Recent Progress
Recently, Asian actors have been receiving larger roles in films. These roles have begun branching out from the traditional stereotypes, but still maintain some of the more current stereotypes. Films like Get Smart (2008) and shows like The Walking Dead (2010-ongoing) both have Asian Americans starring in them or playing prominent roles. The television show Sullivan & Son (2012) both create and seek to break the stereotypes. It is important to note that both the actor and the character he plays are half European-half Asian. In the first episode, there are many jokes the main characters father, who is a white American, makes about the mother, who is Korean. The jokes are made acceptable by the relationship between the two; they are a happily married couple so the remarks are perceived as okay.
Despite the play on jokes, there is still the portrayal of Steve Sullivan as an average American, in contrast to many films and television shows over the years that have portrayed Asian Americans as immigrants or non-Americans. Whether he is able to play the role of an authentic American and be viewed that way by the American public because both Steve Byrne’s character and he himself are half Korean-half white, which legitimizes his “American-ness” versus if he were completely Korean, is unclear.
