 When Hudson came up to me and said, I want to, I'd like to be on TV. The truth is he was like trying to impress a girl and it was a huge mistake. Dang, he still got friendly. Now we are outside of one of the most famous Chinese restaurants in the entire country, Newport Seafood. It's been featured on a whole bunch of shows and we got two very, very, very special guests. So we are talking about Melvin Marr, one of the main producers of the TV show, Fresh Off the Boat. And we are talking about Jeff Yang, one of the most famous Asian pop culture writers and also the father of Hudson Yang. And don't worry, we're not going to go easy on these guys. We're going to be asking them some tough questions. Let's go! Let's get into just introducing you guys. Okay. Melvin Marr, Jeff Yang, Melvin, what are you doing? I produce TV shows and movies, Fresh Off the Boat, Speechless, Jumanji. I'm from Manabello. Most of the people I grew up with did what their parents told them to do and they became doctors. And it was like a long stretch where they were far more successful. There were moments where I was like, maybe I should have been a doctor. I started out as a television critic, oddly enough. And then I produced A Sun. I've had the great fortune to write about and trace the outlines of Asian America as it emerged. I launched a magazine back in 1989 called A Magazine inside Asian America. I was one of the best. You were sort of like selling Asian American pop culture at a time where even Asian America was kind of like, I don't know. I co-wrote Jackie Chan's autobiography. His first autobiography. Yo, yo! The reason that we did this talk is I think so often we we're with actors and we're with people in front of the camera. There's this whole infrastructure behind it and you guys are all deeply involved or familiar with that infrastructure. I'm curious actually what the first pitch session for Fresh Off the Boat was like. It was actually not a crazy one because Nach, Nach Bacan, who adapted and created the show for television, is like a genius. At the time, it was just so like unknown and unheard of and that people were like, yeah, they're just a little afraid to like say anything about it. Is there a boat in there? They're just like, what is this? Oh, okay, that sounds good. It wasn't until like Dana Walden sort of keyed into what it was and she called me and said, I love this and we're going to make it. At the end of the season, it'll be 101 episodes and it's 100 more than I thought we'd ever make for multiple decades. I had been providing a space for Asian Americans to the Asian American public. I remember in the 80s and 90s, when I was covering Asian American actors and writers. The Russell Wong era. You look at Ming Na Wen. Oh, no. She doesn't age. None of the Kamen Sunita. She could get it. During that era, you asked Asian American performers and creators about what it means to be Asian American. A lot of them would actually sit back and say, you know, I'm an Asian American writer in the sense of a writer who has to be Asian American. But they would push back on the idea that Asian Americans were something that was necessarily core to what they did. Right. They were. And literally until 2018, Asians were denying that being Asian had anything to do with the way they lived their lives in Western civilization. How come it seems like you were on it maybe 30 years earlier? Man. 10 years earlier. Are you an Arab and Jeffle? Yes, he is. Right before the era when Asian Americans basically became a dominant force on student campuses. We launched a student publication. At Harvard, which ended up becoming kind of the core. Like those people who worked on that ended up joining forces with me in launching and becoming a magazine. And the reason why we did it was because we started subtle Asian traits. 40 years. When you look at subtle Asian traits today, I'm just amazed that people find these things still kind of relevant, amusing and interesting because we were talking about that shit like 20 years ago. You need a critical mass of people who are woke to what you're trying to do. But you don't need so many people there that it seems like old news. And that's why I'm not surprised that like fresh off the boat, Eddie Huang came out of New York. You know, he's not from out here, he's from out there. He had a story he could tell. And the reason why I think he was inspired to tell it is because his experiences came out of a place where he wasn't from a jewelry population, where he did experience friction and resistance. And that's the kind of thing which I think inspires people to push back and to create stories. Obviously compared to Jeff, that your Asian awakening came later. Much later because I think for me it was, I grew up in a neighborhood in Manabello where I was the only Chinese kid on the street. To me, the Asian American awakening was a very personal thing. I was not thinking as big as Jeff. I got a little older, I started working, and I started seeing my parents age. Years later, I remember reading this book. It was on my honeymoon, actually. I read this book by Irish Kang called The Chinese in America. And I have to say, maybe it's the Manabello Unified School District, but I just didn't know the story of Chinese people immigrating to America. And it was something that really connected everything for me. But I thought she was brilliant. And I had to just write this note there and