Representation on TV Doesn’t Equal Progress
The controversy surrounding ‘Kim’s Convenience’ highlights a sad truth about diversity
When the Canadian television series Kim’s Convenience arrived on Netflix in the summer of 2018, I was instantly smitten. It wasn’t the funniest show I’d ever seen, or slickly produced in any way, but it had loads of charm. The largely self-inflicted pratfalls of the titular Kim family marked the first time I could recall seeing a Korean family starring in a sitcom, which also went a long way for me.
The whole affair seemed progressive, even though some of the humor did not. What can I say, I grew up in the 1970s with Fred Sanford and Archie Bunker as television dads, so I’m not above a cheap laugh in order to serve a larger purpose. So each time a new season of the show Beyoncé-dropped out of nowhere was a special occasion in my house, and I consumed each one in a single sitting.
I was so taken with Kim’s that I took to social media to recommend people watch it, partially because it was entertaining but more so because it was representative, focusing on a culture and people that you rarely get to see in the spotlight. It was the kind of wholesome (enough) sitcom fix I needed to break up all of the horror movies and world news I consume — a balm with an extra credit dash of…
