 From the Conversation, this is Don't Call Me Resilient. I'm Venetha Srivastava. There are a lot of folks who watch Netflix and they see the recommendations list and they're not necessarily part of these conversations and they will just watch it and never know that there is this other discussion happening. Life is that new dark comedy series that everyone is talking about. When the show premiered this month, it was the show on Netflix. The series follows two LA strangers, brilliantly played by Ali Wong and Steven Yan, who get into a road rage incident and end up in an escalating feud. It's a beautiful meditation on life and survival that highlights universal issues of alienation and loneliness as well as class and race and gender. Critics have lauded beef for its performances and for its revolutionary representation of Asian Americans. But with the show's success has come a horrifying story about one of its supporting actors, David Cho. Over the weekend, a Twitter storm erupted about an old podcast episode featuring Cho. In the 2014 podcast, Cho vividly relays a sexual assault story where he is a perpetrator. In years past, he has said that the story is fiction and he has even apologized. He has also said that he was mentally ill at the time. Unfortunately there has been no response from the producers of beef, which include co-stars Ali Wong and Steven Yan. But the controversy continues to swirl and raises questions about whether the brilliance of beef will be overshadowed by Cho's past. Joining us today to discuss this is Michelle Cho, an assistant professor of East Asian studies at the University of Toronto. She specializes in Korean film, media and popular culture. Also with us is Bianca Mabute-Lui, a PhD student in sociology at Rice University with a background in Asian American studies specializing in racial justice work. And before we get started, just a note to our listeners, this episode contains discussions about gendered and sexual violence. Welcome to you both. Thank you for having me. Thank you. Bianca, let's start with you and then let's talk about beef. What did you think of the show and how did you feel when you saw it? Even before it came out, very excited about it. I was on a trip and texting my partner, don't start this show without me waiting for me to come home. The day after I came home we binged it in two days, which I don't know if I recommend because it's a very intense show. I mean it was very exciting to see this huge range of humanity in the cast because there were so many Asian American characters. I think a few things that stand out are the intricacies and nuances of being part of the Asian diaspora. So that includes interracial socioeconomic conflicts and dynamics of working class and upwardly mobile, as well as intricacies of little comments about, oh, is your husband Japanese? And if you understand history, you know how loaded that is. And then as someone who studies religion and sociology of religion, I mean my colleagues tonight were just having a field day, analyzing the church scenes and what it means for people and what a formative space it was, whether you've experienced harm from the ethnic church or still are enthusiastically part of it. There's no doubt that it is an important piece of a lot of our immigrant communities. That scene with Steven Young in the church, where it just breaks down, it's, I think it's, I mean I've never seen anything like that, it was so beautiful. Yeah. Michelle, you're nodding your head. How does beef stand out for you from other TV shows out there? A lot of commentators on the show have remarked on the fact that the Asian-ness of the main characters is, you know, it's portrayed in ways that counter ethnic stereotypes or especially the model minority stereotype. And while the character's immigrant experience or Asian-American experience is very important to the specific experiences that they're having on screen, they're not necessarily drivers of the plot. And so in some ways their identities are incidental. So I think that's pretty unique. And on the other hand, because I am Asian-American, I definitely related to a lot of the experiences that I saw, especially because I spent my grad school year, so almost a decade in Southern California. And so I really understood the specific references that were being made. But I also researched Korean media and K-drama is huge nowadays. And so I am accustomed to seeing characters who are Asian but have lots of different things going on and don't always have to represent a certain group or category. So it's thing to compare these two realms of Asian representation and how much they are both becoming mainstreamed. That's what me and my partner did during lockdown as we turned to K-dramas. Like sometimes you just want to see good whole representations, especially of Asian men, which I feel like beef does so well. It really disrupts some of those common stereotypes of Asian masculinity. One of the other things is that depiction of anger. There was an article I read last night in Huffington Post and the writer's name Ian Kumamoto, who talks about this idea of finally a show that depicts Asian-American rage. And how important that is. You know, it's interesting because I read a review in The New Yorker by In-Goo-Kong, who's a Korean-American film critic, who characterized the show as focusing specifically on male experience. As in my viewing, I didn't necessarily think that was the case. And so I think it's kind of subjective. I found it a really compelling portrayal of Asian-American women's experience or female rage and the nuances of living in a world in a society that expects a certain type of docility and a placid surface and then fighting to keep anger and other difficult emotions, negative emotions contained. That dynamic was portrayed really successful, I think, by Ali Wong. To add on to that, I think the rage part was cathartic and thrilling in many ways, right? And like you said, Michelle, from Ali Wong's character's perspective, the suppression of the rage, especially with her, the person that