Who are your favorite Asian or Asian American yuppies in Film and TV?
October 22, 2014 9:06 AM Subscribe
I've been tasked with writing an essay about Asian and Asian American yuppies in film/TV for an anthology about film and class/labor. Can anyone recommend films to watch (or articles to read)?
Some of the films on my list so far include Gung-Ho!, Harold and Kumar, and Rising Sun. I'd love to get recommendations on recent Asian American films or TV shows where the characters are yuppies--extra points if that is a plot element in some way. Or if you have any ideas of things to read to better think about this.
I'm also interested in Asian films, though that's not my focus, but if you've got interesting examples, bring them on. For example--I know there's an Hong Kong romantic comedy or action movie from the '80s or '90s where a woman is introduced to an American Born Chinese who's come back and is wealthy, Stanford-educated. Bonus points if anyone can remember the name of this. I think it's a Wong Jing movie.
Some of the films on my list so far include Gung-Ho!, Harold and Kumar, and Rising Sun. I'd love to get recommendations on recent Asian American films or TV shows where the characters are yuppies--extra points if that is a plot element in some way. Or if you have any ideas of things to read to better think about this.
I'm also interested in Asian films, though that's not my focus, but if you've got interesting examples, bring them on. For example--I know there's an Hong Kong romantic comedy or action movie from the '80s or '90s where a woman is introduced to an American Born Chinese who's come back and is wealthy, Stanford-educated. Bonus points if anyone can remember the name of this. I think it's a Wong Jing movie.
Tiffany Blum-Deckler from Daria? She's not a major character, though.
posted by PussKillian at 9:25 AM on October 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by PussKillian at 9:25 AM on October 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
The Wedding Banquet.
posted by Melismata at 9:31 AM on October 22, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by Melismata at 9:31 AM on October 22, 2014 [2 favorites]
The Joy Luck Club.
posted by hummingbird at 9:31 AM on October 22, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by hummingbird at 9:31 AM on October 22, 2014 [2 favorites]
Are K-Dramas out of bounds?
If not, I would think that they would be FULL of Yuppies, Pretty Boys, Rich Boys and the like.
posted by John Kennedy Toole Box at 9:37 AM on October 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
If not, I would think that they would be FULL of Yuppies, Pretty Boys, Rich Boys and the like.
posted by John Kennedy Toole Box at 9:37 AM on October 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
it's by no means a great series, but Lucy Liu in Cashmere Mafia. Maybe also her turn in AllyMcBeal.
posted by asockpuppet at 9:40 AM on October 22, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by asockpuppet at 9:40 AM on October 22, 2014 [2 favorites]
Off hand...
Joy Luck Club
BD Wong in Father of the Bride
The Debut
Bend it Like Beckham
The Hangover 2
posted by jraz at 9:41 AM on October 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
Joy Luck Club
BD Wong in Father of the Bride
The Debut
Bend it Like Beckham
The Hangover 2
posted by jraz at 9:41 AM on October 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
Divya Katdare from Royal Pains.
Jess from Bend it like Beckham. (Actress later on ER but I don't know anything about that character. )
posted by Lesser Shrew at 9:43 AM on October 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
Jess from Bend it like Beckham. (Actress later on ER but I don't know anything about that character. )
posted by Lesser Shrew at 9:43 AM on October 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
John Cho's character on the new sitcom Selfie probably hits this also.
posted by brainmouse at 9:45 AM on October 22, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by brainmouse at 9:45 AM on October 22, 2014 [4 favorites]
Not recent, but Margaret Cho's mid-90s sitcom, All-American Girl, examined the topic comedically.
posted by trivia genius at 9:45 AM on October 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by trivia genius at 9:45 AM on October 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
Aziz Ansari as Tom Haverford on Parks and Recreation might count for your purposes.
posted by Flamingo at 9:59 AM on October 22, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by Flamingo at 9:59 AM on October 22, 2014 [2 favorites]
King of the Hill --- Kahn Souphanousinphone and his family.
posted by Ideefixe at 10:00 AM on October 22, 2014 [7 favorites]
posted by Ideefixe at 10:00 AM on October 22, 2014 [7 favorites]
Yeah, King of the Hill for sure.
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:09 AM on October 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:09 AM on October 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
Ross's girlfriend Julie from Friends?
Toshiko from Torchwood?
Although neither are really "yuppies", per se. They're just smart, single, educated women.
posted by MsMolly at 10:10 AM on October 22, 2014 [2 favorites]
Toshiko from Torchwood?