say thanks for connecting all the dots. People are showing up. I get so excited now when you hear about an Asian American person that you've never heard of. Right, you think it's crazy that you don't know her because there was a time where it was impossible. It was a time for everybody. Because I always said that I thought the whole CRA thing, I thought that was going to be five years ago for sure. I have been thinking of this thing what's going to happen every five years to the last 25. The first time everybody thought that it was finally going to happen, an Asian American show on network television. I'm talking about a market show on All American Girl. The first review I was asked to write was on All American Girl. You know, I knew Margaret. We were friends in that way that like the five Asian Americans who actually are kind of in that space are friends, right? And I told my editors like, I don't feel comfortable writing the review because I'm concerned, you know, I'm confident that I want to show this to see them. And he was like, well, look, this is your first big opportunity. You can choose not to do it. But at some point you got to decide whether you want to be friends with celebrities or to do a professional job. Watch the show. Amazing. And I ended up writing this like really bad review. I was the only Asian American, you know, with a regular TV beat at the time. She called me up the next day and she was like, I saw your review. And you know, she like tore me a new one. She said, you don't understand. It's not that it's a negative review. We've gotten a lot of negative views. But that that is coming from you and Asian American with a platform makes a huge difference. Because when they cancel our show, they throw this on the table and say, even your community doesn't support it. That will be the killing blow. I'm like, that's not possible. But then 19 episodes later, that more or less, that happened. People who are not involved in the industry, a lot of them sit back and say, ah, man, why don't you just put more Asians in your shows? Why don't they just do this and this and make it they make it sound so easy? Sure, absolutely. We should put more Asians on TV. We should put more Asians and everything, right? But it's not as simple as like, hey, replacing this character with an Asian face. It's got a test in our face. Well, no, well, that's part of it. That's one of the variables. It's a bunch of things. I think it's like there are two separate work streams here, right? How do we get more Asian Americans out there, period, in stuff, right? That I actually think is an act of will. Look, it's never been about lack of talent, or even about lack of opportunity. If people actually chose to, they could have cast Asian Americans in many more roles. That's a separate conversation, though, which I think brings up the question of fresh off the boat and Melvin's uniquely humble approach to it, you know? For fresh off the boat, again, it was the first. It really was to make that work. And there was a cascade effect afterwards. There was a shifting of the direction of the flow of poppywood. I mean, you were at the center of that. And I think history will look back and say, this was a moment that changed the course of our commute. My philosophy has always been like, keep your head down and just get it on the air or get it made and get it up, get it released. Like that's the, I guess that's a little bit of like my parents thought, which was just like, keep your head down and work hard, you know? They, for the first time, really acknowledged that this was necessary, because they all of a sudden saw people around them saying, we're watching from that TV we've never seen before. And it's us. We're seeing ourselves. And I didn't know that I needed it until I saw it. Exactly. Well, that's what a lot of people said about C.R.A.2, right? They're like, damn, why am I getting this weird feeling? Oh, being humanized in this country, in media, and that wasn't even something that I thought I cared about. Who's like a lot of the people watching fresh off the boat? You're competing with Netflix. You're competing with YouTube and Instagram, or at least for the kids in our hit. What I've been told, I've heard a lot. I mean, obviously, the Asian American audiences is huge for us, as well as the African Americans. Jeremy Lin was really funny the time he was on. He was really funny. All my teammates come up to me all the time and say, like, yo, is your mom really like that? And he goes, yeah, we go on road trips. And I'm like, all the guys on the team just binge it. I was like, that's cool. Murray Brewer told me that was his favorite show. I said, all right. The top three shows for Asian Americans, like what they were watching in the first season, were all episodes of Fresh off the Boat. If you actually looked at the other way, who's watching Fresh off the Boat? I mean, actually, the plurality is still quite, because the white audience is the African Americans were second, Asian Americans were third. But I had a funny story about this. Eric Lew, a friend of mine, who runs this group in Seattle, invited me up once a few years ago. Eric, right? I do know him. A big, burly white guy comes up to me and goes, I love your show. Oh, sorry. And I go, oh, awesome. And he was like, you know, I'm so, I forget his name, but he was like the head of the Democratic Party in Seattle or something like that. And