{"id":3276,"date":"2018-08-15T16:09:48","date_gmt":"2018-08-15T16:09:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2018\/08\/15\/if-you-love-family-sitcoms-watch-kims-convenience\/"},"modified":"2018-08-15T16:09:48","modified_gmt":"2018-08-15T16:09:48","slug":"if-you-love-family-sitcoms-watch-kims-convenience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thunderbird.tv\/2018\/08\/15\/if-you-love-family-sitcoms-watch-kims-convenience\/","title":{"rendered":"If You Love Family Sitcoms, Watch Kim\u2019s Convenience"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bryan Washington \/ Vulture\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a moment halfway through the first season of\u00a0Kim\u2019s Convenience\u00a0<\/em>that encapsulates the show: Mr. Kim (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee), the co-owner of a grocery store in Toronto, is peering at a black dude sifting through snacks by the register. As the customer moves along, Kim asks his daughter, Janet (Andrea Bang), \u201cWhat you think, steal or no steal?\u201d When Janet asks her father if the man took something, with more than a little skepticism in her voice, Mr. Kim dismisses the question: \u201cHe\u2019s a no steal, because he\u2019s a black guy, brown shoes.\u201d<\/p>\n

This, Mr. Kim claims, is a \u201ccancel-out combo.\u201d White guys with white shoes are a \u201csteal.\u201d Brown women with blue jackets are a \u201cno steal.\u201d \u201cBut,\u201d he says, \u201ca lesbian \u2014 that\u2019s a girl who is the gay \u2014 if she\u2019s whistling, that\u2019s a steal. But\u00a0two<\/em>\u00a0lesbains? Surprise. That\u2019s a no steal. Even if whistling. That\u2019s a cancel-out combo.\u201d<\/p>\n

Naturally, Janet asks her father about \u201ca fat Asian gay man long, straight hair, and a black lesbian with a ponytail and cowboy boots\u201d \u2014 steal or no steal? After a blip of confusion, her\u00a0appa<\/em>\u00a0deems that scenario impossible: The fat Asian gay nudges the hypothetical into fantasy. \u201cGay Asian is never fat,\u201d says Mr. Kim. \u201cOnly\u00a0skinny<\/em>\u00a0Asian is the gay. That\u2019s rule.\u00a0That\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0how they doing like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

In just over 90 seconds, the scene tackles racial profiling, privilege, and queer stereotypes at a breakneck pace; flubbing any one of those runs the risk of turning whole viewerships off of a show. But the delivery is so effortless, and the scene\u2019s flow is so natural, that the viewer has no choice but to laugh, gasping intermittently for air over the rest of the episode. In this way,\u00a0Kim\u2019s Convenience<\/em>\u00a0is both a balm and a riot: The series reached audiences beyond Canada through\u00a0Netflix<\/a>\u00a0in mid-July, despite airing in its home country since October 2016. The story was created by\u00a0Ins Choi<\/a>, who originally wrote it as a play, and\u00a0saw that script rejected by every major theater company in Toronto<\/a>. Later, it would go on\u00a0to earn the Best New Play at the Toronto Fringe Festival in 2011<\/a>, following an entirely sold-out run. Today, production is wrapping on the series\u2019 third season, with\u00a0a fourth already waiting in the wings<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Insofar as anything approximating a pure sitcom exists anymore,\u00a0Kim\u2019s Convenience<\/em>\u00a0is the ideal. The show\u2019s concept is simple, and it\u2019s executed within an inch of its life. We have a family, the Kims, with all of the entrapments and plotlines a family unit can entail. Mrs. Kim (Jean Yoon) and Mr. Kim manage the store in relative harmony. Janet, their daughter, juggles photography school and her life around the shop. Jung (Simu Liu) is Janet\u2019s brother, kicked out of the home by Mr. Kim for stealing, but he works at a car-rental spot in the city and is adored by his\u00a0umma\u00a0<\/em>and Janet.<\/p>\n