she's trying to make this deal with and the response to the Orientalism in the art world that is part of her life. I think I just related a lot to that as an academic and predominantly white field and institution and academia. It's like visceral. You feel it in your body, right? The suppression of your just very natural reactions to the Orientalism, tokenism that happens in our industries. And to see her just go off unhinged was extremely cathartic for me. Yeah. She really holds it together. You're talking about the deal she's trying to make with the wealthy white owner, the woman who's going to buy her business or says she's going to buy her business and how polite she has to be with her. So let's just say that we all felt very moved by this show and we loved it for many reasons. And I wonder in the post lockdown era with the rise of anti-Asian violence, does this show also represent a response in that to some way as well? I have interpreted the show as a commentary on the way that isolation produces really differing realities, like the kind of common space of intersubjective experience seems to have been really diminished by the ways that we were forced to be by ourselves or be in these very small units. Bianca, I know you're doing all the work to try and educate the public on issues of anti-Asian violence and also interracial dynamics. And so I wonder if you were connecting the show to what's been happening in the last few years. It makes me think of Cathy Park-Pong's thesis of minor feelings and also racial melancholia, a lifetime and generations of indignities and pain and racial trauma and grief that during the pandemic, because of the visibility and heightened attention on the attacks for many people, that all of the minor feelings in the melancholia related to racialization was suddenly pulled open, brought to the surface like a womb that was reopened. And so I kind of thought of an interpreted beef in that sense, that with the events and the attention in the last few years, it finally gave a lot of Asian Americans and Asian diaspora communities an outlet and an awareness to name all of these things that they actually have been feeling for many, many years. That's beautiful. Thank you. I want to turn to the larger picture this year after the Oscars, a very large moment for Asian American representation in Hollywood. Everything, everywhere, all at once, also produced by the same production company that did beef, took home many awards. Michelle, can I ask you to talk a little bit about how Asian American representation has changed in Hollywood over the last decade? That changing consumption habits in North America because of streaming platforms, because of, you know, a kind of cutting the cord as it's called colloquially in media studies has exposed people to a lot of different types of representation that don't necessarily come from their local media industry that has really expanded audiences, interests and varied representation, especially of Asians. So I feel that things have shifted a lot just in the last four or five years. So a lot of people will talk about the Korean film Parasite by director Bong Joon-ho as a watershed moment because that film was awarded the Academy Award for Best Picture. It became very visible as a foreign film that nonetheless had a lot of residents locally and would not be pigeonholed. So I think that having media from Asia, just a lot more commonly seen and consumed has also, I think, changed the horizon of what's possible, I think, in Asian American productions. So if we're talking about, you know, how we've moved to be from Crazy Rich Asians, which was also celebrated as a kind of big Hollywood studio buy-in into a film that featured Asian Americans, that film actually brought in and involved a lot of Asian film stars, Asian celebrities, it takes place in Singapore. You know, it's really a hybrid, I would say. And it also kind of presented a pretty limited scope of representation. I think our views perhaps are changing on that particular work now that we see what else is possible. Bianca, do you want to add anything? Thinking about it from an educator's point of view. I remember teaching Asian American film in 2018 and how that was for a lot of my students, Asian or not Asian, their first exposure to any ethnic studies class and a gateway where we got to talk about, yes, Crazy Rich Asians, but also white supremacy and imperialism and all these other very important things. My hope is that it does create on-ramps for people to know that it's not the end goal to have an Asian face at the Oscars. Although that's very important, but that it gives us opportunities to talk more about things like representation, power, racial identity and racism. There's a slightly cynical part of me that thinks about A24, for instance, as this studio that is really becoming the center of Hollywood. If you look at the way that the studio and its productions kind of swept all of the major awards at this year's Academy Awards, which are the industry kind of awarding itself. But nonetheless, the people who are in power ultimately are the people who have been in power in Hollywood for decades. You know, these are white producers, ultimately founders of A24. I'm really glad that film like Everything Everywhere Out Once won the kind of popular and critical claim that it did. But I just have some reservations. So we might have gotten great success in representation last year, but it didn't necessarily shift the balance of power or who makes decisions about what gets made next. Right. Who the access points are or, yeah, who grants the opportunities. So shall we move on to this latest conversation about beef? Beef added another layer. I think to these to this new representations that we've been seeing of Asian Americans, perhaps at a time when it when we really needed it. And then the news broke that David Cho, supporting actor in the series, told a story that he says is fiction about assaulting a black female massage therapist, whether or not it's fiction or not. I don't think it matters. It's the