then without skipping a beat, I go, oh, so is your wife or your partner Asian American? One of the best part is he looked at me and was like, no, why, why? I'm really sorry. I completely just stereotyped. No, he's like, no, I just love it. Like, just a big white family. He's like, I don't love your show. And I was like, yep. Funny because the discussion has changed, but you know, for a while, maybe even, I'm not saying Jeff did, but he might have called you for a number of years in your career. I mean, a lot of people have called me a lot of worst things in my career. And then I always look at it this way, which is like, if I believe in it and I'm passionate about it, and I believe in someone's vision in this case, I believe in Eddie's vision. That cast of actors, I would have done anything possible to get it on the air. I actually feel strongly that callouts of sellouts are a mistake. One of the things that I became very aware of was, we need more, not less, we need more voices. And the way to actually address, if you don't like something, support something else, right? Don't tear down that thing. You can give a critique. You can try to make it better. If you kill all the vegetables coming out of your garden, you will eat lean for a long time. When I hear things on Twitter, everything's about me or everything's about the products you guys made. I do think a lot of those people kind of enjoy hating on things. And they're not necessarily creating an alternative project. And if those people did create an alternative project, I would support it. And I just see that a lot on Twitter, from a lot of Asians in particular. No, their whole feed is just negativity towards anything. We've gotten it. Wong Fu gets it. Anybody who's been doing it gets it. Creating something at this level, or just like from the infancy level, being an artist or being whatever it is, is not something that I think culturally, for me, where I grew up seeing or being encouraged to do that. Do you feel any responsibility to take care of, or help them gain representation that won't have that? Because if you look at the groups that are kind of getting on right now, bougie what Koreans are getting on, and then Taiwanese in general, which kind of tend to be kind of bougie group, in general, are getting on, come on. Some Asians, too. I mean, I think about it like as an Asian. Specifically, Brahmin class office. Yeah, I don't see Punjabis who like turkeys getting on. I don't look at it as somebody who spends a lot of time trying to figure out the next television show, or the next movie, or the next whatever. To me, it's about the story and the point of view. So whether it's like Punjabi, or hood Asians, or whatever you're saying, it starts with a story and a point of view. Like for Speechless, it was like, you know, after Fresh Up the Boat had been on all year, they were like looking for the next family show. And Scott Silverie, who created the show, grew up in Yonkers, you know, Italian American family, and his family was not. His family, and if you watch that show, it's not about like an upper middle class family. They're always, you know, blue collar jobs, everything. And it's a show about like a kid who has cerebral palsy. You know, and to me, that was a very distinct point of view. What I'll say is this, I have a luxury, because I'm not on the inside, of literally feeling that way. That is, I don't have to actually go out there necessarily and make the story or find the story. I can advocate for those things from the outside. And I do feel, frankly, that, you know, one of the big challenges of inclusion across the board is that it's easy to sort of say, we've done it, we've been there, we're good. Let's move on. We are in the kind of a weird place right now where post-Criticization, searching 12 boys in love. So we've seen certain stories out there. They're distinct and new and interesting stories. But Hollywood works in a certain way. If something works, they're like, let's find the five things that are exactly the same as that thing. With one tiny change, it's going to be crazy witch Asians. And they'll be like, you know, they'll be a family of witches. That's a good idea. Do you think, Jeff, that privilege is Asians? Do you think they care about the non-privileged Asians? I guess my answer to that is no. But it's not necessarily a malicious way. It's just in Asian culture, if you look at it, it's very hierarchical. Nobody cares about anybody who's doing worse to them. I'm going to go harder on that. I'm going to say that I do think we have a huge problem in Asian America with privileged individuals, just totally shitting on those who are less privileged, even within Asian America. You've got to begin with some stories. And I will say this, the most exciting stories that I've been seeing and reading outside of film and television more recently have been coming from Southeast Asian community. It was a much more different experience. Well, like, okay. In theater, for instance, right? Vietnam, Cambodian rock band. These are two modern classics that are created in distinctive story frames that are uniquely Southeast Asian, coming out of history. But these are not historical. I mean, they're historical, but they're funny as hell. They're musical. That shit is going to pay off. I mean, these stories are there. But you're right. We as Asian Americans have to think beyond fresh off the boat in order for some