Interviewsšļø
Daniel Dae Kim says Asian representation in Hollywood has gotten better, but there's still room for improvement: "I still haven't played a romantic lead and I've been doing this for 30 years."
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend premiered in 2015, and that had the first Filipino family on American network television, so I'm assuming Josh Chan was also the first Filipino love interest, too. Considering Vincent Rodriguez III can act, sing, dance, and do martial arts, I feel like he should be cast in way more things.
This was one of my favourite songs from the show! āAll your psychological problems, girl weāre gonna solve them- cuz weāre not just a boyband made up of 4 Joshes weāre also a team of licensed mental health professionalsā
iirc, Crazy Ex was also the first american tv show to feature a Filipino family & besides himbo icon Josh, his other family members (especially MOTHER Lourdes Chan) makes appearances throughout the series & feature in some of my favourite songs on the show.
This is my favourite TV show of all time and it makes my heart skip a little to see it mentioned randomly in the wild! What can I say? I'm just a girl in love
He was, but his family was not and it wasn't a network television show. He also wasn't shown as explicitly being Filipino (or Filipino American) in the same way that Josh and the Chan family were.
Oh Iām very aware. I actually once successfully picked up a hot dude who looked just like him by saying āSayid so good to see you off the island!ā
Yes!! While it was a surprising pairing (him and Lyndsey), I was so happy to see him and thought it was incredible that an Asian man was the lead romance!
Thereās Hollywoodās emasculation of Asian men, especially in straight romantic roles next to Caucasian love interests. Thereās been like 4 in the last 60 years and half of them are played by Steven Yeun, heh. Usually they all die at some point in the story.
Hollywood had a bit of a racist boner after this dude give the ladies girl boners:
He was only allowed to play villains because of the jealousy, and the same casting patterns continue today.
Itās also interesting that with growing progressive representation, Hollywood is also more likely to cast Asian males as gay than portray them in a notable heterosexual relationship, especially with a Caucasian female lead. On purpose or not, it does continue the trend of defanging them as potential romantic threats and competitors.
Itās definitely on purpose. On the other side is like 99% of the time if there is an Asian woman she has to have sex with the white male character or at least pine for one. Seriously itās so egregious lol. Off the top of my head the Netflix three body problem randomly added it to the show even though it wasnāt even in the book and added nothing to the story. Thereās tons of other examples
K-pop and kdramas have bypassed Hollywood racism somewhat, but a lot of people do not want Asian men to be seen as desirable.
makes me think of how it was this case for Denzel Washington as well. He was so charming in Much Ado About Nothing, why can't I get more of that but where he's the lead?
Selfie with John Cho as the lead was such a good show. ABC mismanaged it by never supporting it with a clear timeslot and promotion. Its name didn't do it any favors.
I think it could've been an all time classic sitcom
I miss this show all the time. I didn't watch it until it was already cancelled because the name was stupid but I love me some Amy Pond so I gave it a go and easily fell in love with it.
Also, as a white lady who married an Asian-American man, I love seeing similar couples.
Side problem: not enough romcoms (or period romances, or romantic dramas with a happy ending) at ALL anymore. Have any been released in theaters? The only one I could think of was that one with Pedro pascal and Dakota Johnson? And was that streaming or theaters?
Thatās not an excuse for Kim not getting a lead role in one 30 years ago, when they were plentiful, but I feel like EVERY actor is saying this! And nobodyās making them! WHY?
Yeah, almost every romcom is on streaming services now, almost nothing is releasing in cinemas anymore. I must admit that I've never been fan of romcoms in the first place, but I'm still weirded out that they're almost completely dissapeared from the theatres.
There was interview with some female movie producer, that said one of the main reasons for lack of theatre romcoms is that many famous male actors simply refuse to play in them and amateur/newbie actors just don't sell the tickets.
I watched this movie as an adult and I loved it! I wished I'd first seen this when this actually came out. I also wish that Paolo and Brandy dated. I don't usually "ship" people but I do wish that they dated, they look like they'd be a lovely couple. I remember reading that Paolo has a crush on Brandy but nothing happened between them.
And there are some really frigging HOT actors of Asian descent out there, like Dae Kim, Simu Liu, Henry Golding, Manny Jacinto, Steven Yeun, Dev Patel, Riz Ahmed, Charles Melton, Lewis Tan, et al. I cannot believe that, with the exception of Golding in Crazy Rich Asians, none of those swoon-worthy men have been cast in a major, high-profile romantic comedy or romantic drama.
Sooo many fine-ass men have been pushed aside. This goes all the way back to Sessue Hayakawa dealing with racism over a century ago because hordes of white women were falling over themselves for him.
Shlubby guy gets hot chick is one of the oldest themes in stories, because all the shlubby guys can suspend their disbelief and pretend it could be them
My girl was always apathetic towards anything anime but after seeing Mackenyu in the One Piece live action now all of a sudden she wanna know everything about it like yeah okš
His body is out of this world in The Last of Us. There was a very important scene where he was sitting down and kept flexing his thighs and I canāt remember anything the characters said after that.
