![]() ![]() Mickey Rooney probably wasn't concerned about whether his "Chinese" accent in Breakfast at Tiffany's had northern or southern roots, but Yoon explained that today precision and authenticity must be emphasized so that the accent is not caricatured like Rooney's was. ![]() The laughter can come from the authenticity and the humanity of the moment," Yoon said. "We have a knee-jerk reaction to accents but it's not so simple sometimes. Kim's Convenience actress Jean Yoon, whose character on the show, Umma, speaks with a heavy Korean accent, told me the reaction to any Asian accent must have nuance so that the audiences they represent can relate to it. It's clear that, to so many, the "Asian accent" is a mark of inferiority, but there is debate within the Asian American arts community about why it still causes so many to laugh.įor some entertainers, accents are a tool used to create identification within the audience, not just ridicule. ![]() It can be suave in Idris Elba or snooty in Monty Python while a similar multiplicity that currently seems unattainable for the Canto-Japo-Koreo-Mando-HK accent used on television. "People just think Asian accents are funny," Los Angeles comedian Jenny Yang told me, "They laugh at British or European accents done in a particular way but the funniness of an Asian accent is considered not cool or attractive." Unlike Asian accents, British accents have a wide spectrum of on-screen use. Notwithstanding that Asianness is evidently not one monolithic identity, reactions to the charming British or romantic Italian accents are never so mocking as they are with ours. "The Asian accent gets a shocking amount of laughter, probably 200 to 300 percent more than for other accents," comedian David Fung of the popular Los Angeles YouTube duo, The Fung Brothers, told me. I spoke to Asian American peers from around North America to find out why jeering at this part of our identity is such a low-hanging fruit, one which rarely garners any defending on a streetcar full of people, on TV, or otherwise. The mocking of my grandparents' accents seems to be an acceptable form of racial violence, whether it's in the world at large, or in comedy clubs in particular. And I now wonder how many times my fluent English has saved me from being called "Chinese," stupid, and laughed at. Dao being dragged across the United plane. I don't speak English with a Korean accent since I don't speak Korean, and maybe I feel more acutely aware of how people with Asian accents are treated since watching Dr. To her and those freakin' teens behind me, my small eyes, my black hair, and my presumed "herro" accent are not Canadian. Since I didn't say anything (no one did), that odious woman probably assumed that my accent was just as thick as the man's. ![]()
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