of that stuff to happen. If we crack that code, do you agree that in general, full Asian dudes are considered black in America, socially, not professionally? Because what role does media have to play in changing that order? Is it more on the people? I do agree with that. That has been the stereotype. Like, I remember saying to Johnny Davis, who is our executive at 205 TV, he was like, he said to me, you can do anything in second position. I was like, okay, I would like to do a show. Basically, the kernel of an idea was an Asian American male. I mean, at the time I was even thinking like, I want to develop something for John Chou, because that dude is good fucking looking, right? I was like, how do you... Ironically, he was in selfie, the spot that fresh off boat would eventually take. That's right, ironically. But that was the kernel of the idea, because I do believe, and I do agree that that has been the stereotype. Is it changing? Absolutely. Stephen Young, sorry, not Daniel. Stephen Young on Walking Dead. He's a badass, and he's awesome. And it's shifting away from that. And it is something that was, at its purest form, a motivator for me in terms of developing something and looking for a project. If you think that aspirational representation is just about bougie, upper class-ness and everything, yeah, it is that, but it's also like we want to be seen as hot, and we want those guys with the cut abs and the high cheekbones to represent Asian America. Media has, quite unfortunately, highlighted at a pretty atrocious perspective, pretty atrocious view of what Asian-American maleness looks like. I'm not sure the answer is to necessarily flip the switch and say, okay, we're only going to put our perfect genetic specimens in front of the camera. Like your review? Yeah. The single biggest breakthrough that we're going to see in terms of romantic comedy, it is Randall and Allie's romantic comedy that's coming out from Netflix. Always be my maybe. I haven't seen it yet. Randall and Allie not necessarily super models, yeah. Not exceptionally not, I mean. I'll not tear. I'll say this, they're both really hot. I love them both. What, has Randall been working out? What's been going on? He was actually, he's like a silent work outter. Yes. The thing that you will see when the movie comes out is they are three-dimensional characters and it's not about like what they look like or whatever. It's about the story and the journey that their characters are going through. Are the Asian kids becoming so comfortable in their skin that they're not doing the work enough that's going to push? All right, so when I go to college and I speak and I'm talking to a lot of 18 to 22-year-olds, I'm just like, listen guys, being Asian now for you guys is even more comfortable than it was even for me. And then from me, I look at the 40-year-olds and the 50-year-olds, I'm like, yo, it's way better to be me. So it just keeps getting better and better but is there some fear that the young kids are just going to stand on Instagram, live a fun life, go to festivals? I mean, I'm not all the way over on the like, do what you want to do, live how you want to live in the world. I'm, you know, I haven't seen it. Hudson's going to college. You said Hudson's going to college. We will turn into our parents. I don't know, you have to already have it. A little bit more, yeah, we will. Because there was a moment where we were shooting Speechless in London and Chris Gernon who directed the episode, we put Penny and I were in the scene and at the end of it, yeah, and at the end of it, Penny, she's sitting there and then Chris goes, do you want to be an actor of Penny? And she goes, no, I would like to be a doctor. I'm like, thank God. Yes. Well, you know, that's just for rebellion, right? It's like, thank God. Because you know what? Because you know what my dad was just telling me about? He was still convincing me at the end of the other day to try to go back to school. Well, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, I'm like, super star, super star, you know, you just did okay. Because you know how like, he was trying to tell me about STEM professions. He was like, you know, the reason that like Asians, we love STEM professions because they're so right and then wrong answer. He's like, he's like, Hollywood is all about story and people like your story. And he goes, people generally don't like, like, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's like, he's like, people don't like Asian story. He's like Asian guy story. People don't like it. Why would you go into a game that doesn't want Asian guy stories? You're an Asian guy. That seems like a horrific move. That goes to the what makes you happy. And you want to do this because it makes you happy, right? And same for me, which is I learned very early on and on top of not being smart enough, like just be in the medical profession. I didn't want to be an architect. I trained to be an architect. I didn't want to do that. And it took me a long time to figure out what I love doing. And I love doing this. And it's as simple as that. That's the, that's the conversation with your father because when he's like talking about it objectively the way he is, sure, it makes a lot of sense, right? He doesn't have to live your life. You got to be happy with yourself. You want to wake up every day and like be excited about what you're going to do whether you fail