Page Yang as Koko in Southern Fried Rice (Photo credit: KeyTV)
Directed by:
Shayla Racquel
Written by:
Nakia Stephens
Starring:
Page Yang, Kordell Beckham, Choyce Brown, Bianca Bethune, Ashley India, Jada Lewis, Shaun Rose, Andreya Wallang, Erika Norrell, Wangechi Warui, Sencere Brown, Marlena Robinson, Jai’Reeh Demond, DaShawn Simon, Dasani Horton
Synopsis (KeyTV):
A Korean-American girl, raised from birth by Southern Black parents, struggles to defend and redefine her identity after being accepted into a popular HBCU.
Monique’s review:
I have seen Southern Fried Rice, and it is bad. Just not for some of the reasons that went viral online.
Before I get into my review, I want to spell out something very clearly. The number of posts with anti-Asian flavor going viral on Threads is something the Black online community needs to reckon with. I don’t like how all of those posts made huge impacts on social media, and any pushback against said rhetoric was met with bullying, including discussing how “Black” the person pushing back was. None of that is called for. It is indicative of the mean-girl and mean-boy gatekeeping that happens when a Black person exists outside of what we are conditioned to think is “Black enough.” If we as a people truly accept that we are not a monolith, then we should accept that there is no one way to be a Black person.
Secondly, to counter a horrible viewpoint I saw online, there is no reason to call a web series–a cheaply-made one, at that–“cultural genocide.” In no way is this show about an Asian girl who was raised in a Black family killing our culture as Black people. I think we have bigger issues regarding the existence of our culture, namely Donald Trump. But aside from him, we have decades upon decades of messaging in the media–largely created and propagated by white execs–that have translated into deadly government policies and have emboldened violent racists against us. I think if anything is close to a “genocide” regarding African Americans, it’s that.
Third, much of the vitriol for the series–before anyone even viewed it, mind you–was hypocritical. There are Asian people who go to HBCUs, as well as many other races of people. HBCUs were created for Black people, but they are not exclusively Black institutions. Anyone can attend, unlike the PWIs who historically blocked Black people and non-white people from attending.
On top of that, there have been several films about Asian people within Black culture that didn’t get any of the pushback Southern Fried Rice got. Just a few years ago, Eddie Huang’s Boogie came out, and it was quite offensive, which I detailed in my Common Sense Media review and my article about Blackness within Asian manhood. But I didn’t hear a peep about its offensiveness from the major movers and shakers online. Also recently, Disney+’s Chang Can Dunk was released, and while it wasn’t offensive at all, it also could have sparked ire from the same group who think Southern Fried Rice is the anti-Christ. But it didn’t. If anything, its successful story flew under the radar and was unfairly ignored. (Chang Can Dunk is also discussed in my Blackness and Asian manhood article.)
These two movies are sitting on the shoulders of films about Asian-Black relations that came out in the late ’90s and early 2000s, such as 1997’s Fakin’ da Funk starring Dante Basco and Tatyana Ali and 2000’s Catfish in Black Bean Sauce starring Chi Muoi Lo and Sanaa Lathan. Both films, which are about Asian guys who were raised by Black families, have held up with varying degrees of success (Catfish in Black Bean Sauce has some gender jokes that certainly don’t hold up in today’s more aware time regarding transgender identity). Regardless, I haven’t seen anyone do any kind of revisionist cancellation of either of those films. That is counting if some of Southern Fried Rice‘s detractors even know those films exist.
One thing I wish would stop on social media is the idea that Black people can’t be racist or xenophobic just because we have been unfairly treated in America. We can certainly be those things because we are still human, and humans are fallible. Contrary to social media’s popular sayings of “Trust Black women” and “I’m rooting for everybody Black,” we are all individuals and not all of us can be trusted because, again, we are flawed humans, not perfect beings. And part of us understanding our humanness should be our ability to call each other in when we are using racism and xenophobia as a basis for an argument.
In short, what I’m saying is that we can critique Southern Fried Rice for what it is, not for strawman arguments about the sanctity of HBCU/Black culture or with anti-Asian bias. Believe me, there is enough to critique Southern Fried Rice about without getting into racist and xenophobic territory.
Here’s also what Keke Palmer had to say in response to the backlash:
Now as for the series itself–like I said, it’s bad. It’s biggest crime is being poorly written, and that lack of writing fails the series on multiple levels.
First is the show’s title. Calling the show “Fried Rice” flattens Asian identity in a way by reducing it just to fried rice and not something more indicative of Koko’s (Yang) Korean heritage. Koko, who is raised by African-American parents, is a Korean-born American, and fried rice is a staple in Chinese food, especially Chinese-American fast food. While variants of fried rice are eaten throughout Asia, it is usually with the understanding that the dish is a Chinese transplant.
