by Pilot Viruet
“Instead of people coming in and seeing a Chinese face and going, ‘Huh?’… They see a white face and say, ‘Oh, hello white friend! I am comfortable!’” — Fresh Off the Boat, “Pilot”
In the first episode of ABC’s Fresh Off the Boat, a new fish-out-of-water sitcom about a Taiwanese-American family that moves from DC to suburban Orlando, patriarch Louis Huang (Randall Park) floats the idea of hiring a white greeter for the steakhouse he owns so white people will feel comfortable when they walk in and spot a familiar face. It’s a clueless, optimistic line that is played for laughs, and Park’s delivery is laugh-out-loud funny. It’s also a line that works on multiple levels, because it speaks volumes about the current television landscape and its irritating approach to diversity: Networks cater to white audiences by always promoting white faces — or trying to universalize the nonwhite narratives that they do have in an attempt at mass appeal — rather than taking chances on stories whose characters don’t superficially resemble the majority of their viewers.
Fresh Off the Boat is the first Asian-American sitcom in 20 years, since Margaret Cho’s All-American Girl, which ran for just one season (also on ABC) in 1994. The show is doing great in terms of both ratings (Episode 5, which aired February 17, had more viewers than Parks and Recreation and New Girl combined) and criticalresponse — as are the other diverse freshman programs airing on major networks this season: ABC’s clever sitcoms Black-ish and Cristela, Fox’s infectious musical drama Empire, and The CW’s telenovela-inspired Jane the Virgin, which earned lead actress Gina Rodriguez a Golden Globe award.