.
A kimchee spinoff would have been way more interesting.
The Mehta family should get a spin off.
Ditto. I only ever knew about Kim’s Convenience because of Simu Liu, who was recently cast as Shang-Chi. I took at look at his filmography and saw the show’s name, clicked the link, which brought me to the cast of characters and it’s world. I was hooked from episode one! I got to know the Kim family, their relationships with each other, and how funny everyone is. I got to understand more why Marvel chose Simu Liu for Shang-Chi. He’s intelligent, well-spoken, and a funny likeable guy. I binged the first three seasons in half a week wondering if any of the cast would make a cameo in the MCU movie. I am now in the middle of season 4. I then started seeing articles pop up about the treatment of the main cast, mostly coming from Simu Liu. Then Jean Yoon brought to light her terrible experiences and basically punctuated everything Simu has been posting. It’s just fucked up because I love the show so much, and to know that this is the outcome really makes watching the rest of the seasons a painful experience. Also, as much as I enjoy watching Shannon’s interaction with Jung, I was honestly surprised to learn she was getting her own spinoff instead of one of the main cast.
It was interesting from A, This shang Chi news, B, i dated Korean girl so i had a ton of context, C, sister told me it was funny. And it was. Its funny that Joon talks about the cooking, because they really only talk about 2-3 dishes, but Koreans have 7-8 household staples that are all bomb.
My context is that I’m Filipino so I already know how it is growing up in an Asian household. That and crew of Korean, Chinese, and Japanese friends growing up. Two of my best friends in junior high were Chinese and Korean. One of my skater friends back then who I’m still friend with today is Japanese Korean. There were many family gatherings with Oh So Much Good Food. The homecooked food was basically like being in a restaurant. So good. SO GOOD.
CanCon Token show…Corner Gas + Koreans = Pandering CanConIf you’re Canadian, and you enjoy the show, you’re part of the problem.
Watching it is doing both, but hopefully the showing support outweighs the accepting exclusion. I haven’t watched the show before either, but based on praise I’ve heard from other it sounds like there are still some quality storylines. And this is blowing up big enough that maybe future productions will feel more pressure to have more knowledgeable and representative writers. Someone asked in Jean Yoon’s Twitter thread if they should stop watching and she responded, “Please keep watching! There is lots that is wonderful, we ALL worked hard to make it as good as we could. Some stories & bits are problematic, but … I am especially and unconditionally proud of S1.” So there’s also that.
Letterkenny is good, well cast and very wholesome. It has a brisk pace, not too many episodes (every season is like 7 episodes) and there’s a solid continuity maintained that’s also easy to follow. It has some gross out gags in the early few seasons if you mind that. Or if you don’t mind that, there is A LOT of fast-paced wordplay, so make sure to have subtitles on because these motherfuckers make lightning fast puns and love alliteration.It’s also surprisingly, for lack of a better word, woke for a kind of dirtbag comedy in the vein of Always Sunny or Trailer Park Boys: they make sure to cast actual Native Americans (like the great Kaniehtiio Horn) and consult them on storylines, dialogue, clothing etc. and half the characters are at the very least bisexual, with the season 5 opener set at a gay wedding.Most hilariously there’s a storyline where the alt-right invades the town and tries to recruit the rednecks… even though the largest, most redneck-looking of them religiously attends gender studies classes. The joke at this point is that you’d expect this would be an arc, but it lasts like a single episode because there’s just no bigots in Letterkenny; even the two resident dumbass sex-crazed Jocks constantly worry about inclusive language.
Mentioning Letterkenny without a single note about farts?! How dare you, sir/ma’am/nonbinary equivalent.That show is friggin awesome.
I hate to do this, but… “they make sure to cast actual Native Americans (like the great Kaniehtiio Horn)”
I doubt that at least the Canadian indigenous cast members identifu as Native American…
Yeah, my bad – I wrote that automatically, then saw this braindead mistake when I returned to the tab but it was too late to edit.In my slight defense, I’m Polish and I’ve only really been learning anything about the indigenous peoples of North America over the past few months (mostly through podcasting), so I’m just not used to the word – and I’ll admit it’s been somewhat hard to switch to other terminology, since in Polish the only real term that appears with some regularity is still “Indians”.
The first three seasons are honestly pretty great. It’s sad to hear about these issues now, but it does seem that the biggest problems were in the fifth season. I’d say the seasons 1-3 are well worth watching.
