Saturday, November 11, 2017

"Fresh Off the Boat" producer will develop series 'Model Minorities'

I SENSE a touch of irony in the title of a prospective TV series called Model Minorities.

Sanjay Shah
Deadline reported yesterday (November 8) that Fox ordered a series pilot for a show that centers on a highly eduated but struggling Indian/American who moves in with his uneduated, but rich, immigrant cousin.

The culture-clash series will be developed by Fresh Off the Boat executive producer and writer Sanjay Shah. He will be working with Portlandia creator Jonathan Krisell. 

No casting decisions have been made yet.

If Model Minorities is as successful as that other culture-clash sitcom, Fresh Off the Boat, the show has the potential to debunk and disarm the term often to describe a stereotypical image for Asian Americans. 

The "model minority" term, born in the late 1960s, has been harmful to Asian/Americans by raising expectations of all Asian/Americans and often used against other minority groups, ie. "if Asians can succeed, why can't African/American, or Latinos, or other Asians.

If you can't beat them in the use of "model minorities" as a stereotype, maybe by laughing it off, no one will take it seriously anymore.

The success of shows featuring non-white casts, such as Fresh Off the Boat, Master of None, Blackish, Jane the Virgin and Empire, have proven to Hollywood decision-makers that there these shows can attract good ratings and successfully challenged the old Hollywood belief that white audiences wouldn't watch a bunch of minorities.

Shah is a stand-up comedian, who has written for the animated series King of the Hill for 20th Century Fox TV and was a co-executive producer for their series Enlisted, before joining ABC’s Fresh Off the Boat with creator and showrunner Nahnatchka Khan.

Shah has written for Comedy Central’s South Park and ABC’s Cougar Town as well, and also writes for Vice.com.

____________________________________________________________

No comments:

Post a Comment