fact that he told the story out loud. Can I turn to you, Bianca, to ask you what you think the news of Cho did in your mind to the brilliance of beef as a series? For me personally, I think it took a day or two for me to process and acknowledge it. It felt weird because I was like, why am I so grieved by this? I mean, of course I'm grieved because what he said was disgusting and horrible. What I've seen, but since then unpacking it the last few days, I feel like I have this parasocial relationship with Alie Wong and Stephen Yuen, right? Where I've loved their work in the past. They seem like really great people to me who I would be friends with. And these are people who endorse this terrible person and employed and protected him. Right. And so that part felt hard. There was this disappointment in these public figures that I looked up to that they were actually part of this culture and even mob of silence that protects abusers. The second thing that I started interrogating was, unfortunately, this brand of very violent misogynist and anti-black toxic masculinity when I think about Asian American men. I have seen that in our community before. Michelle, actually you've spoken about this a little bit, this brashness of masculinity, this representation, that this is not the first time this kind of trope has been around, that some of this brashness may be a response to the demasculization of Asian men in the West. I was kind of thinking about how it's the case that someone like David Cho was able to continue to work in Hollywood or continue to get opportunities to be a public figure. And I think that also in kind of looking at some of the reactions to this news and seeing a lot of Asian Americans who and others actually who are kind of forgiving of Cho because they say, oh, he apologized, he reflected on things, which I don't really actually think he did, or the apologies are very partial. I think the support comes from this desire to see a prominent Asian American kind of bad boy figure who is pushing against stereotype and walking around with this kind of like braggadocio that is appealing because it refutes a certain longstanding image of Asian men as effeminate and as emasculated. You know, I kind of went back to look up information about David Cho, whether or not he had resurfaced before beef. And in fact, yes, he had a Hulu series. It was picked up by FX and then Hulu as an opportunity for him to continue to enact that irreverent and unrepentant politically incorrect persona that he has really clung to and maintained. I also, you know, went back and looked at his appearance in the Korean American chef, David Chang's Netflix series, Ugly Delicious, and the kind of things that he was saying there. And incidentally, he appears in an episode of that show with Stephen Yan. Oh, eating Korean barbecue in Los Angeles. And so you see these connections, his irreverence is celebrated by a certain subset of viewers or fans. There has been some scholarship actually on the specifically Asian pickup artist community or Asian American men who have become kind of prominent as like coaches and spokespeople for this form of masculinity. And it's very clearly a kind of reaction to the many hurtful stereotypes that have been circulating for decades of Asian men as as emasculated as never an object of desire, you know. And so it's it's pretty complex because there is that kind of historical backdrop and set of structural forces. And so in that sense, I feel like it's really important for us to think about David Cho as part of a structure and a system and not so much just this, you know, a singular individual who is perpetrating acts that are disconnected from his social context and also larger forces that could produce what we have here today, which is a clearly abhorrent statement and way of talking about and treating women and specifically a black woman in this case, and then, you know, the kind of silence around it and people continuing to work with this person and think of him as a valuable contribution to the world of Asian American representation. Bianca, that whole time I was watching you nod your head. So I'd love to hear what you what you want to say. Well, first of all, I did not know the extent to all of his activities in the past few years. That's wild. I was also thinking about how Asian American women and feminists in particular have been actually calling out David Cho for the last nine years. I think of how Jen Fang on the reappropriate blog wrote about this very interview nine years ago and the structure of this toxic patriarchal violence and misogyny that Michelle is talking about is also what conditions the silencing and dismissal of women who have been talking about this. So you're saying there's actually there's been quite a lot of work has been done in the past to try and hold Cho accountable. Yes, people have been writing and talking about this exact behavior from him. You know, he has turned this into a narrative about being canceled, quote, unquote, and kind of invites people to come cancel him because that just shores up this image of being a non-submissive Asian dude. So that's that's also hard to write what we have going on here, I think, is this dynamic in which any criticism that gets directed at him ends up being useful to him in certain ways. As confirmation, again, of his anti-establishment image, we see this argument deployed a lot these days. So. So do you think that this is going to impact audience reception of beef? Can we start with Michelle and then go to Bianca? For some. Viewers, absolutely. But I think that I am seeing more endorsements and praise and just excitement about the show in mainstream media outlets and, you know, criticism and think pieces. And I also think that there are a lot of folks who watch Netflix and they see the recommendations list and they're not necessarily part of these conversations and they will just watch it and never know that there is this other discussion happening. That's what pains me a bit because clearly it hasn't affected the production enough that it