Whitewashed Horseman

NOTE: Like many of my friends, I was overjoyed to learn Bojack Horseman’s fifth season was released today. I’ve binged seasons 1-4 many times over, and I’ve seen the famous “Under the Sea“ episode more than anyone might recommend. And so I write this with mixed feelings, after having considered not writing it at all. I greatly admire the show, especially the way it realistically portrays mental illness, depression, and the loneliness of modern life. It’s witty, intelligent, heartbreaking, end yet somehow still hilarious. Its depiction of dementia is one of the best in media, and its unwillingness to compromise truth for broadness is inspiring. I greatly respect the creators, and Alison Brie, whose work I follow and admire. Yet I feel that to truly love a work, you must not be afraid to criticize it. So with all that said, let’s begin…

The second episode of Bojack Horseman’s fifth season (“Dog Days Are Over”) is a beautiful and breathtakingly simple story. After divorcing her husband, Diane Nguyen, a second-generation Vietnamese woman, takes a spontaneous trip to Hanoi. We’re made privy to elements of Diane’s childhood that will seem familiar to many diasporic children: Diane’s father being too distracted to talk about heritage, or Diane’s discovery that she looks different from her classmates. In Vietnam, Diane expects to feel at home, surrounded by people whose faces and names reflect her own. But instead, she finds herself even more of a stranger. A friend once told me that such is the plight of the immigrant and her children- to only feel ‘at home’ on the plane ride back. Because once you arrive at your destination, you’ll find the place you knew (or never knew) no longer exists, and you’re a foreigner no matter where you go.

Diane visits tourist spots, buys a rice hat, and takes unapologetic selfies. But when she runs into a family of white American tourists, her attitude changes. They refuse to accept that she’s an American, or that she speaks English- reminding her why she came to Hanoi in the first place. Incensed, she learns basic Vietnamese, wanders off the beaten path, and spends a night wandering with an American tourist who is convinced she’s a local. When at last she reveals who she is, she is rebuked for not being authentic- for not “really” being Vietnamese.

The story’s beautiful conclusion is that of Diane staying still, while the scenery changes behind her. Whether in LA, or Asia she is adrift, lost, and alone.

Diane Nguyen is played by Alison Brie

It’s a feeling many of us live with every day. Because our skin makes us permanently a stranger in the land that we’re born in. Because our tongue makes us a stranger in the one that we come from.  Because we are not entirely anything or anywhere or anyone.

Growing up, my sense of identity came from my parents. They only spoke English at home, and only watched Western TV. As a kid, I knew Tagalog was reserved for when my Dad took the last cracker without throwing out the empty box- or for when my mom accidentally backed the family car over a curb and got stuck. Tagalog was for arguing.  My classmates’ parents felt the same. They were in Canada now, and their kids would be 'Canadian.' Whatever that meant.

Years later I lament never having learned Tagalog. My sisters and I watch our parents, friends, and family talking, laughing, gossiping, and crying. But we’re on the outsides of those moments. We don’t understand our own families.

Watching Diane try to communicate with the first woman she meets in Hanoi sent my own heart surging. Her practical frustration was obvious, but as a second-generation Vietnamese woman there was another layer to the exchange. Diane must have been thinking: I should be able to speak to her. I should be a part of this. I should belong. I felt a sense of kinship with her. And then my stomach turned; I remembered I was listening to a white woman pretending to live my experience.

Message board comment

Bojack's whitewashing controversy makes Diane's later harassment by the American tourists intensely troubling. We're essentially watching a white woman pretending to be an Asian woman who's sick of racism. Ironically, public dismissal of Diane's whitewashing on platforms like Reddit is deeply steeped in the kind of 'passive' racism the tourists show Diane, with posters insisting that its only necessary to cast a diverse actor if the character has an accent- that otherwise there's no need. Because what is a POC without an accent? Neutral. And what is neutral? White.

Never mind that what Diane is experiencing in this episode is the deeply troubling reality for real people of colour. Never mind that the shame inflicted on her comes from the very group the actress and the screenwriters are part of. Never mind that in being retold by white voices, this experience has been exploited and co-opted for the financial and creative gain of Diane's oppressors (however well-intentioned they are). Never mind that it's yellow-face.

As my grandmother’s memory fades, my own linguistic shortcomings hit harder. She was recently hospitalized, and the medication she received temporarily exacerbated her dementia. I was alone with her one evening, when she called me over and began speaking Tagalog. I reminded her I didn’t understand, but she continued. She was irate, upset that I wasn’t listening to her. She wanted something, and I could give it to her, if only I knew what her words meant. I called nurse, a Filipina woman. Matter-of-factly, she told me that second languages are often forgotten with dementia- that soon only my grandmother's first tongue would remain. What I had glimpsed was a time when Lola and I will no longer speak the same language at all. When I’ll become an outsider even to her.

This is only one moment where I’ve felt the heaviness of my own contradiction- an Asian face with a Western tongue. It’s a moment upon hundreds of others- small ones, big ones, some as big as your head. These moments upon moments form our experience as second-generation people- shape us into who we are. Being mistaken as a foreigner, or repeatedly told that your face means you don’t belong here- these are all-too-familiar to us.

That’s why this episode of Bojack Horseman is so conflicting. I’ve always argued that only we can authentically tell our own stories. But this episode is so truthful, so real, and so relatable. The fact that there are no Asian writing staff on the show- that the Vietnamese-American protagonist is voiced by a white woman- leaves me hollow. Its seeming authenticity almost makes it worse, because it feels like the most traumatizing moments of my life, of many peoples' lives, are being paraded about on TV by white people with their animated eyes taped back.

And then there's the question of how they could have told such a story. I don't believe for a moment that they independently arrived at this truthfulness. So often we're asked to divulge our experiences. In the best case scenario we're paid to give our stories to white writers then quietly told to go away until picture day. In others, we're simply asked and expected to simply give our knowledge over (or risk professional backlash from someone with more power). An artist named VyVy Nguyen is credited as a "creative consultant" for this episode; reading through articles on her input it seems she was more intensely involved than her small credit would suggest. Why, when you have a show starring a Vietnamese character, do you have to go out of your way to hire someone Vietnamese for a single episode? Why was there not at least one Vietnamese writer in the room? Why wasn't this artist, who leant so much authenticity, given a place in the writing room after her contribution?

How many of us would be given the trust to tell a story truthfully like this? How many of us would have the ‘star power’ to be offered a role like Diane? How many of us would be given support to distribute something as wonderful as this show?  How can we ever make that number more than zero, when the most intimate moments of our lives are made fodder for the old club’s creativity?

Once again, we are outsiders. But this time in our own story.

The show’s creators have apologized for whitewashing Diane. And I do believe this episode is a concerted effort to make things right. But backlash over the choice to tell an Asian-American story with white voices, should not be a surprise. Any person of colour working on their staff could have told them it would happen- could have told them that telling this story, this way, with this white woman’s voice, would be another kick to a community already beaten down. But there were no warnings, because there are no Asian writers here. There are no Asian voice actors. There are only white writers, white creators, white voices, pulling the strings on marionettes that look like us, but will never be us.