Although neither are really "yuppies", per se. They're just smart, single, educated women.
posted by MsMolly at 10:10 AM on October 22, 2014 [2 favorites]
This is a whole subcategory of recent Bollywood movies! Some are better than others. The Namesake (starring Kal Penn of Kumar fame, in a vastly superior performance) is a personal favourite - I have rarely seen a movie that speaks so much to my own experience. Both the novel and the movie would work well for your purposes I think.
posted by Ziggy500 at 10:11 AM on October 22, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by Ziggy500 at 10:11 AM on October 22, 2014 [2 favorites]
Ang Lee's Eat Drink Man Woman is the story of a widowed Taiwanese chef and his three daughters trying to navigate life and love and adulthood. The middle daughter is a classic Type-A go-getter airline executive on the upward career track and would probably fit your mold. Also, it's just a really nice movie.
(Although apparently it was pretty much completely remade in Mexican-American trappings without missing a beat, so maybe this is just universal human stuff.)
posted by Naberius at 10:18 AM on October 22, 2014 [2 favorites]
(Although apparently it was pretty much completely remade in Mexican-American trappings without missing a beat, so maybe this is just universal human stuff.)
posted by Naberius at 10:18 AM on October 22, 2014 [2 favorites]
The Taiwanese drama-comedy, Office Girls. It is on Hulu.
posted by Tanizaki at 10:29 AM on October 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by Tanizaki at 10:29 AM on October 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
Daniel Dae Kim (Jin Kwon) and Yunjin Kim (Sunny Kwon) in Lost. On the show, Sunny comes from a wealthy and important family and Jin does not. It's not the plot of he show, of course, but that figures prominently in their story.
posted by Room 641-A at 10:40 AM on October 22, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by Room 641-A at 10:40 AM on October 22, 2014 [3 favorites]
Ang Lee's first feature, Pushing Hands, is about an elderly Taiwanese man who lives with his son and his family in the suburbs of New York (Westchester yuppies) and the cultural conflict between those two worlds.
posted by cazoo at 10:45 AM on October 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by cazoo at 10:45 AM on October 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
This is going to get pretty darn broad if you're including Asian-made films/tv, since they'll have tons of people aged 20-40 with professional jobs. Or do you mean something narrower by "yuppies"? Or do you really only want Asian-made films if they have Asian-American characters?
Anyway - you might be able to do this by thinking of actors and then finding parts of theirs that work. First ones that come to mind as likely to have something for you to chew on -
Lucy Liu (many roles)
Sandra Oh (e.g. Grey's Anatomy)
Ken Jeong
John Cho
Lauren Tom plays Amy Wong in Futurama, a main character who's a grad student (in physics I think?), and from a rich family; not sure if that makes her a yuppie
Rosalind Chao plays Keiko O'Brien, a smallish character, but a scientist and the wife of the chief engineer on Star Trek the Next Generation
If you're interested in stretching out the history of portrayals, might take a look at Hawaii Five-O, as an early show with at least a few Asian-American cast members.
posted by LobsterMitten at 10:50 AM on October 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
Anyway - you might be able to do this by thinking of actors and then finding parts of theirs that work. First ones that come to mind as likely to have something for you to chew on -
Lucy Liu (many roles)
Sandra Oh (e.g. Grey's Anatomy)
Ken Jeong
John Cho
Lauren Tom plays Amy Wong in Futurama, a main character who's a grad student (in physics I think?), and from a rich family; not sure if that makes her a yuppie
Rosalind Chao plays Keiko O'Brien, a smallish character, but a scientist and the wife of the chief engineer on Star Trek the Next Generation
If you're interested in stretching out the history of portrayals, might take a look at Hawaii Five-O, as an early show with at least a few Asian-American cast members.
posted by LobsterMitten at 10:50 AM on October 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
Lucy Liu as Dr. Joan Watson in Elementary
Parminder Nagra as Dr. Neela Rasgotra in ER
Ming-Na Wen as Dr. Jing-Mei Chen in ER
Hettienne Park as Beverly Katz in Hannibal
posted by Jacqueline at 10:54 AM on October 22, 2014 [2 favorites]
Parminder Nagra as Dr. Neela Rasgotra in ER
Ming-Na Wen as Dr. Jing-Mei Chen in ER
Hettienne Park as Beverly Katz in Hannibal
posted by Jacqueline at 10:54 AM on October 22, 2014 [2 favorites]
Better Luck Tomorrow
Ping Pong Playa
Saving Face
posted by Comrade_robot at 11:02 AM on October 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
Ping Pong Playa
Saving Face
posted by Comrade_robot at 11:02 AM on October 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
Reshma Shetty who played Divya on Royal Pains?
