Rhetorical Analysis: Fresh Off The Boat

Analysis
Upholds
America is long overdue for a series featuring Asian American characters. As New York Times writer Wesley Yang points out, ”Fresh Off the Boat would be the first network sitcom to star an Asian-American family in 20 years and only the third attempt by any major network in the history of the medium.” ABC is offering a slate of new programs deliberately focused on diversity. ““Its our job to reflect America,” ABC-TV head Paul Lee said…” “we didn’t pick up these shows because they were diverse, we picked them up because they were great” (Kang). ABC is taking on the job of reflecting the diverse culture and bringing minorities to the spotlight for the first time. ABC’s determination in bringing in diversity can be seen as programs

Fresh Off the Boat is based off a true story, which tells audience that the show is the ground for human reality. This leads to a problem because “…people are threatened by differences. We do not like to think that others are strange and alien, and when we perceive differences between ourselves and others, we work to overcome them” (Brummet p.207). However, Fresh Off the Boat presents to the audience that it is okay to laugh at the minorities and their foreign ways. We do not need to overcome the differences and try to understand each other’s perspective but view their ways as a

However, Fresh Off the Boat is diverse in the sense of the appearance of the characters but it is not diverse in the content. If Fresh Off the Boat were a family comedy show that just happened to be Asian, then it would be an revolutionary. The common ground that is established in hierarchies is a way to achieve identification with others, which is something that people generally want. For instance, people may be from different background but if they watch a movie together, the structure of watching a movie together is a source of identification for them. The problem with this is that nobody can follow the rules of any hierarchy all the time. We are always violating the rules or at least thinking of violating them (Brummet, p. 206). For example, we may think racist thoughts and feel guilty because we know that those thoughts violate the principles of equality that many of our hierarchies insist upon. Conversely, this television series tells us that it is okay to laugh at the characters and their absurd ways. It seems as if they are telling the audience that it is okay to poke fun of these characters because they are jokes themselves. I am afraid that this will allow audiences to take these jokes to face value. Fresh Off the Boat may be a historic moment but it is not the one we should be looking