There’s 17 million Asian-Americans in this country and there’s 17 million Italian-Americans.
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“But I know we can get there”.
The episode Yang and Ansari won for, though, was based on their fathers’ journeys from Taiwan and India – respectively – to the USA, and the gulf between their experiences and their impatient millennial sons.
Here’s one easy suggestion for improving Asian representation on TV: Let Aziz speak, too!
Long Duk Dong is the fictional character in the 1984 movie Sixteen Candles played by Gedde Watanabe.
More kids with cameras, maybe a few more kids with Emmys that look like Yang and Ansari, who couldn’t speak because time had run out.
He stepped up to the microphone but was interrupted by the cut-off music.
“Oh man, you guys are trouble”, he said.
Each episode of Master of None explores a different topic, from the challenges of dating in the internet era to feminism to moving in with a partner. In the Netflix show, Ansari plays the main character and his real-life parents play his character’s parents. “Master of None” had previously been recognized by the Peabody Awards, Critics’ Choice Television Awards, and American Film Institute Awards.
But this is the first Emmy win for both writers, who had previously worked together on NBC’s Parks and Recreation.
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Master of None even called out that characterization explicitly in an episode that followed Ansari’s character trying to navigate racism as he auditioned for roles, to highlight just how bleak the landscape is for Asian Americans trying to find themselves onscreen.
