Afro-Asian Relations in Media

In many films and TV shows, African American and Asian American people are hired to create an illusion of diversity and inclusion. Producers put a Black person and an Asian person together on a show so that the show can attract more viewers and gain more money. However, in this fake attempt to be inclusive of minorities, writers continue to enforce stereotypes about Black and Asian people. This article is not meant to provide a wide range of examples of issues surrounding AfroAsian representation in media, but rather to provide a critique analysis of how AfroAsian relationships are represented, and how characters feed into stereotypes and tropes on the former Freeform show Young and Hungry.

Young and Hungry is a show that aired on Freeform but is now available on Netflix. The show is centered around a young white woman named Gabi Diamond who lives with her Latina roommate, Sofia Rodriguez, in an apartment in San Francisco. Gabi lands a job working as a chef for a rich white man, Josh Kaminski. There Gabi meets Elliot Park, Josh’s gay Asian publicist and Yolanda, Josh’s Black housekeeper. Yolanda and Elliot have been working for Josh for a long time so they’ve gotten to be very close with each other. Throughout the show, Josh and Gabi go through many problems with having feelings for each other and the other characters are forced to help solve their problems.

Like many other films and TV shows, Young and Hungry adopts the concept of a Black-Asian best buddy relationship. In movies like Rush Hour and The Karate Kid, there is a relationship between an Asian person and a Black person that is usually a close love-hate relationship. In Young and Hungry, Yolanda and Elliot occupy these roles. They are very close friends who gossip together, go out together, etc. However, they often make fun of each other and act like they despise each other. This is such a visible pattern in films that star Black and Asian people and it shows that filmmakers and writers have a specific way they want to create an illusion of inclusivity of people from multiple backgrounds. Even though almost everyone else on the show is white, the writers expect that two people of color from different minority groups who are such close friends will make people think that the film industry promotes diversity and representation.

The character of Yolanda on the show is a depiction of the stereotypical loud Black woman. She always speaks in an aggressive tone on the show and sometimes the character of Elliot is used to quiet her down. This stereotype says that Black women often speak in a loud, aggressive, annoying tone of voice and is used to silence Black women. For example, when Black women speak up about any issue that may harm them directly or just anger them, they are seen as loud and vociferous. People often don’t want to listen to what Black women have to say because their thoughts aren’t considered as important as white women’s. This is why on the show, Yolanda is often told to calm down or quiet down when she tries to express any thoughts or feelings she has. As a result, her character often adopts the image of the "mammy" figure. The mammy figure is a Black woman trope that has persisted in media portrayals of Black women since the 19th century. The mammy is a Black woman who is sort a mother figure to other characters, often white characters, and helps to comfort them and solve their problems. Yolanda fits directly into this stereotype because her character is forced to listen to the often ridiculous problems of her white friends and she is made to be a shoulder for them to cry on and someone who can help them solve all their, dare I say, petty problems.

As previously stated, Yolanda and Elliot are the housekeeper and publicist to Josh Kaminski. Some may question why Elliot was given the job of the publicist and Yolanda, the job of the housekeeper. Perhaps it’s because this show feeds into the idea that Asian Americans are more successful than other minorities. Elliot is portrayed as smart and very professional while Yolanda’s character is portrayed as less intelligent. Moreover, Elliot is always dressed in fancy suits or vests when he comes to work. Yolanda, on the other hand, is usually dressed in casual everyday clothes. The only thing Elliot does when he arrives at work is take care of Josh’s appointments and events. The writers of the show portraying Elliot’s character as more intelligent and professional than Yolanda is a way that they are enforcing the ideology that Asian Americans are more successful than Black Americans.

In the show, Elliot sometimes talks about his Asian mother and the writers input racist stereotypes into Elliot’s dialogue about his mother. They depict her as a cruel woman who doesn’t care about her son at all. In one episode, she visited Elliot to meet his fiancé. The show’s writers not only fed into this stereotype of Asian people only caring about money and not feelings, but they made the character of Elliot’s mother into an extreme embodiment of that stereotype. The mother expresses great happiness when she thinks that her son will be marrying a rich man but then expresses disappointment when she meets his real fiancé. Elliot also shared stories about how his parents raised him and those stories always involved portrayals of his parents as emotionless.

Evidently, Young and Hungry failed significantly in its attempt to show diversity in its cast. The writers, like many other writers, did not understand that to have diversity in movies and shows, minority groups should be uplifted and should refrain from enforcing stereotypes.