{"id":20977,"date":"2015-02-17T04:02:57","date_gmt":"2015-02-17T04:02:57","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2025-10-15T14:16:17","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T14:16:17","slug":"fresh-off-the-boats-eddie-huang-shows-need-to-match-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?p=20977","title":{"rendered":"Fresh Off the Boat\u2019s Eddie Huang: \u2018Shows need to match reality\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Fresh Off the Boat is the first Asian American-centred comedy since Margaret Cho&#8217;s All-American Girl20 years ago. It&#8217;s been a controversial project, starting with its title, which some feel is derogatory.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s also the title of celebrity chef, lawyer and author Eddie Huang&#8217;s memoir on which the sitcom, starring Randall Park (The Interview) and Constance Wu, is based.<\/p>\n<p>Huang created a stir at the Television Critics Convention in Los Angeles last month over comments he made that the network had watered down his vision. But that didn&#8217;t stop the show&#8217;s sneak preview from earning a solid sampling of close to 8 million viewers. It has since settled into its regular time slot of Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on ABC.<\/p>\n<p>In it, a young Eddie (Hudson Yang) moves to Orlando, Fla., with his family, trying desperately to fit in with the culture.<\/p>\n<p>The Star talked to Huang about his controversial comments, the role of Asians in media, and why Hollywood can&#8217;t seem to get it right.<\/p>\n<p>So why did it take 20 years since Margaret Cho to land another show about Asians on prime time?<\/p>\n<p>I think Margaret Cho was a once-in-a-generation talent. And she just happened to be Asian. And she was way ahead of the curve and the rest of America was not really aware of Asian America.<\/p>\n<p>Now it&#8217;s a little different. Asians have more money. They have consumer power. It&#8217;s taken two generations. Lot of second- and third-generation Asians are flexing their muscle now in fashion, in business, food, music and politics. It&#8217;s created more interest in our communities.<\/p>\n<p>Margaret Cho&#8217;s debut didn&#8217;t have a happy ending. It was cancelled after one season and she complained about network interference. It seems you&#8217;re doing the same, but before your show even premiered. Isn&#8217;t this suicidal?<\/p>\n<p>I saw what they did to her. And I saw what television executives did to other minority groups. And I said I wasn&#8217;t going to let them take my story and do that to me.<\/p>\n<p>I went public because I need the public support. I need the writers to be authentic. If the network and the studio know that people want something authentic they will do something. They don&#8217;t want Panda Express and Moo goo gai pan. They want something real.<\/p>\n<p>Regardless of what happens to the show I&#8217;m proud of the conversation we started. . . . That&#8217;s what matters to me. I keep saying the conversation is what matters.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll be ecstatic if it rated and we got to do a season two and it was even better than season one. But for me it&#8217;s the conversation. People who come after can point at this. <\/p>\n<p>http:\/\/www.thestar.com\/entertainment\/television\/2015\/02\/16\/fresh-off-the-boats-eddie-huang-shows-need-to-match-reality.html<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fresh Off the Boat is the first Asian American-centred comedy since Margaret Cho&#8217;s All-American Girl20 years ago. It&#8217;s been a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":72448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[1009,1004,2124,1],"tags":[2004,2109,2125],"class_list":["post-20977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art","category-fashion","category-interviews","category-news","tag-art","tag-fashion","tag-interview"],"magazineBlocksPostFeaturedMedia":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","medium_large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","1536x1536":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","2048x2048":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-highlighted-post":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-small":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x90.jpg","colormag-featured-image":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-default-news":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","colormag-featured-image-large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-block-extra-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-small-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-medium-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg"},"magazineBlocksPostAuthor":{"name":"Admin","avatar":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/53e6cdc30765aade0129f85e5aeb50124b1d3f5bb9a70373be31e4eb328371e0?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"magazineBlocksPostCommentsNumber":"0","magazineBlocksPostExcerpt":"Fresh Off the Boat is the first Asian American-centred comedy since Margaret Cho&#8217;s All-American Girl20 years ago. It&#8217;s been a","magazineBlocksPostCategories":["Art","Fashion","Interviews","News"],"magazineBlocksPostViewCount":188,"magazineBlocksPostReadTime":3,"magazine_blocks_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"medium":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg",113,150,true]},"magazine_blocks_author":{"display_name":"Admin","author_link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?author=1"},"magazine_blocks_comment":0,"magazine_blocks_author_image":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/53e6cdc30765aade0129f85e5aeb50124b1d3f5bb9a70373be31e4eb328371e0?s=96&d=mm&r=g","magazine_blocks_category":"<a href=\"#\" class=\"category-link category-link-1009\">Art<\/a> <a href=\"#\" class=\"category-link category-link-1004\">Fashion<\/a> <a href=\"#\" class=\"category-link category-link-2124\">Interviews<\/a> <a href=\"#\" class=\"category-link category-link-1\">News<\/a>","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/72448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}