photo courtesy of http://epguides.com/AllAmericanGirl/
By Terry Streetman and Ashley Taylor
Ever since arriving in this country, Asian-Americans have been misunderstood and discriminated against. Lately things have gotten better, but there are still people trying to further improve their situation. Margaret Cho, a Korean-American, is one of them. In the late 1990's she got her own sitcom, All-American Girl. This was a perfect chance to improve the portrayal of Korean-Americans, and Asian-Americans in general.
Positive Aspects
“All American Girl” showed many positive portrayals of Asians in a modern day society in California. The show is the first show in history to have a multi generational Asian cast portraying a Korean family in America. The grandparents are typical Korean people who came to America all the way down to their grandchildren who are all American (All American Girl).
Despite much stereotypes present in the show, including the portrayal of an average Californian teenage girl chasing boys, “All American Girl” does show some of the general Korean traditions. In one episode, Margaret‘s, the main character, mother is upset at her granddaughter for pursuing a non Korean boy romantically. The theme of Margaret’s romance continues into the next episode when her new Korean boyfriend wants her to be the typical Korean woman (All American Girl). Another example of Korean thinking in the show is portrayed when the grandmother blames the bad luck of family on “bad feng shui.” Feng Shui is probably a term that most Americans are oblivious about, and this show brings it to light.
“All American Girl” made a good attempt at trying to educate the American people on the Korean way of life and traditions. People living in America tend to ignore the traditions and customs of different cultures and its good when something, especially something as public as a television sitcom tries to educate them. Even though this show was canceled, it was the first show to have a dominantly Asian cast and hopefully will spark more successful shows like it.
Negative Aspects
As far as TV shows go, Asian Americans- like most other minorities- have been ridiculously under represented and poorly portrayed. "All-American Girl" was one show that attempted to change that. The show starred mostly Asian Americans and was one of very few that did not cast them as martial artists or service workers. Some argue that the show didn't do enough to better the portrayal of Asians, and still others argue that it may have even hurt. In either case, this was one of the first times that Asian Americans appeared in force on regular TV programming, and the world- or at least the country- was watching.
There are a few problems with this show that detract from the positive elements it does have. One of them is that while the show did show factual representations of Asian-American culture, it made a joke out of them. It's unfortunate, but the show was a sitcom.
One of the main problems with her show was that the network didn't know what to do with it. Marin (p. 70) quotes ABC's Entertainment president as saying that they needed to go for a "Broad family audience" . This greatly limited the subjects the show could cover and the manner in which they could cover them. Because of this audience, "a cute neighbor girl has been added whose role is to ask questions" that Americans may themselves ask. Many felt this detracted from the show, largely in part because of the nature of the questions, such as, "In the old country, were girls allowed to date?"
Hiltbrand (p.17) argues that the show takes cheap shots at Asian culture and makes unfair use of stereotypes. He says of the show, "In its own warped fashion, this misshapen sitcom reminds me of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis -- only with rickshaw jokes. Grade: C." Here you can see some of the negative sentiment that people had towards the show. Hiltbrand uses the example of "Rickshaw Jokes" to state his opinion that when it came down to it, this show wasn't all that much better than all the other stereotypical portrayals of Asians in other shows, despite its good intentions.
All American Girl, while having its positive aspects, was still seen by many as detrimental to the Asian-American community. It is unfortunate that because of network executives and ignorance in general even a show that has good intentions still leaves people out in the cold.
