Eddie Huang's memoir Fresh Off the Boat has turned into a hit sitcom for ABC, but that hasn't stopped the writer and chef from voicing his frustrations about the show. Before the show even aired he wrote in New York Magazine he was already beginning to regret selling his book rights to ABC.
I didn’t understand how network television, the one-size fits-all antithesis to Fresh Off the Boat, was going to house the voice of a futuristic chinkstronaut. I began to regret ever selling the book, because Fresh Off the Boat was a very specific narrative about SPECIFIC moments in my life, such as kneeling in a driveway holding buckets of rice overhead or seeing pink nipples for the first time. The network’s approach was to tell a universal, ambiguous, cornstarch story about Asian-Americans resembling moo goo gai pan written by a Persian-American who cut her teeth on race relations writing for Seth MacFarlane. But who is that show written for?
Last night Huang took to Twitter to criticize Fresh Off the Boat once again. He says he doesn't even watch the show because it's lost touch with his original intentions.
I'm happy people of color are able to see a reflection of themselves through #FreshOffTheBoat on @ABCNetwork but I don't recognize it.
— RICH HOMIE HUANG (@MrEddieHuang) April 8, 2015
My only goal was to represent my Taiwanese-Chinese-American experience & I did that. We also proved viewers want diverse content so make it!
— RICH HOMIE HUANG (@MrEddieHuang) April 8, 2015
I don't think it is helping us to perpetuate an artificial representation of Asian American lives and we should address it.
— RICH HOMIE HUANG (@MrEddieHuang) April 8, 2015
I had to say something because I stood by the pilot. After that it got so far from the truth that I don't recognize my own life.
— RICH HOMIE HUANG (@MrEddieHuang) April 8, 2015
My relationship to hip hop & back culture rose from being the victim of domestic violence. It's not a game. That music meant something to me
— RICH HOMIE HUANG (@MrEddieHuang) April 8, 2015
@pelin_shorp naw I don't question my own interest. I'm saying it cause the show uses hip hop as an aesthetic thing without the foundation
— RICH HOMIE HUANG (@MrEddieHuang) April 8, 2015
My grandma had bound feet, my grandpa committed suicide, HRS tried to take us from my parents. That shit was real.
— RICH HOMIE HUANG (@MrEddieHuang) April 8, 2015
I understand this is a comedy but the great comics speak from pain: Pryor, Rock, Louis... This show had that opportunity but it fails
— RICH HOMIE HUANG (@MrEddieHuang) April 8, 2015
For good measure Huang also threw in a shot at Deadline's awful piece that argued there's now too much diversity on television.
Lastly to the mouth breather that wrote the @Deadline article about diversity reaching its peak FUCK U. You have no idea how hard this is!
— RICH HOMIE HUANG (@MrEddieHuang) April 8, 2015