This is an odd position to take.The CBC tried hard to ‘include’ and make it’s new comedy about a group that had never had one – a *tiny* community in Canada, a small fraction of 1%.Comedy writers are even more rare.Probabilistically speaking, there are probably ZERO Korean-Canadian comedy writers – let alone ‘decent ones’ – let alone a pool of decent one’s to draw from.The ‘One’ was the founder of the show and the creative lead the whole time.And by the way, you left out the part where Imperial Han Chinese Simu appropriated a role from a Korean Canadian?
If we were to adopt your insufferable standards for ‘maybe viewing a comedy’ – the rational choice would be to never, ever make them. There is no ‘winning’ in trying to promote diversity, because all paths end in claims of ‘EXTREME RACISM’ (their caps, not mine).
Yoon indicated that the gag where she was to wear skin-coloured pants and someone would be embarassed to tell here was ‘EXTRMELY RACIST’. By what standard is that ‘racist’? Or is this just the petty grievances of cockroach creatives on their last job ever?It was nice of the CBC to make a show with a Korean-Canadian focus, a tiny community when frankly there are much larger communities in Canada to focus on – but if this is the end result, they should to back to Boring Historical Dramas.
I’d watch it in hopes the success can lead to more shows about more Asian characters, but actually show some consideration for the culture next time. Baby steps….
The first 2 seasons are some of the best comedy TV of the last decade.
I’ve watched the first three seasons, all of the main actors are so good.
I started it and it made me uncomfortable. I’m just a boring cis-hetero-white-dude, but it felt old fashioned (not in a good way) to me. I remember seeing an interview with Chapelle about part of the reason he ended his show was he couldn’t tell if the white guy in the audience was laughing at or with, and I felt like this show was aimed more towards laughing at.Maybe I’m way off base, but the subsequent articles that have come out make me thankful I trusted my gut.
“I’ve been looking for a show that combines that quality of an engaging cast and a comfortable watching experience.”A.P. Bio fits the bill. A truly strong ensemble cast top to bottom: Howerton, Oswalt and several supporting actors who absolutely slay their roles.
It’s miles better than Fresh Off the Boat from the little I did watch. Maybe just quit after S4?
There has been something off for me in season 4. I couldn’t put my finger on it and then upon learning that there were no Asian writers, I finally got it. There have been many episodes where a white side character does some microaggression, and in certain instances, things I find straight up racist and oh, it turns out Janet misconstrued it and it was all a huge misunderstanding. Now Janet is apologizing to this white person for taking their racism the wrong way.I really want to like this show but those episodes make me uncomfortable.
There is no such thing as a ‘microagression’.It is not a random other person’s job to assess or understand your needs or triggers.Almost infallibly, nobody is trying to, or affecting, any kind of aggression.
If you are triggered by something, it’s your issue to work through.
I was wondering what the overtly racist material she mentioned was. Does sound pretty bad.
Maybe y’all will hit a paywall, but here’s the article in question:https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/television/article-bitterness-abounds-more-fallout-from-kims-convenience/
I know really the main reason to write about this story is just to get outrage clicks, but good Lord add some context to a story if you’re going to write about it. 99% of people outside of Canada have no idea what The Globe refers to or who “Doyle” is.
I’m a Canadian, and after a few years of actively avoiding even looking at The Globe (National Post lite), I had completely forgotten who Doyle is. So even many Canadians have no fucking idea who they are talking about in this article.
National Post lite? Isn’t that kind of harsh? I see the Globe and Mail being pretty centrist – leftish at times.
I can tell you’ve only been reading for a few years. Keep it up, I’m sure you’re going to learn something soon.
My understanding of Canada is based on Hockey, the Kids In the Hall, Letterkenny and Schitt’s Creek.
As a Canadian, this pleases me.
Canada is a character on South Park, right? I thought I’d heard of it.
Yeah, after skimming through it and some comments, I have no clue what it’s all about.One comment mentioned excluding asian writers on a show about asian culture in america, so if that’s the case then that’s pretty shitty.That’s about all I got.
Canada bub not America, Straight Off The Boat’s the American show starring a Korean American lead.
Canada is in america
They’ve now updated it to say “[the article’s writer] Doyle” – but they still don’t have his first name! They also refer to the newspaper as ‘the Globe’ throughout the article, without ever identifying it as the ‘Globe and Mail’. For all we know it could be the Boston Globe, or any other of the presumably dozens of newspapers that have ‘Globe’ in their name. At this point I don’t even think this is copyediting, I don’t think the author even looked at the article the actor’s tweet was responding to. Maybe the AV Club can’t afford to get behind the paywall.
there’s always something else, to break your heart.