prompts a response from the people who made this show. Do you think this is going to affect the bottom line, Bianca? Yeah, I mean, I guess it hasn't enough to push Netflix and the producers and people involved to say anything. Most of what I've been seeing has been on Twitter and social media. And those reactions, though, should not be dismissed because there's very real harm that was caused. And you see that in people's responses that it did impact and it is impacting their perception of the show. And particularly among women of color and black women, it is making it so that they can't watch the show because it feels violent to them. I think, you know, in this instance, maybe it should affect how we receive the show, that these things shouldn't always be separated, but we should take into account the entire process, similar to how, you know, structures of Orientalism and white supremacy and immigrant experiences are part of the show storyline. Those are all also things that are part of what conditioned and made the show and here, very clearly, larger structures of patriarchy and misogyny and anti-blackness are part of the context that we live in and that this show exists in. And so I think, you know, we can, as a culture and as a community, we're capable of having these nuanced discussions. And I hope this incident instigates those dialogues and, you know, moves on beyond did this happen or not happen, right? But that we can actually have these difficult conversations. So, you know, will this have any impact on the power structures in Hollywood at all? It's funny because I, in preparing for our conversation today, I was really looking for these kind of visible traces of the network that brings Ali Wong, Stephen Yen and David Cho together prior to this, because I think a lot of the conversation has been. But I love Ali Wong. I love Stephen Yen. We shouldn't blame them, right? And both of them are executive producers for beef. So they are both cast in it and they have some responsibility for how it came about. And Ali Wong is also a guest of David Chang on Ugly Delicious. And so there's just this kind of like tight web. It kind of shows us that within Hollywood, it makes sense that there would be a close knit community of actors, celebrities, public figures who are trying to work together and kind of join forces to be more visible and to bring alternatives in terms of representation to the media consuming public in North America. But if the way that they do that is to. Sidestep these hard questions, I think two things can be true at the same time, beef is is a really great show and we shouldn't participate in, you know, the project of brushing this stuff under the rug or kind of sidestepping it for the sake of some larger goal of continuing this momentum of Asian American representation in Hollywood. And so I hope that these conversations will continue, even if there's also a sin what beef is doing really well. The other thing that I wanted to say about David Cho and the way that he is like, how did he get cast? Yeah, how did he get cast? There's also this way that he is so he's he's presenting this bad boy. I break stereotypes and he talks about this actually often, like I'm the opposite of the model minority, but he also deploys a very kind of Western understanding of the the kind of lone genius artist. And I'm glad that we here are saying it doesn't matter if it really happened or not. The fact that he told this story as a form of entertainment. Is all we need to know. And that's the violation and that's the violence itself. So, yeah, that that image of the kind of elliptical and mysterious artist genius is also a part of, I think, why he continues to be able to work and be a figure that is public such that some viewers are going to take him as an example. I think that's really the danger that that I'm most concerned about. That people will sort of hold him up as kind of a role model, a type of role model. And Bianca, do you agree that these two things can exist at once? Yeah, the show meant a lot to people. And what does it mean to move forward with future projects and as a community to continue to, you know, strive for excellence in the art and the stories we produce, really believe in this like interconnected kind of, you know, that we're all interconnected to each other. But also to history and legacies and structures and what's going on in the world and that those things should be considered when making decisions like casting. Because they are considered in the stories we tell, transformative justice also teaches us to center the people who felt harmed. So specifically, you know, survivors, massage workers also thinking about, right, like what happened in 2021 and the vulnerability of massage workers that we learned about because of the Atlanta shooting as well as Black women and others who felt harmed. I don't know. And it doesn't seem like David Joe is in a place to be having these transformative justice conversations and go through a process of accountability. But what does it look like for us as a community and maybe even Hollywood as an industry to take this incident to really center these folks who feel harmed by what he said? I want to thank you both so much for all of the time and the thought that you've put into this conversation. It is very it is a very deep conversation. And I feel the heartbreak myself, I feel your heartbreak too. And I feel the coexistence, you both put it so well that these things do coexist together. So thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Thank you. That's it for this episode of Don't Call Me Resilient. I don't know about you, but I found that conversation with Bianca and Michelle incredibly thoughtful and enlightening. After listening, will you be watching or continuing to watch beef? Let me know. I'm on Twitter at Rightvenita. That's W-R-I-T-E-V-I-N-I-T-A. If you tag our producers at ConversationCA, they can get in on the conversation too. Don't forget to use the hashtag Don't Call Me Resilient. 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