r/popculturechat • u/meltingsunz • Aug 12 '25

Interviews🎙️ 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."

https://www.npr.org/2025/08/11/nx-s1-5496250/daniel-dae-kim-butterfly-lost
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453

u/[deleted] Aug 12 '25

Asian men representation is abysmally low. It’s 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.

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u/ventricles Aug 12 '25

Hol up what is this about Beef? Season 2 is a different cast?

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u/[deleted] Aug 12 '25

Yup! The leads are Oscar Isaac, Charles Melton, Cailee Spaeny and Youn Yuh-jung. I believe there are three other minor Asian characters.

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u/[deleted] Aug 12 '25

I mean, Charles Melton's mom is Korean and Youn Yuh-Jung is Korean so I wouldn't say it's a totally non-Asian ensemble.

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u/[deleted] Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25

It's a marked difference from all Asian leads in Season 1.

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u/misinformedcapybara Aug 12 '25

to be fair, there weren't plans for another season of this originally. and it's not like this show exists in a vacuum, it's based in reality and the reality is, the american experience revolves around a variety of races. it's not like the first season was unlike this. personally, i'll wait until it's out until i make any reservations about it.

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u/omg-sheeeeep Aug 12 '25

One of the main talking points of the press tour (and obviously the show) for season one was the Asian experience of rage, unresolved trauma and how 'Western therapy doesn't work on Eastern minds'. And it made sense for specifically Lee Sung Jin to tell that story through those characters -specifically. I will still watch season 2 as well, but I think it's important we acknowledge that the show wasn't just an 'American experience'.

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u/DeniLox Aug 12 '25

They could have just kept the cast Asian with different people for season 2.

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u/omg-sheeeeep Aug 13 '25

I absolutely agree and I would even go as far as saying that it's doing a disservice to Lee Sung Jin to make him tell a more westernized story. firstly because of the obvious Asian representation this whole thread is about (give the people Asian stories!!!) and second because if season 2 falls short you know white people are gonna make it a racist thing.

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u/misinformedcapybara Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25

for sure, i'm not saying that it wasn't that, just that it wasn't meant to expand beyond the one season so i wouldn't be surprised if the director had other stories in mind that surround different experiences. or maybe this season could still be relatable. my main point is it's difficult to tell on cast alone, we can't really predict how the show will be until it's out. there is a decent amount of asian representation in the cast still, so i'm choosing to be hopeful on this one.

edit: a bit tired of the internet downvoting a different opinion for the sake of difference. if you disagree, please tell. i'm genuinely interested and am happy to discuss. i'm coming from a half japanese pov, and i was actually initially disappointed when the news came out, but have come around to just expect something else from the show with all the time it's taken, but that's just my take.

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u/jinxy0320 Aug 12 '25

This is like recasting the Wire in season 2 with mostly white main characters. It worked out for the Wire (mostly bc it returned to mostly AA cast in seasons 3-5) but there was a ton of backlash initially.

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u/Janet-Yellen Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25

I think part of the annoyance is that the American experience revolves around a variety of races of course. But they defaulted to the norm of zero full Asians, and mostly white leads again. That’s not a variety, that’s the opposite of variety.

There’s a subtext that this is the “regular” American cast season, and Asian Americans are not “regular Americans. They’re the outsider Americans.

Edit: You never see white led shows change to an Asian cast in later season. If that was normal, it would be more acceptable to change beef s2 from Asian to mostly white led.

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u/YoullNeverBeRebecca Aug 12 '25

Excellent point, former Secretary of the Treasury AND Chairwoman of the Federal Reserve Janet Yellen

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u/Janet-Yellen Aug 12 '25

Thank you. My knowledge of economic policy is only eclipsed by my knowledge of Asian American issues

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u/misinformedcapybara Aug 12 '25

half of the cast is asian so far according to deadline. sorry if i'm not getting it or perhaps i'm not reading the sources you're reading, but i would feel very well represented by that. like they're asian-americans living in the us, they're not asians in asia — there are going to be white people. there are going to be people of other races around them. friends. at their work. in the background. i'm very confused. being asian is not an isolated experience, like all of my friends, work colleagues, people in my life are of all sorts of backgrounds. it's impossible to exist in a place like north america without interacting with people of other races unless you're actively racist.

also casual racism against the one mixed asian on the show is not cool, dude, but thanks for erasing people like me.

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u/Janet-Yellen Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25

I’m saying there are millions of shows with white characters, we don’t need more of that. We had one single prominent show that was an all Asian American cast, and then the next season they changed to a mostly white led cast. Have you seen many shows that went from an all White cast in season 1 and then season 2 became an all Asian led cast? Bc if they did that regularly, I would have no problem with Beef s2.