Wow. Not only is this racially insensitive and lacking context, but it littered with inaccuracies. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Yoon plays Mrs. Yong-mi Kim. Umma is Korean for Mom.
By the way, Appa is Korean for Dad. There was even a bit in one of the episodes about how Mr. Kim’s name isn’t Appa, it is Sang-il Kim, and Ms. Kim isn’t named Umma. Maybe someone who watches the show or knows Korean culture should be writing about it.
There is no context as to who Doyle is or what they said. Other comments have already gone into details on this.Your piece reads like Liu said he didn’t have support from from the crew, yet he specifically called out how great the crew was and laid the blame those above-the-line.Overall your writting is sloppy. The lack of editorial oversight is glaring. Do better.
You’re not wrong, but the show very clearly calls Mr and Mrs Kim “Umma” and “Appa” all the time and it is by far the main way the characters are addressed throughout. There’s nothing wrong with saying that when referring to the characters they play in an article, as it is clearly how most people would immediately recognize them.
Not to mention that Jean Yoon’s Twitter profile even says “Umma” and not Yong-mi. The article isn’t well-written, but referring to the character by the name most often used to refer to her in the show is not part of it.
Agree, while it’s infuriating when writers/reviewers get basic cultural stuff wrong, in this case, as a long time (non-Korean) fan, I think of Mrs. Kim as “Umma” and Mr. Kim as “Appa”.I… can’t explain away the Doyle stuff though. That was incredibly sloppy.
the show very clearly calls Mr and Mrs Kim “Umma” and “Appa” all the timeWell, no.. “the show” doesn’t call them that, the characters call each other that. If this were another show, where kids call their parents “mom” and “dad”, or spouses called each other “honey” or “sweetie”, would people refer to any of those characters by those “names”? No, they would not.
From her own Twitter bio: Umma @KimsConvenience
If you said her character name or Paul’s, the majority of people would have no clue who you mean.
Umma and Appa are just fine.
Mr. Kim allways calls mrs. kim Yabo no?
Yep, yeobo is a Korean term of endearment like “honey” or “darling.”
I mean you’re telling me that if I made a show where someone’s exclusively called Mom and that’s all they call her you’d be shocked if people refer to them as Mom?
While I get your point of view, it would have been more accurate and respectful to write “Yoon, who played Mrs. Yong-mi Kim, or “Umma,”…”
And it would be more accurate to call Grampa Simpson “Abe” or “Abraham Simpson” all the time but you’ll likely confuse your readers and also show them you’ve got a stupid giant stick up your ass.
Again, the actress herself refers to the character as Umma, so perhaps this is not a crusade worth fighting.
To me this just highlights the fact that the only research the AV Club writer did for this piece was looking at Jean Yoon’s twitter account.
Yep, it’s a style thing. In the scripts and credits, the character name is Umma. Probably a less common conceit for a TV show not adapted from a play, but a pretty typical thing to do in dramatic writing (and writing about dramatic writing, so its accurate here!).
C’mon! Do you know who Dr. Roy Hinkley or Jonas Grumby are? Of course not. The Professor and Skipper were never known by their “real” names. And Gilligan was never called Willy.
They didn’t show the right food?! Oh, no!
Of course it matters. Imagine a series set in Italy where the grandmother busts out her classic Kansas City-style ribs.
Or how they wore shoes in the house on “Fresh Off the Boat”
So, Gabrielle? Care to answer a really pressing question I’ve got? Who the fuck is Doyle? Perhaps you should run your blog posts via an editor or a proof-reader before you thump that “publish” button, yeah?
Man, every new thing I read about Season 5 is a downer. I love the first four seasons and haven’t watched the 5th yet, and while I had heard it ends in an unsatisfying manner actually reading more concrete details of the finale, as well as everything that went on behind the scenes, is a gut punch. The cast and characters deserve better.As for the G&M article this piece is referencing, as noted in other comments Doyle is a known jackass who engages in jackassery and his loaded comment about Liu being ‘ungrateful’ was almost certainly intentional. Eff him.
This story deserves a better writer or any writer at all. I would hesitate to call the person who wrote this more than an aspiring blogger with posting privileges.
This was difficult to read. Get someone to proof read before posting stuff that is missing key bits of information.
