{"id":2878,"date":"2016-10-11T19:57:10","date_gmt":"2016-10-11T19:57:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2016\/10\/11\/burnaby-actors-lead-role-in-kims-convenience-a-rarity-in-mainstream-tv\/"},"modified":"2016-10-11T19:57:10","modified_gmt":"2016-10-11T19:57:10","slug":"burnaby-actors-lead-role-in-kims-convenience-a-rarity-in-mainstream-tv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2016\/10\/11\/burnaby-actors-lead-role-in-kims-convenience-a-rarity-in-mainstream-tv\/","title":{"rendered":"Burnaby actor’s lead role in Kim’s Convenience a rarity in mainstream TV"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lien Yeung \/ CBC<\/em><\/p>\n

Burnaby’s\u00a0Andrea Bang has been feeling so lucky\u00a0lately, she says she can’t even bring herself to think about it.<\/p>\n

She’s one of the lead characters in the new sitcom\u00a0Kim’s Convenience<\/em>, premiering tonight on CBC Television.<\/p>\n

She was\u00a0an actor only for a couple of years before landing\u00a0the plum gig.<\/p>\n

And, she gets to “pretty much” play herself on TV, a Korean\u00a0immigrant’s daughter\u00a0\u2014 a cherished role Bang says she never saw on mainstream television growing up.<\/p>\n

“The excitement is too overwhelming,” she said with a laugh.\u00a0“If I\u00a0actually\u00a0let it affect me, I would just be like,\u00a0oh my goodness,\u00a0I’m just going to\u00a0stay in my room forever.”<\/p>\n

The show follows a Korean-Canadian family who run a\u00a0convenience store in Toronto. Bang\u00a0plays Janet, the defiant, Canadian-born daughter in a largely traditional family.<\/p>\n

When she first read the part, she says she couldn’t believe how much art imitated\u00a0life.<\/p>\n

“I was like …\u00a0this is me. It’s perfect.”<\/p>\n

Like her on-screen appa and umma, Bang’s parents were also small business owners. They ran a laundromat in Burnaby after immigrating\u00a0from Seoul.<\/p>\n

Despite her mother’s discouragement, she\u00a0pursued the arts\u00a0\u2014 but only after dutifully completing her psychology degree at UBC and seeing her sister, Diana, quickly gain recognition\u00a0as an actor.<\/p>\n

Bang says she’s passionate about furthering the visibility of Asians in mainstream media and\u00a0Kim’s Convenience<\/em>\u00a0is her\u00a0chance to reflect the\u00a0reality of her community.<\/p>\n

“When I was growing up, I didn’t have a show like this to watch … being my first role, as this, it’s awesome.”<\/p>\n

While\u00a0the show has been lauded for being the first sitcom in Canada led by Asians, she says it\u00a0hasn’t come without criticism.<\/p>\n

Some have pointed out to her the plot line\u00a0of\u00a0immigrants\u00a0owning a convenience store seems stereotypical.<\/p>\n

But Bang says when it comes to the experiences of Asian-Canadians, the conversation needs to start somewhere.<\/p>\n

“That story hasn’t been told, and before we can get to the point of say, aBig Bang Theory<\/em> with Asian people, it has to go through this process first.”<\/p>\n

Desire for diversity<\/h2>\n

Bang’s desire for more diversity on television\u00a0isn’t isolated.<\/p>\n

She muses a role like hers might have only come up\u00a0because the issue is more prominent than ever.<\/p>\n

Online\u00a0chatter has been peppered with accusations of “whitewashing”\u00a0in Hollywood.<\/p>\n

There were outcries after Emma Stone, Scarlett Johansson and Tilda Swinton were all cast as Asian or partially Asian\u00a0characters for various films over the past two years.<\/p>\n

Online movements\u00a0such as #StarringJohnCho\u00a0replaced white actors such as Matt Damon and Daniel Craig\u00a0on movie posters with\u00a0Korean-American actor John Cho to help the public visualize a diverse face at the helm of a film.<\/p>\n

Constance Hu from Fresh Off the Boat<\/em> and Aziz Ansari from\u00a0Master of None<\/em>, both from critically-acclaimed\u00a0shows where the\u00a0immigrant experience is\u00a0a dominant theme,\u00a0have also been vocal on social media and in interviews.<\/p>\n

Their perspectives are bolstered by industry\u00a0statistics.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year,\u00a0an exhaustive analysis\u00a0of\u00a0414 Hollywood\u00a0films and series,\u00a0totalling\u00a0more than 11,000\u00a0characters\u00a0was\u00a0released\u00a0by the\u00a0University of Southern California.<\/p>\n

It found roughly 50 per cent didn’t feature one Asian or Asian-American character.<\/p>\n

Another study from this year looked at all the top films in 2015, and found not one had an Asian person in\u00a0a leading role.<\/p>\n

With so few diverse roles available,\u00a0Bang says she’s particularly pleased\u00a0the she\u00a0and her cast mates aren’t just\u00a0supporting characters.<\/p>\n

“It’s cool that all the Asians are leads and have full,\u00a0fleshed out lives.”<\/p>\n

She hopes the show will not only broaden representation for actors of all backgrounds\u00a0but also further\u00a0cultural understanding.<\/p>\n

Bang says the sitcom taps into\u00a0the humour of generation gaps and family tension, something almost\u00a0everyone can\u00a0appreciate.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lien Yeung \/ CBC Burnaby’s\u00a0Andrea Bang has been feeling so lucky\u00a0lately, she says she can’t even bring herself to think about it. She’s one of the lead characters in the new sitcom\u00a0Kim’s Convenience, premiering tonight on CBC Television. She was\u00a0an actor only for a couple of years before landing\u00a0the plum gig. And, she gets to … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBurnaby actor's lead role in Kim's Convenience a rarity in mainstream TV - Thunderbird Entertainment<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2016\/10\/11\/burnaby-actors-lead-role-in-kims-convenience-a-rarity-in-mainstream-tv\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Burnaby actor's lead role in Kim's Convenience a rarity in mainstream TV - Thunderbird Entertainment\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Lien Yeung \/ CBC Burnaby’s\u00a0Andrea Bang has been feeling so lucky\u00a0lately, she says she can’t even bring herself to think about it. 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