'Fresh Off the Boat' and the Asian American Entertainment Boom | Hollywood Reporter - 0 views
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Even as the ABC series slipped in quality, it was instrumental in helping launch a boom in big- and small-screen Asian American representation.
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Without Fresh Off the Boat, the current Asian American boom in Hollywood wouldn't — couldn't — look like it does today. When the ABC series debuted as a midseason replacement in February 2015, it was the first Asian American family sitcom since the cancellation of Margaret Cho's All-American Girl after one season two decades prior.
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I wrote my personal eulogy for the sitcom back in 2018, shortly after the Season 5 premiere, and shortly before I regretfully quit watching.
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But around the fourth season, Jessica became the show's petulant brat needing growing up — a mother of three school-age children who regularly taught her life lessons.
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Fresh Off the Boat likely hit its artistic peak in the two-part Season 3 finale, when the Huangs briefly move into a mansion they can barely afford on the rich part of town, where they have no friends and can barely keep the lights on.
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Today's Asian American boom likely would have happened at one juncture or another, but it is genuinely remarkable how many Asian American projects — and how many different kinds of Asian American representation — have come out of Fresh Off the Boat. To briefly play Sliding Doors, if ABC had never taken a chance on Fresh Off the Boat, it's harder to imagine Crazy Rich Asians being greenlit with nary a recognizable star, especially one like Wu, who had garnered much good will in the show's early seasons by advocating for Asian American issues off screen as well.
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For a series based on a chef's autobiography and regularly set at a restaurant, food has played a relatively minor role on Fresh Off the Boat.
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It's entirely possible that plenty of Asian American progress would've happened in the Sliding Doors version of our universe where Fresh Off the Boat never made it onto the air.