With all due respect this is one of the worst written articles I have seen on a Gawker/Gizmodo/G/O site. WHO IS DOYLE?
“Our producers were overwhelmingly white, and we were a cast of Asian Canadians who had a plethora of lived experiences to draw from and offer to writers”I’m sure those “overwhelmingly white” producers were a monolith who all shared the same lived experiences, right?The casual racism of the statement “overwhelmingly white” – used as an obnoxious and ignorant takedown in this context – and its acceptance is a sad testament to how many steps backwards society has taken in the past few years.
I’m sure so many of those white producers have a lived Korean experience. Don’t be disingenuous.
The Canadian television industry (I’m not including the film industry, because frankly, there really isn’t one, at least in English Canada) is notoriously white and many producers are trust fund kids. Yes, there are the token members of visible minorities and white women are well represented. For creators, it is essentially an exclusive country club that is very hard to get into.Kim’s Convenience should at least have had a consultant in their writers’ room. Maybe the producers should have taken the playbook from another producer I overheard say that you should write what you have lived through and therefore there should be no history movies. Weird comment, but I did hear it uttered from a Canadian producer’s lips about ten years ago.
Ins Choi, the Korean-Canadian creator, and playwright who wrote the original play and had a long history with Asian-Canadian theatre remained on the show (his leaving was one reason it was canceled) so I’m sure he would have found it strange to then hire a Korean-Canadian consultant. But it does seem like a mistake to (apparently) have no other Korean-Canadian writers involved.
Sounds like all these Koreans should start their own production company and not let any white people in it.
So her example of ‘EXTREME RACISM’ is the gag where she wore skin colour pants, and someone was nervous to tell her?How is this an example of racism? Let alone ‘EXTREME’ (her caps, not mine).If that’s the ‘racism’ in the show – then there is no ‘racism’.It’s repulsive that curmudgeon actors, or those who don’t get the pay they want (almost none), or who have a variety of grievances shriek the ‘R’ word unsparringly because frankly it’s going to fall on deaf ears. It’s a comedy show, not a documentary. Korean-Canadians make up a small fraction of 1% of the population, comedy writers an even smaller percentage. Statistically speaking, there probably is literally not even a single Korean-Canadian comedy writer, let alone one to chose from.
And of course the gross hypocrisy of Simu, a Chinese man appropriating roles from Koreans in full Han Imperialist style.
I feel a few ways about Simu’s statement. For starters, Kim’s obviously needed Korean writing staff. That single handedly would’ve mitigated a lot of the casts concerns. Also, the idea that Simu has “gone Hollywood” is nonsense. He’s still a humble person and I know this much through work. However, Canadian sitcoms don’t schedule or budget for much ongoing collaboration between talent and creatives. Ultimately, its a case of it being done this way or not at all and I think most people would prefer they get a show at the end of the day.
Actor Jean Yoon shared her “difficult” and “painful” experiences on the Canadian sitcom Kim’s Convenience, defending co-star Simu Liu’s statements following The Globe’s article about the show’s end.Yoon wrote on Twitter in response to [the article’s writer] Doyle: “Dear sir, as an Asian Canadian woman, a Korean-Canadian woman w more experience and knowledge of the world of my characters, the lack of Asian female, especially Korean writers in the writers room of Kims made my life VERY DIFFICULT & the experience of working on the show painful.”Even with the terrible update, what a fucking joke. You need a paragraph in there explaining “Canadian newspaper The Globe,” who wrote the article, the article writer’s FULL NAME, and a summary of Doyle’s comments to make this make any sense. You don’t even fucking link the Globe article!Listen, Doyle’s article is total trash, but this piece of writing is such shoddy crap.
It’s also called “The Globe and Mail,” not “The Globe.” But I guess getting the name of the paper you are pulling your article from right is too easy.
This blog post was so poorly written it makes Doyle seem pulitzer prize worthy. You and your editor (LOL, probably isn’t one) need to apologize to whatever hack online school bestowed a “journalism” degree upon you.
Yes I am so sure she is crying herself to sleep on those fat stacks of money. She should have quit if she actually felt that way.
“fat stacks of money” lol it’s Canadian television. She probably still lives with a roommate.
It seems really weird that you wouldn’t have anyone Korean on your writing staff for a show about a Korean family, but what do I know.
It seems *very* weird to wave away concerns of Koreans by saying that you employed a Black person.