posted by TWinbrook8 at 11:02 AM on October 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by TWinbrook8 at 11:02 AM on October 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
Can you be more specific with your definition of "yuppie" here? Most depictions of Asian Americans I've seen in films, etc, have been middle-class to wealthy- I feel like seeing poorer Asian Americans (esp. East Asian) depicted is the less common situation. Therefore your question as asked seems a bit broad.
posted by bearette at 11:18 AM on October 22, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by bearette at 11:18 AM on October 22, 2014 [3 favorites]
Better Luck Tomorrow, Justin Lin's debut feature film is about overachieving Asian American yuppie kids dabbling in crime. The crime thing may be off topic, but it makes its own commentary on the world these kids inhabit that may be worth your time.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:22 AM on October 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:22 AM on October 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
Lucy Liu as Dr. Joan Watson in Elementary
She is very clearly portrayed as a latte drinking person with a decent sense of style and was the first person I thought of.
posted by jessamyn at 1:02 PM on October 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
She is very clearly portrayed as a latte drinking person with a decent sense of style and was the first person I thought of.
posted by jessamyn at 1:02 PM on October 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
Can you be more specific with your definition of "yuppie" here? Most depictions of Asian Americans I've seen in films, etc, have been middle-class to wealthy- I feel like seeing poorer Asian Americans (esp. East Asian) depicted is the less common situation. Therefore your question as asked seems a bit broad.
Agreed, I feel like a lot of the examples here are just not-poor Asian Americans - like Parminder Nagra's characters on either Bend it Like Beckham or ER were not really yuppies - just people interacting with mostly white, middle class environments. "Yuppie" brings to mind lattes, boat shoes, wine tastings, class anxiety...
posted by sweetkid at 1:06 PM on October 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
Agreed, I feel like a lot of the examples here are just not-poor Asian Americans - like Parminder Nagra's characters on either Bend it Like Beckham or ER were not really yuppies - just people interacting with mostly white, middle class environments. "Yuppie" brings to mind lattes, boat shoes, wine tastings, class anxiety...
posted by sweetkid at 1:06 PM on October 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
Recently, Vulture published a wonderful article on an adjacent topic:
An In-Depth Cultural Analysis of Asian Male TV Characters Getting Some Action
posted by lesli212 at 1:06 PM on October 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
An In-Depth Cultural Analysis of Asian Male TV Characters Getting Some Action
posted by lesli212 at 1:06 PM on October 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
Many roles played by Sandra Oh... Under the Tuscan Sun, Sideways, Gray's Anatomy, etc.
posted by jrobin276 at 1:06 PM on October 22, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by jrobin276 at 1:06 PM on October 22, 2014 [2 favorites]
Saving Face is great! It's one of the very few films that makes me feel ... comfortable with the portrayal of Asian-Americans on screen. It doesn't have that caricatured feel that so many other films and TV shows have when portraying Asian-Americans and Asians. And it meets your yuppie requirement-- the main characters are a surgeon and a dancer.
This might be of interest to you: CAAMFest - Center for Asian American Media
posted by gemutlichkeit at 1:38 PM on October 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
This might be of interest to you: CAAMFest - Center for Asian American Media
posted by gemutlichkeit at 1:38 PM on October 22, 2014 [1 favorite]
Kira from Teen Wolf. Her dad is a Korean American high school history teacher who did his MA on the regional history of internment camps for Beacon Woods (where the show is set). Her mom is Japanese, and is a kitsune.
The family from Sullivan and Son might be interesting. Theyre an Irish Korean family. The daughter married a doctor and there's a lot of weird class and race issues w that.
Girl Meets World just introduced a new Asian girl character. She does debate, goes to a private school, and is in love with Farkle.
posted by spunweb at 2:22 PM on October 22, 2014 [2 favorites]
The family from Sullivan and Son might be interesting. Theyre an Irish Korean family. The daughter married a doctor and there's a lot of weird class and race issues w that.
Girl Meets World just introduced a new Asian girl character. She does debate, goes to a private school, and is in love with Farkle.
posted by spunweb at 2:22 PM on October 22, 2014 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: Hey all--this is a great list. What a good example of crowd-sourcing! I've favorited everyone's answers.
To give some background, I used to write about film quite a bit but got too busy--and then was asked to write about this because I do a lot of work at the intersection of Asian American arts and social justice at the Asian American Writers' Workshop. (Apologies if any of this is self-linky.)