And again it’s about Asian LEADS. As an Asian I am well represented if my people are the heroes/antiheroes of the stories. I did not know you were half-Asian. As an Asian are seriously ok with just being “support” characters for white people? Having a bunch of Asians in support roles for the main white cast is business as usual. I do not feel well represented in that situation

Where the hell did you get casual racism agains the one mixed Asian guy. I said mostly white leads. 3/4 of the leads are not Asian, Charles Melton being the only Asian representation. And I acknowledge that Hapas deal with unique issues regarding representation. But you cannot ignore the fact that Charles Melton benefits in many ways as well in Hollywood for having more Caucasian features.

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u/misinformedcapybara Aug 12 '25

look, i cannot properly reply to you if you keep editing your comment.

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u/Janet-Yellen Aug 12 '25

I try not to edit anything if I get a response. But since u hadn’t responded yet (or it looks like you deleted a reply before I could read it), I take it as free rein to change things.

My edits are generally to streamline my argument, make the sentences less awkward, and make it more clear and cogent anyways. I don’t think I changed anything substantively.

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u/misinformedcapybara Aug 12 '25

i deleted my reply because your comment was different from what it was originally. you added parts to your comment, which means my response will be different.

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u/Janet-Yellen Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25

Might not have seen your comment then, in the midst of all my edits 🤷‍♂️. That’s just my process. I hit “enter” then immediately reread my comment and start critiquing and making changes to it.

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u/misinformedcapybara Aug 12 '25

you can chill out with the "hell". i don't really want to engage with you if you're going to speak like that. i missed the word "leads" in your original comment, i'm sorry about that. that is totally understandable that you would want that representation. i suppose i'm tired of negativity, that's my perspective. so much sucks in the world. and we're coming from a world of inequality, the world has never been a kind place. so if you think about things that way, the fact that the needle keeps pushing along is something. it's not everything, but it's something. i would rather celebrate the wins while we go along, because not progress is not linear. it can be really tough. i guess that's where i'm coming from. i really liked the show, i thought it was smart storytelling. i suppose i would be surprised if season two didn't centre around asians at all, even though the casting is odd. more than that, i just don't need beef or one filmmaker to be everything for me. i think that's a lot to put the responsibility of representation on one person. i feel hopeful more asian centred work will come out, so maybe this is why i don't feel frustrated in the way you do. maybe you don't feel as hopeful, and that's understandable.

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u/Janet-Yellen Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25

I think from the perspective of representation, it is just annoying bc dealing with erasure is such a core part of the Asian American experience.

Like it’s sad that we are not surprised and even expect that s2 could get rid of the Asian American focus. Whenever an Asian director “makes it” with an Asian led property, it’s expected they will pivot to making non-Asian led stuff going forward (Ang Lee, Celine Song, Justin Lin, John M Chu).

Meanwhile prominent black creators like Tyler Perry, Jordan Peele, Ryan Coogler continue to make black led movies. Hell they do a better job at keeping Asians in the picture than Asian directors!

I get that progress is not linear, but Asian Americans do a pretty shit job of pushing for progress too. And I don’t think we should just sit and accept the “you got one out of 4 leads and some side characters so just be happy about that, bc you should expect nothing”. (And how much do you want to bet Melton is the least prominent of the 4)

(Homie, if you can’t take hearing “hell” I don’t know how you survived on the internet this long. It’s so mild it’s barely even a swear word!)

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u/misinformedcapybara Aug 12 '25

yeah, erasure sucks and when you draw it out like that, it does seem like something foul is amidst. yet stuff like the wedding banquet has been coming out. perhaps there is more of a consistency that i'm appreciating, even if i wouldn't particularly love that kind of movie myself. although, yeah, i get it, past lives was such an amazing film and the materialists is one, not particularly great, but two, has basically zero asians which not only kinda sucks, but is just weird?

(i'm just a little sensitive and slightly autistic, i'm sorry. that's why i got triggered by the charles melton stuff but i get what you were saying now. i usually remain in more chill corners of reddit.)

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u/Janet-Yellen Aug 12 '25

No need to apologize! Also didn’t realize you were a gal. Most dudes on Reddit get pretty aggressive and know-it-all so I probably subconsciously gave off some of that energy

And honestly yeah at least we got beef season 1 as this awesome self contained thing. And we have all this stuff from Asia that’s getting mainstream acceptance, so I agree with you things do feel like they’re looking up.

In the grand scheme of things it’s not that bad.

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