Not really Koreans love black people. They’re basically the only ones that they tolerate.
I’m posting this here so that I’ll be too embarrassed to recant and come back: I’m done with the AV Club. I’ve been reading this website daily for well over a decade. It used to feature the best pop-culture writing on the internet. This hasn’t been true for several years, but I kept coming back out of habit, and because I couldn’t find anything to replace it. Now, between that godawful Ellie Kemper horseshit; and this article that doesn’t even conform to basic norms about how information is conveyed, I can’t justify coming back here. I feel like I put more effort into reading this dreck than anyone did into writing it.
I’ve loved the CBC for years, but they’ve just about broken me with this and how they treated Trickster. The cancelled it when the showrunner was revealed to have lied about being Indigenous. So a fantastic cast full of First Nations actors all lost their jobs because one White person lied. How is that remotely acceptable? And now a cast of talented Korean actors lose their jobs after failing for years to fight for proper representation within their own show. There is something seriously wrong about how CBC and the production companies they work with are handling things.
The depressing Trickster situation wasn’t CBC’s to make, ultimately it sounds like (even when original creator Eden Robinson felt they should just cancel things…)
The more I read about this show, the more surprised I am it lasted this long. 5 seasons isn’t very long but it’s not that short either, and there seems to have been a lot of troubles behind the scenes. Having to replace both showrunners and find a more diverse writing staff than they did the first time around is not something that’s easy to do in a short amount of time, especially in the Canadian market. Doing it in a context where everybody is fighting is even worse. The show was just not built on strong foundations.
It wouldn’t be as infuriating if Doyle’s article wasn’t unwittingly proving Liu and Yoon right: responding to the point about the pay difference, Doyle points to Schitt’s Creek’s established stars and safer bet status, but isn’t that the heart of the problem? When a significant proportion of Canada’s population are East Asian (and have been for decades), why did it take until 2016 for a series that stars East Asian Canadians? He also dismisses claims that the writers lacked diversity, pointing out 13 women (1 of which he noted as Iranian-Canadian). Putting aside that 1 out of 13 is a pretty poor argument for diversity, it also implies that out of at least 26 writers at various times, they couldn’t make room for a single East Asian Canadian writer on a series about life as an East Asian Canadian. Loopy stuff to try and use for gaslighting…
Wow, Liu doesn’t sound like a jealous, anti-white racist at all…I wonder why people are saying that?I don’t think most of the Korean-Canadians I grew up with would know much about whatever she’s going on about. I think their parents came to Canada in the 60s, so pretty much Canadian food and culture for them.And the majority of Canadians are Europeans from the British Isles, France, Germany, Poland, Ukraine, etc., etc. (And it is known as the Great White North, after all.)Why does Liu get to identify herself as “Korean” in a prideful and mass media celebrated manor, and at the same time can freely denigrate and dismiss the personal national and/or ethnic histories of the Canadian families that must have welcomed her family as new immigrants? She does this intentionally when she uses the modern perjorative American import term “white” to label them as a homogeneous group.“White” Canadians of different ethnic, political, and religious backgrounds have fought each other throughout the centuries long history of Canada —- the FLQ, a domestic terrorist organization, was kidnapping and bombing other “Whites” over language(/religion?/communism?) as recently as the 1970s.Maybe she should be less worried about Korean culture, and more worried about learning some Canadian culture. (As garbage as CanCon is sometimes, eg: her show).
What would be an awesome result of all this is if Netflix somehow purchases the rights to this show, gets the main cast to be Executive Producers, with a more multi-cultured showrunner, and let the show really fulfill that potential. If Ins can come back somehow minus that showrunner, then that would be awesome as all heck.
One of the things I absolutely hated was Jung’s lack of real growth through the series. By the time he and Shannon got together, I was expecting him to start his emotional growth, but S5 showed how big a loser he was compared to the rest of the cast. Even Kimchee was lightyears ahead of him. If there were an S6, I would absolutely expect him to grow after what happened between him and Shannon, and ultimately, I’d love to see them get back together.
So many plot threads all left unfulfilled, and that makes me sad. Ironically though, it was both neat and sad that the final scene was done the way plays end. Not sure if this is exactly the way Kim’s Convenience the play, ended, but it was a nice way to end the series given how the series prematurely ended.
Holy shit, she’s captain of the Donnager. It was a small part but I remember it like five, six years later, so she did a good job. I guess I have a new show to watch.Also, like everyone else said, please proof your shit.