‘Walking Dead’ Star Steven Yeun on Resisting Asian Stereotypes

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Within months of moving from Chicago to L.A. to pursue his acting dreams, Steven Yeun was running from brain-eating zombies on the AMC series “The Walking Dead.” But the newbie was understandably nervous when he started preparing for his first major television role.

“When I moved to L.A. and I booked ‘Walking Dead,’ all I could think about was how not to screw it up,” he says. So during the initial wardrobe fitting prior to shooting the show’s first season, Yeun kept it to himself when his outfit reminded him of a certain Asian sidekick from another iconic action franchise.

“They put me in these clothes that made me look likeShort Round [from ‘Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom’],” he says, “and I didn’t say anything because I was just like, ‘Oh, don’t make a fuss, even though this is absurd and you look like Short Round.’ Nobody noticed until it aired, and then they all said, ‘Wait a minute, you look like Short Round.’ And I was like, ‘I know!’ But I was too afraid to say anything because I didn’t want to mess it up.” (His costumes have been tweaked since then.)

But years earlier, Yeun had turned down a theater gig because he thought he would be contributing to similar negative stereotypes if he took the role.

“For my first audition ever, in Chicago, the producers of this little show asked me to do an ’80s monologue,” he recalls, “so I came in with Ferris Bueller’s opening monologue. They said, ‘That was good, but can you do an Asian accent?’ ” That’s when Yeun realized they just wanted to see his version of stereotypical “Sixteen Candles” scene stealer Long Duk Dong. “After that, they wanted to book me and I just refused,” Yeun says.

Not that he advises others to turn down jobs. Yeun says he understands why actors often end up in projects they’re not proud of.

“All the power to anybody that takes work, because getting work in this business is hard as hell,” he says. “So you get work and you take it. There’s nothing wrong with that. But for me, I just couldn’t do it. I knew I couldn’t do a good job because I just didn’t believe in it.”

Like his onscreen alter ego, Yeun was born in Korea and moved to Michigan with his family at an early age. Yeun says he feels especially fortunate today to be playing a well-rounded character like Glenn—thankful not just for a prominent role in a hit show but also for the opportunity to portray an Asian-American character who is not defined by his race, ancestry, or accent.

Watch Glenn grow and evolve as he tries to keep himself and his cohorts one step ahead of the zombie apocalypse in the third season of “The Walking Dead,” which premieres Oct. 14 on AMC

 

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RSC racist casting: James Fenton’s remake of the The Orphan of Zhao, East Asians are cast as maid and non-humans

White Producers and Entertainers continuing their  war against East Asians.

another day another case of white entertainers resorting to racist casting of hiring white actors to portray East Asians . in the casting 2 asians are cast as ghost/demons and one as a maid.  these racist pieces of shit also insult the Chinese community by putting out a poster with a picture of a Chinese Boy(can you say deceptive advertising?) the racist fucks at RSC continue to insult the East Asian community by having a page about this crap in the  Chinese language.  The racist fucks want east Asian/Chinese  money not their acting talents, and why the hell those East Asian actors  selling out participating in this dehumanizing play instead of protesting this racist casting?

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At the end of the month The RSC will be staging an adaptation of The Orphan of Zhao.

This is a Chinese classic from the Yuan period thought to have been penned by the 13th century writer Ji Junxiang (紀君祥). Not much known about Ji Junxiang. He was born in present day Beijing and wrote six plays. Only one of his works has survived and that is  Yuanbao yuan Zhao shi gu’er – The (great) Revenge of the orphan Zhao ca. 1330  (趙氏孤兒大報仇). This was the first  zaju, (Chinese: “mixed drama or play”) to have been translated into the western tongue.

This was one of the major Chinese dramatic forms. Originating as a short variety play from Northern China during the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127) and during the Yuan dynasty (1206–1368) it developed into a mature four-act dramatic form, in which songs alternate with dialogue.

The fact that the RSC are producing such a work should for the BAME (Black Asian Minority Ethnic) community cause for celebration – so why are not more of us hip, hip hooraying?