or succeed. I, I really, I don't agree. That actually happened, right? Where when Hudson, who had never shown interest in performing whatsoever, you know, came up to me and said, I want to, I'd like to be on TV. I want to be an actor on TV. I looked at him and was like, what are you talking about? You don't like, you don't even want to play piano, you know, you never perform anything. The truth is he was like trying to impress a girl and whatever, I'm going to back him on that. Tell me he got her. It was a huge mistake. Dang, he still got friends. No, no, no. What happened was like after he actually got cast of the pilot, you know, he's like comes back to school and everything and everyone's like, oh my God, I can't believe you're going to be on TV. This girl's like, I've never talked to him again. It's like, you overshot, dude. Got a commercial or something. It was fun. I was like, I'm going to show her up. You know, was she white? Yeah. He said, you want to do this? And I said, look, I'm not going to tell you enough to do it. Not only in Manakku going to like, I can't, right? I mean, I fought that fight for myself. I'm fighting that fight. So you can say you want to do this, right? But I will tell you that I have a lot of Asian-American friends who are actors and they're really good bartenders. You know, it's like you're an Asian-American, you're male, you will have your pick of roles. But you'll be fighting the good thousands and thousands of other actors. You're in your same boat. You'll see them again and again in auditions. One out of 100 auditions, you might get a callback, one out of 100 callbacks, you might get, you know, to play third waiter from the left. It is a bad life. But some people make it, and if you love it enough and work hard enough at it, you can succeed. And I'll support you all the way if you want to. Fast forward a couple months later, after all this has had, you know, this like crash with the boat, blah, blah. He's like, dad, I thought you said it was going to be hard. It's like you just ruin hours of parental attempt. The fact is it was hard though, because like even after he got the role, he had a lot of growing to do. And yeah. I guess what's the one thing, as we wrap this up, what's the one thing, let's say for example, you know, because me and Amber go to colleges and a lot of people ask us questions about being outside of the box of being Asian-American. Both of you guys have made a successful career outside of the box of conventionally. A lot of them will enter STEM fields, some won't. They're worried. What is your thing, the happiness thing? Because my thing is the happiness thing, more than anything else. It's just what do you want to wake up every morning and do? If you wake up every morning and you're like, you know what, I want to make sure everyone has the right glasses. Go be an apometrist. Like do it. It makes you happy. Like for me it was just like I didn't, wasn't happy until I figured out what I wanted to do. And it was going to be hard. But I, you know, stuck with it. Every place you are, you are someone. You are somebody who represents certain things. You know, whether that be your community, your identity. You go on, just even in public life in general. Whether you got came on your way. It could be whatever profession you're doing, whatever space you occupy, just showing people that you can speak up and speak out and be somebody who is worth listening to. That's important. Loving what you do is important. But loving it also in a way to not be afraid to have that on your outside. That's the thing which I think Asian-Americans maybe have been most challenged with. They need to be local about who they are and what they represent. What we represent. Do you think it is fair for Asians to come from the East to a Western country like America and be generally pretty much disengaged from media voting? A lot of them are. A lot of them are and a lot aren't. Be engaged with it. Like figure out a way to like make, because that's how this country works, right? My family, you know, struggled to get here. They immigrated here. And like it's my duty. It's my like respect to them to be a part of this. I am an American and I may look like this and there are people in this country who don't think I'm American, but they're wrong. I'm American, you know? And I need to do my part. Would you be, go so far and some Asian-activists would like to create unhappiness in the people who don't want to be engaged? That's a way to encourage them to not go that far. Okay, you would not want to. Because I do think there's a fine line of like, it's your right in this country to not be engaged at all. Like, right? It's like- Or be engaged just to the levels that you want. Whatever level it is. And do I agree with you though? I think you should be engaged. I think you should participate. And I think that that is a right set. Like if you looked around and looked at the motherland or looked at other other place, you don't have the right to look at other places. You just, that's not given to you. And this is like an amazing opportunity here in this country to do that. So do it. But if, you know, I'm not going to create unhappiness for you and force you to do it because then that goes against the whole idea. And I don't want to just- I'm on the side of making people unhappy. I look because my business is not selling happiness. My business is telling a different