Asian Australians on Television 2009

I have been dwelling on making this post for far too long, so here it is. I will split the post into two and edit as required. The first part is a list of Asians on Australian TV for 2009.  I don't watch as much TV as I used to so there may be some roles and guest appearances that are not listed.  The second part is basically a list of defensive arguments that certain people may have regarding the lack of Asian Australians on Australian television. When I say white, I mean culturally white, so that is inclusive of Italians and Greeks.

First though, who was on TV in 2009? Let’s have a look at some of them. Note that this is not a personal attack on any of the actors as they’ve done quite well. If there is an attack it’s more of an attack on the roles offered:

Lawrence Leung - Lawrence Leung’s Choose Your Own Adventure
In each episode, Lawrence revisits aspects and ambitions of his childhood.

Pros – First Asian Australian to get their own show? (Lee Lin Chin’s Fashionistas does not count!) A lot of hilarious scenes and some that were cringe-worthy. Awesome Asian parents.

Cons – Weak Asian nerd stereotype, albeit a creatively, funny nerd.

Karen Pang - Play School
Pros - Still going strong
Cons - ...

Alan Kwong, Paul Amores – Beauty and the Geek Australia
When I heard about this show my first thought was “betcha there’s an Asian dude”. Boy did I get a surprise when they had not one but two! Both got knocked out in the first two eliminations, so predictable.

Pros – AM/WF couples :P

Cons – Weak Asian nerd stereotype. For those of you who like to point out that the other nerds were white so all’s good, get over yourselves. How many positive AA male role models are there on commercial TV? So why exactly are you defending white Australian TV? You like seeing your own people restricted to these types of roles or does this actually reflect how you view Asian males?

Poh Ling Yeow - Masterchef, Aliqua Mao - Australian Idol


Pros - Asian Australians on TV.  Reality TV is one area where Asian Australians have a chance to be themselves.

Cons - Not too sure about the ending of Masterchef, there were obviously other factors at play.


SBS Shows
Anh Do, Sam Pang, Luke Nguyen, Renee Lim, SBS News Crew

Pros – Asians/Asian Australians on TV

Cons – SBS

Hannah Wang – Rush TV ABC3
Hannah is a co-presenter on this action/sports show 4 da youf.

Pros – Asian Australian on TV

Cons – Asian females are more viewer(white) friendly for TV and are usually paired with a white male. Just have a look at America’s news channels. Whilst overall, having Hannah on the show is a big positive, let’s just wait and see whether this will be an increasing trend in Australia. Anna Choy (Big Breakfast, Big Arvo) also falls into this category.

Lucas Tang - Snake Tales
Lucas plays the role of Digby Nguyen, an exchange student that goes to the fictional town of Barren Barren to study.  The school is actually a snake park.

Pros - Asian (Asian Australian?) on TV

Cons - Foreigner stereotype with accent  to match

Jordan Rodrigues - Home and Away
Jordan plays the role of Jai Fernandez, who lost his family in the Boxing Day tsunami and comes to Summer Bay to join Miles with whom he is close. The character of Jai Fernandez was only created in response to Neighbours introducing an Asian character.

Jordan is leaving Home and Away to act in ABCs new show Dance Academy.

Pros – Quite a good role. Speaks with an Australian accent, not Asian-accented English, although this does not fit with the character profile.

Cons - Crazy character background. So your parents died in the Boxing Day tsunami and you came all the way across the seas to a shitty town in Australia to reconnect with some old white dude named Miles who is very friendly with you? Paedophile alert!!! How did you make it past Border Security? The notion of Asian Australians on Ramsay St or Summer Bay doesn’t seem so far-fetched anymore does it? Also a stereotype of Asians being foreigners.

Hany Lee - Neighbours
Hany plays the role of Sunny Lee, a Korean exchange student. Sunny Lee was created by Executive Producer in response to claims that Neighbours was too white. Sunny’s last appearance was in November.

Pros – Asian Australian on Neighbours

Cons – What’s up with the weird ass hybrid Australian/Asian/American/wtf accent? Again, a stereotype of Asians being foreigners. There was quite a lot of negativity to Hany/Sunny being on Neighbours. There is even a I hate Sunny Facebook group (10,000+ members although the group seems to have disappeared now) and if you read many of the offensive posts before they are deleted by the mods, it’s easy to see that a lot of the crap is due to her being Asian. One of the more tame comments is “Go back to where you come from”, heard that before from somewhere?  Anyway, she's not on the show anymore so I guess that means Neighbours is back to an all white cast.

Hany Lee and Jordan Rodrigues were both born and raised in Australia and yet the roles that they play are those of foreigners. Hany was made to put on the accent so she was more convincing. I can just see it now, the casting agent telling her “Try and sound more like a gook”. Is it any wonder we don’t see many Asians on TV? When the few roles available are those where you have to de-Australianise yourself and act like a jackass, the frustration and disgust that so many AA actors must feel must make them question why this is all happening in the first place and for how much longer.

And a final one:

All Saints
The last Asian on this show was Ling-Hsueh Tang, in 2002 which is around seven years ago.

Cons -  A suburban hospital with no Asian doctors? No Asian male doctors?  What the f?  Remember the American show ER that was supposed to be based on a hospital in Chicago?  And in the 15 years of that show, there was only ever one Asian American doctor (played by Ming-Na), while in real life the ratio of Asian doctors to black/white was much, much higher.  If you don't know what I'm referring to click here: ER stands for Ethnic Ridiculousness.

Pros - The show is finally dead after 11 years of crappiness!!!


Television Ads
Woolworths Everyday Credit Card – Asian Australian Family
HBF – a few Asian Australian chicks
Beer Ad – South Asian speaking in a very stereotypical accent
Microsoft – Asian Australian guy, IT nerd

I do believe (as a general feeling as I didn't do a summary of the 08 AAs on TV) that we have seen more AAs on TV this year, but numbers alone shouldn't be a measure of the success of Asian Australian actors.  We need to look at their roles, and from above it's obvious a lot of them were based on stereotypes and misrepresentations.  The effeminate asian male, the asian foreigner, the submissive asian girl, all non-threatening characters.  Don't get too excited just yet, there is still a long way to go.

Stay tuned for part 2 where I'll tackle the arguments against having more Asians on Australian television.