But even if the food referenced was something like kimchi instead of fried rice, it would still be bad. Using food in general to describe women of color is such a basic and tired thing to do. Framing Black women and women of color in general as consumable objects speaks to the fetishism and objectification non-white women often face in society, sometimes even from our own people. Figuratively “eating” these women echoes the very real history of white people literally eating people of color, from Egyptian mummies to enslaved Black people. Calling someone “chocolate” or, in this case, “fried rice” reduces them to being a flavor of the week, something that you have a taste for but can be discarded at any time.
Third, the writing needed to support the very nuanced and detailed look at Koko’s life as a transracial adoptee into a Black family. There was very real potential to give viewers intriguing and thought-provoking points of view into a life that not many people know about or even think can exist. Several years ago, I came cross a YouTube video about Cindy, a woman who is ethnically Korean, but was raised by African-American parents. Funnily enough, the comments under the video mimic some of the comments I’ve seen online–some people just don’t want to understand the fact that she was raised Black, therefore, she speaks and acts in a “Black” manner. That’s not the same as someone like Awkwafina banking in on Black affectations. Regardless, Cindy’s story could have been used as jumping-off point for Koko’s. It would have been great if Cindy, or someone like her, was used as a consultant so that Koko’s character would be authentic.
However, Koko comes off as a flat stereotype akin to an Awkwafina, which does the character and her story a disservice. Koko is not Awkwafina at all because her affectations come from her lived experience. But the treatment of Koko’s cultural Blackness is not fleshed out or nuanced. She presents as many of the other actually Black characters in this show–saying buzzwords, dressing “hood,” and just appearing surface level “Black.”
The cast of Southern Fried Rice (Photo credit: KeyTV)
As I hinted at, the other Black characters don’t fare any better than Koko. Save for Joy (Wallang), all of the characters sound and act the exact same–like “grown-ish“-inspired stereotypes. Frustratingly, most of the Black characters have dialogue that hits the stereotypical “sassy” vibe that you’d think Black creators would want to steer clear from. As a Black person, I would think that a Black creator would know that we don’t all sound the same. It only leads me to believe that our minds are more colonized than we think they are, because too often, Black creators resort to writing their Black characters in a “sassy” or “classy but ratchet” way, despite the fact that they themselves don’t even talk that way.
I said in my split-second review video (embedded below) that I think many Black creators are still working with “the master’s tools” as they try to decolonize Hollywood. We can’t use those tools–tools that have defined us as one thing for so many years–to break the Hollywood (and American) mindset of who we are. In other words, it would behoove us as creators to create from what we know Black people to be, not what we were taught about ourselves from society.
That brings me to Joy, the de facto “villain” of the show. Technically, she’s no villain. But she was unfairly written that way. Her viewpoint, which is that Koko doesn’t understand the privilege she has as a non-Black person in a world that rewards the appearance of Black culture but hates Black people, is a valid one. It’s certainly one that I think should have been made earlier in the series instead of in the next-to-last episode. We could have had Koko begin to understand Joy’s point more and more over the course of the season, with her ultimately growing into a more socially-aware person. But instead, Joy is written as xenophobic through much of the season, with her viewpoint only becoming clear in the sixth episode.
As for if Joy is a stereotype of an angry darker-skinned bigger Black woman, here’s what the series director, Shayla Racquel, had to say on social media:
“There is a lot of “conversation” about Southern Fried Rice (which… good!), but what I want to show is a monologue that encompasses the actual point or ethos of the show. No, Joy is NOT the “bully” or the “villain” … she’s all of you (but I will say, yall are highkey bullying!) No one and I mean no one we saw in the audition room performed this like Dreya, and I am so honored and proud that I got a chance to work with her.”
As for what I think, I think it’s unfortunate optics. Racquel states that they didn’t cast Wallang to buy into stereotypes, but as far as what it looks like, it’s hard not to accuse the series of at least unconsciously going down that road.
Setting Joy’s character aside, the series also fails at having a true direction. Several of the episodes feel aimless, especially since we’re supposed to be seeing Koko learn more about herself. That it hard for me to pay attention throughout the season until Joy spoke her truth about Koko in Episode 6. But in Episode 7, we were back to much of the same aimlessness. I get that the show is trying to talk about other issues that can come up in college, and there is a very important discussion about consent. With that said, seven episodes is a very short amount of time–too short to have “episode of the week” type issues that could exist within a 20-episode series. A short series needs to have laser focus, and Southern Fried Rice does not have laser focus.
Overall, Southern Fried Rice does have its fans on YouTube, but it doesn’t have the longevity or writing acumen to take on a layered story about an Asian girl raised by a Black family who attends an HBCU. It’s a shame, since there could be an audience for this–an audience of people who are happy stories like there are finally being told. Too bad this version of their story isn’t complex enough to be “good” representation.
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