kind of story and pushing people and maybe getting people uncomfortable. You do have the right to opt out of the responsibilities and opportunities afforded to you by living in a country where the very kind of fundamental aspect of being here is to be engaged, civically engaged, politically engaged and ultimately engaged in conversation, right? You have the right to opt out of that. But if you opt out of that, you do not have the right to complain about what you get after. Whenever it comes down to the same thing, I fail to pick up my clothes and therefore they didn't get washed so I can't wear them tomorrow. I did not do my homework and therefore I have to wake up super early and I can't go to this show I wanted to go to. You know what? If you did not make your bed, you did not get to sleep, you know? If you do not take the responsibility to participate, you won't get the rewards of participation. America expects a lot of immigrants, right? That's why we get this bullshit narrative going on all the time about how immigrants come here and take everybody's, you know, the spoils of Americana without whatever, whatever, whatever. The truth is, if you're born in this country, you get everything without having to pay it. You never had take a citizen check test. You may pay taxes and all that stuff, but the reality is you have every, from birth, every reward of being American, public schools all the way up through to, you know, great highways you can drive on here in LA and you never had to actually struggle by and large to get those things. Those will bake into your Americanness. If you're an immigrant who came here, you came from somewhere else which didn't have those things. You had to earn your way to America and you know what? Those are the people who frankly, I think, tend to believe in what it means to the American even more. What one major takeaway about where this whole Asian movement's going, real quick, where do you predict it's going? I guess, you know, I hadn't had this analogy until you kind of said to Jeff, like, the door's open and all Asians are in a line. Obviously, some of us are in the front of the line. Some of us are in the back of the line. I just hope that people in the front of the line care about people in the back of the line and if the door were to ever close, they prop it open with their arms because they're already in there. Well, what you're saying is right and I think time will tell what will hash and, you know, I think what's exciting about it is a lot of things are being validated, you know, and I think you have to go with that and I think part of it is you also have to be patient, you know? It's not going to happen overnight. None of it has happened overnight and if you look at the history of these things, it's never been immediate and that's okay. You have to, you have to stick with it and agent Tom Strickler once said to me, you know, years and years ago that it is America and you just have to stick with it. It's not a sprint. And if you think of it that way, you're just going to, you know, burn out with it. To Melvin's point about a lot of things that you can pollinate right now, you may not like the one thing that's in front of you. You may not be a fan of fresh out the boat. You may not have enjoyed Praise Rich Asians. But there's a lot of other shits coming along now, right? And you love something. You will love something. You need to love something because this is what you fought for, right? I mean, you know, we talk about stuff that could never happen, you know, 40 years ago. Well, you know, maybe the biggest example of that to me is that Justin Lin is finally making Warrior, which is Bruce Lee's, you know, storyline that he imagined and could never make in Hollywood before his death, right? And he and the Lee family, you know, have kind of taken the story in homage to this dead icon of ours, Bruce Lee, and brought it to life. That's happening now. It's possible, but it's possible because finally that door is open. I think that, you know, if I had anything to say to Asian-Americans, it's, you know, okay, you can't afford apathy. It is your luxurious right if you choose to do nothing. But if you don't do nothing, if you do something, the rewards are so much greater. And they're not just for you. There's going to be a lot of Asian projects that come out. They're not going to be for everybody. And they're probably not going to be all good. And they're probably not going to be all successful as the couple of home runs that we've had recently. And this comes from a creator who has been blasted on the internet a few times. We can take the blast, but we want to know that you guys are out there supporting something. Like if I know that all those redditors or those Twitter accounts are also supporting other things that are making a movement, I will feel better about it. You know, it's, you need the analyzers, you need attackers, but you need people to just support it. You need audience. You need audience. That's the other A. Thank you so much for watching this very special episode of From Bros Food. Thank you so much to Melvin Bar. Shout out to Jeff Yang for coming out here. I mean, make sure just, just let us know what you thought of the discussions in the comment section below and make sure you let us know one project that you would like to see come to life in 2019. All right, everybody. Thank you. And until next time, we out. Peace.