'Kim's Convenience' Cast Speaks Out About Sitcom's "Racist Storylines"
Actors Simu Liu and Jean Yoon have pointed out the lack of representation on the popular TV show.
CBC‘s popular sitcom Kim’s Convenience, which recently released its fifth and final season on Netflix, is facing backlash as cast members Simu Liu and Jean Yoon speak up about the show‘s “overtly white” and “racist” storylines. The hit series – an adaptation of playwright Ins Choi’s production that follows a Korean-Canadian family – has been receiving criticism on social media for its lack of representation.
“As an Asian-Canadian woman, a Korean-Canadian woman with more experience and knowledge of the world of my characters, the lack of Asian female, especially Korean writers in the writers’ room of Kim’s made my life VERY DIFFICULT and the experience of working on the show painful,” Yoon wrote on Twitter. Meanwhile, Liu took to Facebook to share his thoughts in a lengthy post: “I was growing increasingly frustrated with the way my character was being portrayed and was also increasingly frustrated with the way I was being treated.” He added that the show became more “confusing because our producers were overwhelmingly white and we were a cast of Asian-Canadians who had a plethora of lived experiences to draw from and offer to writers.”
The lead actor for Marvel’s upcoming movie Shang-Chi compared the sitcom to “horsepoop,” further elaborating that Choi (the only Asian writer on the team) left after being unable to bring any other Asian or female writers to the crew. He also pointed out how the spin-off show of Kim’s Convenience is planning to focus on the only non-Asian character in the series.
You can head over to Twitter and Facebook to read Jean Yoon and Simu Liu’s full posts.