While the fault lines for conflict are in place, the series doesn\u2019t force itself into them. Jung is estranged, but not in a particularly extravagant way: He simply, mostly, avoids his father whenever possible. Mr. Kim, the family\u2019s patriarch, is a devoted shopkeeper who loves his family, even if he\u2019s a little mystified by them. Mrs. Kim dotes on her husband, although at least once every episode she delivers a line so cutting that it pierces through the screen. Janet lives between the pull of taking over the store, her passion for photography, and her\u00a0umma\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0attempts to set her up with \u201ccool Christian Korean\u201d boys. And when a professor of Janet\u2019s wonders why her \u201cbackground\u201d isn\u2019t informing her photographs, she gently tells the lady that her parents aren\u2019t refugees.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell,\u201d says the professor, \u201cboat people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy parents flew here,\u201d says Janet.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou mean\u00a0fled<\/em>,\u201d says her professor.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d says Janet. \u201cFlew<\/em>. Air Canada, probably.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kim\u2019s Convenience<\/em>\u00a0launches from these potential tensions, and virtually always sticks its landings. The show doesn\u2019t pretend to see reality differently than you and I do, nor does it attempt to sell you on what life actually is, so much as what life\u00a0can<\/em>\u00a0be. We get a mirror of a very specific world \u2014 one that is extremely funny \u2014 and watching the Kims interact with their neighbors is a joy in itself: They are Latino and black and white and Asian and queer and old and young. Mr. Kim escorts his buddy, Mr. Chin, on a double date with a Russian love interest. Jung\u2019s childhood friend, Kimchee, plays the jokester to his straight man. Mrs. Kim\u2019s social circle is wildly mixed, and from the first episode where Mr. Kim tests his fledgling \u201cgaydar\u201d to watching Janet flirt with Jung\u2019s black childhood friend later on,\u00a0Kim\u2019s Convenience<\/em>\u00a0is the rare sitcom that understands that not every joke needs to be explained to the molecular level, because its viewers live in the world as well.<\/p>\n

The air between bits gives them more weight. But there is, maybe, a preexisting burden placed on the narratives we consume today: If they\u2019re entirely divorced from our current political hellscape, those stories are deemed willfully blind. If they lean too far into it, they run the risk of playing to an affectation. And then there\u2019s the art that reads the room, attempting to decode how life is endured alongside it \u2014 with\u00a0the magnified warmth of\u00a0Coco<\/em><\/a>\u00a0on one end of the spectrum, let\u2019s say, and\u00a0the hyperanxiety of Ottessa Moshfegh\u2019s\u00a0My Year of Rest and Relaxation<\/em><\/a>\u00a0<\/em>on the other\u00a0<\/em>\u2014\u00a0<\/em>and I don\u2019t know where\u00a0Kim\u2019s Convenience<\/em>\u00a0falls, exactly, but I do know that I haven\u2019t laughed as hard all year, with feeling, as I have alongside the series.<\/p>\n

It is one thing for a show\u2019s narrative thrust to be the tension of living, and another for it to reject that notion entirely, but watching\u00a0Kim\u2019s Convenience<\/em>, you just want to live in their world. It\u2019s very much like the corner store you visit to buy a six-pack or an iced coffee or a lighter you don\u2019t really need; you\u2019re only looking to soak in the ambiance. You learn to love the owners. You learn about their lives. You learn what to ask about, and which subjects to avoid. You\u2019re not exactly missing anything, and the rest of your life is waiting on the other side of the door, but you linger for a little while, because you can, and because the space makes you feel good, and because this is real life, too. And Mr. Kim, regardless of who you are or where you\u2019ve come from or where you\u2019re going, is unflinching with his farewell, one you grow to expect and to look forward to, delivered from the heels, with feeling, unvarnished and unchanging: \u201cOkay, see you!\u201d It\u2019s less of an announcement than a promise, because you\u2019re certain that it\u2019s true.<\/p>\n

Kim\u2019s Convenience<\/a>\u00a0is available to stream on Netflix.<\/p>\n

Originally posted at http:\/\/www.vulture.com\/2018\/08\/kims-convenience-netflix-family-sitcom.html\u00a0\u00a0<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bryan Washington \/ Vulture\u00a0 There\u2019s a moment halfway through the first season of\u00a0Kim\u2019s Convenience\u00a0that encapsulates the show: Mr. Kim (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee), the co-owner of a grocery store in Toronto, is peering at a black dude sifting through snacks by the register. As the customer moves along, Kim asks his daughter, Janet (Andrea Bang), \u201cWhat … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3277,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIf You Love Family Sitcoms, Watch Kim\u2019s Convenience - 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\/2018\/08\/15\/if-you-love-family-sitcoms-watch-kims-convenience\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"If You Love Family Sitcoms, Watch Kim\u2019s Convenience - Thunderbird Entertainment\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Bryan Washington \/ Vulture\u00a0 There\u2019s a moment halfway through the first season of\u00a0Kim\u2019s Convenience\u00a0that encapsulates the show: Mr. Kim (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee), the co-owner of a grocery store in Toronto, is peering at a black dude sifting through snacks by the register. 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