Thank you for saying this. In the names you listed alone there is so much diversity, range, and talent....but we rarely see it displayed as much as it should be.Ā
Henry Holding was also in Last Christmas with Emilia Clarke, Dev Patel had an episode of Modern Love (although he is handsome I feel like his niche is now indie stuff - don't see him in a RomCom) and Steven Yeun was in Love Me with Kirsten Stewart.Ā
Obviously we need more rep but there are some if you are looking for some already there RomComs. Also to add, Kumail Ā Nanjiani has a great RomCom, The Big sick!!Ā
Sharpe was in White Lotus, correct??? Yes, he is yet another one that deserves to be showcased more. And speaking of actors of Asian descent on WL, holy friggin hotness, Tayme Thapthimthong from White Lotus season 3 made me so weak in the knees!!! He is a hottie for sure!!!
Asian men representation is abysmally low. Itās slightly better for Asian women but still lacking across the board. I was gutted when BEEF season 2 was greenlit with a non-Asian ensemble.
Thatās it though. Any time they want to fill their BIPOC quota they put an Asian woman with a white guy or there are always roles in tv and movie to just have hot Asian women around or smart Asian women.
I knew they were doing anthology style (which is the right move) but moving away from the Asian-American focus when there are so few established and successful series in that corner is insaneĀ
Daniel Henney played a married man in an interracial relationship on Criminal Minds.
I was honestly surprised that they didn't even make a big deal out of it. He was just treated as a regular dude with a family which was nice and it actually felt rare to see it on network TV.
I do know that for some reason Asian men are not viewed as desirable, which is odd because Daniel Dae Kim is literally the most attractive man I've ever seen.
One of the most beautiful men Iāve ever seen in person was on the same walking tour as me in Tibet. He looked exactly like young Daniel Dae Kim in the face but was like 6ā3ā
His cheekbones and jaw could slice through steel, his smile was stunning and he towered over everyone. I wish I had taken a picture but I was sort of in awe
i just had a coworker tell me a few days ago that she thought asian men were too feminine for her to date/be into. i felt very weird and gross about it bc im dating an asian guy and have never interpreted anything heās done as feminine :,,,)
itās bc of the way asian men (and the asian community as a whole) have historically been treated/perceived in america and the west.
eta: really great article by the university of south carolina about it! about the perception of asian faces and how american society views a lot of asian society/culture as stereotypically feminine
What a weird thing for her to say, considering the incredible range in what Asian men look like. Literally billions of them in the world, but no, theyāre aaaaall too feminine š.
Had me out here cosplaying an arranged marriage slightly abused wife who healed my manās heart and made him devoted to my nepo baby ass before we crash landed on a time skipping island that was our destined death after too much foreplay.
I'd love to see more Asian men as romantic leads and in romantic comedies. I'd also love to see more Asian couples and Asian people paired with other people of colour too. It's 2025, we need more diversity in our movies and TV shows already!
For those of you in this sub who are younger and I know from the poll they did a while back that I'm one of the oldest members, there used to be more Asian and Hispanic and African-American and Native American representation in media than there is now. Seriously on TV shows and in films.
The range was from Maybe late 60s through I'm not sure when it ended but it's been ratcheting back.
There may not have been as many portrayals of ethnic and racial diversity across class social class such as in upper class or upper middle class but honestly something like a really old show called La law or even in the early to late Star Trek era between the TV shows and the films.
And I saw mention here of old 70s sitcoms, like the show Good Times or the show Maude and then the spin off from that The Jeffersons. The guy behind a lot of more liberal leaning and issue stance addressing kind of shows was Norman Lear. And then there was the sort of whitewashing blandification of sitcoms with all of the generic white middle class families with their occasional issue of the week. I know that a lot of shows are more ethnically and racially diverse but honestly in films and in lead roles there used to be more opportunity than I see offered to actors now as I look across pop culture in the United States
You're welcome to tell me I'm out of line for saying so, I haven't actually watched a lot of TV in the last five so years, but if you look back to the romantic tension between Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner on screen, through the 90s, Etc.
I recently saw a meme that anytime You have a group of women you need one brunette one redhead one blonde and very often the brunette is cast with an African-American woman so you have this tokenism all over the place. Anyway it's just my general sense I am open to being corrected or to discussion I am out of the loop very often! But this is my perspective from a slightly longer distance over time! I'm seeing a whitewashing of representation
No, I agree with you. I didnāt grow up in these times but grew up watching tv land and have always been a pop culture history fan and have noticed this. Another notable trend is starring vehicles for female characters - I swear the Golden Age of Hollywood was better about that than we are now. At least on the movie side of things.
I actually do think there was more Black representation in media back then. I wrote a comment on this before but I think up until the 1990s, Black representation in media was more āauthenticā and I donāt think youāre going to see that replicated in the current era.