Company
Matthew Aubrey – Ti Miming
Adam Burton – The Assassin
Joe Dixon – Tu’an Gu
Jake Fairbrother – Cheng Bo
Lloyd Hutchinson – Han Jue
Youssef Kerkour – Captain of the Guard
Chris Lew Kum Hoi – Ghost of Dr Cheng’s Son/Demon Mastiff
Siu Hun Li – Demon Mastiff/Guard
Patrick Romer – Gongsun
James Tucker – Zhao Dun
Graham Turner – Dr Cheng
Stephen Ventura – Emperor Ling
Philip Whitchurch – Wei Jang
Lucy Briggs-Owen – The Princess
Nia Gwynne – Dr Cheng’s Wife
Susan Momoko Hingley – Princess’ Maid
Joan Iyiola – Demon Mastiff

Out of a cast size of 17 only 3 BEA (British East Asian) have been cast. The three actors that have been cast in the production should be exceedingly proud of their achievement.

But only 3 out of a potential 17!. There are approximately 75 BEA actors and 82 BEA actress all of varying experience, training and expertise. You cannot tell me that from this pool the RSC could not have found at least two major male and female roles for the production?

If this was an adaptation of Liongo I doubt very much whether the Black Afro-Caribbean acting community would idly stand by as the major or pivotal roles were taken by Caucasian actors. I doubt very much whether the RSC when casting such a venture would ever dream of not casting black actors in such a production. So why then should we be any different? Why are the British-Chinese/East Asian not afford the same cultural, ethnic and racial considerations as our fellow Black Afro-Carribean and South Asian colleagues?

Are we so little thought of us? Are we that invisible and inconsequential to the society and the country of which we are citizens?

Yet our culture, our writing our art take pride of place in institutions around the UK. It is almost Pythonesque …

And what have the Chinese ever given us in return?

Row -planting

Oh yeah, yeah they gave us that. Yeah. That’s true.

And The Compass

Oh yes… the compass, Reg, you remember what navigating around used to be like.

All right, I’ll grant you that Row -planting and the compass are two things that the Chinese have done…

And the seed drill…

(sharply) Well yes obviously the seed drill… the compass go without saying. But apart from the row-planting, the compass and the seed drill…

Iron Ploughs, Ships rudder

Harness for horses, Gunpowder, Porcelain, Toilet paper, Print – moveable type

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The news that the revered Royal Shakespeare Company has not only given a measly three out of 17 roles in their production of the Chinese classic, The Orphan of Zhao, to Asian actors, but that these parts are for two dogs and a maid, has quite gasted my flabber. None of the main roles are played by Asians.[EDIT: two of the three asians and one black actor are working ONE puppet dog.]

We’ve been rowing about this for months alongside Anglo-Chinese actor and Equity BAME representative Daniel York who is leading the charge. [Edit: Daniel says the third out of three demon dogs is a black actor while all the main roles are white. WTF with the non-white non-human depictions?] His attempts to elicit a grown-up response from the RSC and the Arts Council have so far resulted in a condescending brush-off and a reprimand from the powers-that-be.

Yes, cross-racial casting is a wonderful idea— the problem is that it’s all one-way traffic. What happened to diversity? Note the use of a Chinese kid in their promo material (above). If they actually had the courage of their questionable conviction, they’d surely have illustrated their wares with one of their leading actors. Instead, they lack the smarts to understand why courting Chinese audiences is going down like a cup of cold sick. They want our money but not us, and certainly not our involvement as equals in this Vale of Tears.

It’s a shame that writer James Fenton, who has an impressive track-record as a progressive, has allowed the casting of his adaptation to be done along such colonialist lines. I always thought he was an anti-imperialist and all that entails.

I doubt we’d see the pillars of the culture pulling these stunts with the African-Caribbean or south Asian communities because they know they’d be exposed as something akin to white supremacists perpetuating dominance of the culture instead of using public funds to advance our consciousness beyond its current sorry state and represent everyone fairly.

Boycott racist piece of shit James Fenton

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anybody in the comment section defending this or any other similar racist, dehumanizing and insulting incident will be blocked and post deleted

Israeli infiltrates European Muslim community part 1 of 4

 

 

The filmmaker is an Arabic-speaking Israeli whose appearance and flawless Arabic accent were sufficient to allow him to mingle freely with the Muslims in several “no-go zones” in Sweden and France, and to get an inside look at the Islamic mindset within the greater European community.

The film contains some shocking footage, including a middle aged, seemingly innocent Muslim mother, who threatens to “Burn down Sweden” if her deported son is hurt in his native Iraq. An armed Muslim criminal fleeing from French police jumps into the camera team’s van and forces them to drive him to safety.