I'm not quite sure how the journal editors (or I) define "yuppie"--but it seems like the obvious take is to talk about the way films portray Asian Americans as becoming vertically assimilating into American class hierarchy and, I suppose, white identity. The Mindy Project is a great example of this, though a lot of other examples on TV have the Asian American character as being passively high-class (i.e., just a doctor, but in an "unmarked" way). Another thing I wanted to hit upon is the Ariel/Caliban dichotomy of Asian representation: either as wealthy white-collar workers or as heavily-accented gangster/Chinatown types. In any case, I don't really have an angle yet aside from that framework and I'd like to come up with something more ambiguous and fresh than, say, a takedown of some kind. I'm probably going to focus more on Asian American, as opposed to Asian movies/TV, just to make the scope more manageable.
Incidentally, if you're interested in more nuanced, historically situated accounts of Asian Americans and their ascension up the American racial ladder, Ellen Wu has a new book about the history of the model minority that's a real eye-opener--The Color of Success. (We're doing an event about it if you're in NY.)
Ang Lee's The Father Knows Best Trilogy -- I LOVE this series of movies! I was thinking about the scene in Eat Drink Man Woman, where the Type A daughter and her boyfriend are walking through Toys R Us and lamenting the loss of traditional values, while themselves working for the world-remaking financial institutions that are destroying those values!
Yes, Better Luck Tomorrow! -- probably the most important Asian American movie that I haven't seen, but pretend to.
I showed this thread to a friend of mine who's a prominent Asian American cultural critic and he was like: lots of Asian Americans on this thread--who else has seen Debut!? Which made me laugh.
posted by johnasdf at 3:10 PM on October 22, 2014 [2 favorites]
To give some background, I used to write about film quite a bit but got too busy--and then was asked to write about this because I do a lot of work at the intersection of Asian American arts and social justice at the Asian American Writers' Workshop. (Apologies if any of this is self-linky.)
I'm not quite sure how the journal editors (or I) define "yuppie"--but it seems like the obvious take is to talk about the way films portray Asian Americans as becoming vertically assimilating into American class hierarchy and, I suppose, white identity. The Mindy Project is a great example of this, though a lot of other examples on TV have the Asian American character as being passively high-class (i.e., just a doctor, but in an "unmarked" way). Another thing I wanted to hit upon is the Ariel/Caliban dichotomy of Asian representation: either as wealthy white-collar workers or as heavily-accented gangster/Chinatown types. In any case, I don't really have an angle yet aside from that framework and I'd like to come up with something more ambiguous and fresh than, say, a takedown of some kind. I'm probably going to focus more on Asian American, as opposed to Asian movies/TV, just to make the scope more manageable.
Incidentally, if you're interested in more nuanced, historically situated accounts of Asian Americans and their ascension up the American racial ladder, Ellen Wu has a new book about the history of the model minority that's a real eye-opener--The Color of Success. (We're doing an event about it if you're in NY.)
Ang Lee's The Father Knows Best Trilogy -- I LOVE this series of movies! I was thinking about the scene in Eat Drink Man Woman, where the Type A daughter and her boyfriend are walking through Toys R Us and lamenting the loss of traditional values, while themselves working for the world-remaking financial institutions that are destroying those values!
Yes, Better Luck Tomorrow! -- probably the most important Asian American movie that I haven't seen, but pretend to.
I showed this thread to a friend of mine who's a prominent Asian American cultural critic and he was like: lots of Asian Americans on this thread--who else has seen Debut!? Which made me laugh.
posted by johnasdf at 3:10 PM on October 22, 2014 [2 favorites]
Daniel Dae Kim played Gavin the evil lawyer on Angel. He was a compelling character, kind of charming but conniving and unabashedly sinister... but I don't know how he'd fit with what you're going for.
If you are going to do anything about Keiko O'Brien from Star Trek, Deep Space Nine would offer you richer material than her role on The Next Generation. She became a much more complicated character on DS9.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 3:54 PM on October 22, 2014
If you are going to do anything about Keiko O'Brien from Star Trek, Deep Space Nine would offer you richer material than her role on The Next Generation. She became a much more complicated character on DS9.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 3:54 PM on October 22, 2014
Oh, I forgot Johann from Hemlock Grove. He's a very acerbic scientist. Jill Valentine is a teen girl from the same series; she's one of the few genuinely nice characters but unfortunately doesn't know how gothic and poisonous Hemlock Grove is. Trigger warnings all around.
posted by spunweb at 7:00 AM on October 23, 2014
posted by spunweb at 7:00 AM on October 23, 2014
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posted by sweetkid at 9:12 AM on October 22, 2014 [5 favorites]