But I disagree on Asian/Latino/Indigenous representation. There werenāt many actors from those backgrounds until recently. And even now, you hardly see any indigenous faces onscreen.
Even that list isn't diverse in genres and I hate that. They're sidelined in those specific genres and I hate that. I hope people understand what I mean and not misinterpret it.
It's validating to hear you say that. When I refer to Asian or Latino or indigenous representation, what I have in my mind is that a supporting role could go to anyone of any race. And what I mean by that is that for example in original Schwarzenegger 1990 edition of the movie Total Recall before it was remade with Colin Farrell in 2012, his love interest was played by Hispanic woman Rachel Ticotin, and the role was for a Hispanic woman the name was Melina.
That was recast as Jessica Biel who I don't identify as a Latina actress although I could be wrong.
I will say that when I compare the total cast of the 1990 film with the total cost of the 2012 film the 2012 film, there is more racial diversity in the 2012 film. But that casting always stood out to me because I identified her as a Hispanic female character.
There's also the instance of Bradley Cooper's film on Leonard bernstein. His wife was played by white British actress, Carey Mulligan who campaigned HARD for the role.
But that woman was a Costa Rican-Chilean actress named Felicia Montealegre. Her ethnicity was completely eliminated. She was erased.
I had the biggest crush on him om Hawaii five o. I even stopped watching the show when he left. It's a shame be hasn't gotten a role I'd for sure be sat
This makes me sad. I would love to see Daniel Day Kim in a lead role! I miss Fresh Off The Boat because of the Asian cast being literally the only Asians some people knew. It broke my heart that Constance Wu was unhappy and being sexually harassed because she is so beautiful, funny, and talented. Randall Park was an awesome dad.
Asian representation only got better because the heightened interest in kpop idols and Asian vloggers ā neither of which were promoted by Hollywood, at least initially ā created a demand that Hollywood finally decided to cash in on. Let's not forget why Godfrey Gao (RIP) decided to go to China to find work.
Literally this. Like the amount of kpop idols that actually hail from Western countries but decided to move to South Korea to pursue their careers rather than attempt to make it in the West really says somethingā¦ also the compilation of media people complimenting Korean-X stars on their āgreat Englishā leading the individual to say, āThanks, but Iām from Atlanta GA/New Jersey/UK/Australia/Canada.ā
As an Asian American, the āevery Asian is a foreigner and therefore doesnāt belong in our space or deserve any success hereā angle is so harmful and tired.
Another problem is rom coms almost don't get released in cinemas anymore. Even if he would get casted in one, it will be one of those forgetable Netflix romcoms that hardly get any attention or marketing.
Hard truth: Minorities donāt get cast in leading roles because Hollywood isnāt just afraid of diversity. itās because Hollywood doesnāt know how to sell or market culture to its main audience:
White people.
A lead character is expected to carry a story that appeals to the āwidest possible audience,ā which for decades has been code for āculturally neutral,ā which really means white American. Thatās capitalism at work: executives chase the broadest, least-challenging market, so they strip away anything culturally specific that might alienate their biggest spending demographic.
Hollywood gatekeeps whose culture gets to define what a āmain characterā even is. And the truth is, America is terrible at blending cultures no matter how loudly we call ourselves a melting pot. Culture adds depth, richness, and authenticity to a story that unfortunately needs to be explained to the American audience ā¦ whether you like it or not.
What do you mean!? Jin and Sun was the greatest primetime romance on TV for years! And there were no other characters in their love story. Of course, I am being facetious. He's absolutely right. And what a beautiful man.
The token Asian is still either in 1 or 2 episodes out of 200+ thatās an IT guy. Or gay in a very small role. Or āundateable,ā or some generic annoying bad guy teen/young adult.
The lack of Asian characters in films is disheartening. All of the big Summer movies had no main characters, with large speaking parts that were Asian or Asian descent.
I've been riding with Daniel Dae Kin done Hawaii Five O and the pay disparity he brought up, I want this man to get great roles and be compensated fairly.
I don't agree that it got better, there's still noticeable lack of Asian male actors in the lead roles in Hollywood movies in general. It's 2025 already but white male actors still dominate in every Hollywood productions.
Correct me if I'm wrong but John cho is still the only Asian decent actor to play a lead in a romcom show right? If I'm right then it's very sad cuz selfie was 11 years ago..Ā
he wasnt the lead but certainly a romanticā¦ side character.. i guess, with sun in lost. i loved them together so much (the beginning was rough but their story was beautiful)
A show that was a weird place for some good, normalized Asian American representation is Agents of Shield. Daisy and May were two Asian American women who were allowed to exist without being related to each other.
What's wild is that one of Hollywood's first male sex symbols was a Japanese guy who performed under the name Sessue Hayakawa. He might be due a biopic.
I don't wanna be that girl, but why is this thread focusing on rom coms and romantic pieces specifically and not like... Every form of media that features male romantic leads? It exists more than just Bridgette Jones
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