Representation on TV Doesn’t Equal Progress

The controversy surrounding ‘Kim’s Convenience’ highlights a sad truth about diversity

Photo: CBC

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 cultural mission.

About a year or so ago, I noticed something in my bubble of convenience store revelry: A few of my Asian friends did not appear to engage with the show at all. To be clear, I don’t expect every Asian to like any given show with a largely Asian cast — especially since only a fraction of my already small pool of Asian friends are Korean — but these were people I actually knew, not random internet avatars. We had broken bread, or roasted each other in dozens sessions, or worked in official capacities as event organizers. None had anything to say about this popular and extremely rare show of Asian representation.

It’s imperative that we interrogate all representation, not just for its feel-good merits, but as a fair or unfair reflection of the very real lives it purports to represent.