Just FYI before you dive in: if you don’t know me, I’m an Asian-American male born and raised in Hawaii, which really shouldn’t matter, but since this is discussing issues of race, it may be pertinent for some of you to know at least a minimal amount about where my perspective comes from.
If you haven’t seen it, this week’s episode of HIMYM featured a spoof of kung fu movies that put Josh Radnor, Cobie Smulders, and Alyson Haningan in “yellowface” – i.e. they were in Asian-looking clothing, hairstyle, and makeup.
In the days since, various media outlets have pointed to Twitter as proof that the people were outraged. Angry Asian Man did a short bit about it. The show’s creators apologized via Twitter to anyone they offended.
To which I say: this is fucking ridiculous.
Let me clarify. People certainly have their own opinions of what is and is not offensive. We’re all different, which means that “the line” for us is always different, as well. And if you happened to be offended by the episode, well, that’s certainly a valid choice for you.
But you’re wrong if you think that this was racist. Let’s look at some of your concerns and consider why.
“It was a stereotypical portrayal of Asians!”
This is true if you believe that pretty much all Asians eat noodles, are Martial Arts experts, and dress like we’re all in Kung Fu movies. And if you believe that, you’re the racist, not the show.
In all seriousness, commodification of Asian culture has a long history within American media, and on the surface, this does look similar to that. But the truly damaging stereotypes aren’t in costumes, makeup, or props (which I would make the argument are an aspect of the spoof, which they were clearly trying to pull off here – we’ll get more to this in a later point), but in the actual emotional portrayal of the Asian man/woman.
In actual, truly racist portrayals of Asians throughout the history of American media, the Asian man is weak, effeminate, non-threatening, asexual – with the exception of World War II, when the Japanese male was portrayed as a power-hungry monster. The woman is exotic, fetishized, a doll or flower to be admired/conquered/won over by the white protagonist.
Now, are these elements present in the portrayals here? One could make the argument that they are in some ways (particularly with Marshall having sex with the character portrayed by Lily, and considering the character portrayed by Ted was unmarried/unsuccessful with women), but it’s pretty clear that these elements stem directly from the fact that the roles are being played by Lily and Ted, and therefore have elements of their “real” personalities intertwined. In other words, it’s much more likely that the fact that they were played by Lily and Ted in Marshall’s story is what fed their characterizations and interactions with Marshall, not any attempt, consciously or unconsciously, to feed into Asian stereotypes.
“Why couldn’t they hire Asians to play these roles?”
One of the primary jokes propping up the whole story about Marshall’s training is the fact that the story is patently, obviously made up. Utilizing the main cast within the story helps reinforce that fact.
There are also a couple of practical reasons why you do this, like the fact that they’re your stars, and you want to utilize your stars. In addition, as I pointed out earlier, using the characters we already know as stand-ins for these masters gives us a shorthand to graft onto the characters – because our brains are going to infer (correctly) that these three “masters” are vaguely like the “real” people who we’re seeing portray them. This lets the viewer in on the joke much earlier, rather than being forced to introduce/setup/deal with someone we’ve never met before.
“If they had done this in blackface, people would have lost their s**t.”
Blackface has a very specific, very sad history within the history of American media, and like it or not, this portrayal of “yellowface” is not the equivalent. Look at the way the Japanese were portrayed in World War II propoganda films. Or Mickey Rooney in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”. These are much more problematic portrayals of Asians, and would come much closer to the level of offensiveness that something like blackface has come to represent, and again, have almost nothing to do with costume and makeup, and everything to do with the portrayal of the person itself.
Is that fair? Maybe not. Especially if you felt that this was offensive. But if this is offensive, then you should probably also get upset any time anyone makes a joke about gingers. Or Canadians. Are those more socially acceptable to us just because the targets of the jokes are otherwise considered white?
“Why are they dressed in kimonos?”
I saw this on a blog reacting to the episode (which I won’t link to here). Kimonos are Japanese, not Chinese. Let’s at least get our facts straight if we’re going to be outraged.
“Why are they using faux-Asian accents?”
They weren’t. To be fair, that probably would have been too far. The cadence that they used in dialogue did sound closer to what has often been seen in Kung Fu movies, but again, I would argue that’s part of the spoof element at work, not stereotyping.
If that made you angry, I hope you wrote a sternly-worded email to Quentin Tarantino when he did Kill Bill, because he did the exact same thing.
So after all that, have we learned anything?
To be honest, probably very little. I think that there’s a very real difference between something being potentially offensive (which has a moving target) and racist (which has hatred and malice behind it). Anyone can take offense to anything, because everyone’s experience is different. A joke that’s perfectly funny to me about gout might be horribly offensive to you if you’ve suffered from gout. Our triggers are different, and it’s unfair to assume that a show can always understand what will/won’t set people off.
If I were in the HIMYM writers’ room, I would have absolutely been in favor of this spoof. Watching the episode, it felt pretty obvious to me that this was a spoof of a particular film subgenre, not an attack on a race or culture.
I’m not certain why this particular moment was what set people off regarding the portrayal of Asians in media – there have been much, much worse offenses, even in recent months (Dads and Two Broke Girls both have mined much worse Asian stereotypes on their shows. So, too, for that matter, has Modern Family), and none of these still hold a candle to the actual racism that still occurs today.
If you didn’t think it was funny, that’s fine. Heck, if you were offended, that’s fine too – nobody can judge what’s “too much” for you other than yourself.
But racist? Hardly.