FICTION
Everybody Loves Ramen
/ Jimmy Chen
03.16.10
Everybody Loves Ramen is a television sitcom about the Wong family, middle-class Asian-Americans living in an unnamed suburb, presumably in the California bay area. First aired on September 20, 1996, the show ran for six seasons on the NBC television network until April 20, 2002.
It is best known for its revolutionary meta-fictional take on television, in which an anonymous boom-mic man faints off camera in every episode, his presence only ever alluded to by the loud thud and scripted "in camera" concerns of the actors and cued mumblings of the audience. At first publicly received with hesitation, especially among the less media savvy middle-age to elderly demographic, NBC eventually sold a record breaking 6.4 million I FAINT t-shirts from 1996 – 1997[1].
Of the Wong Family: Father Ronny Wong works for a software company; mother Lance Wong is an elementary school teacher; their two daughters Christine and Mickie, aged 11 and 14, are perky and energetic grade A students. The paternal grandmother "Nana," having suffered a stroke, experiences severe dementia and delivers some of the show's funniest lines. Other cast members include: the myriad of children who are friends with the daughters (including the lovable albino boy Rupert); Lance's younger sister Tessa Lu, a romantically challenged administrative assistant living in the city; Ronny's tennis friends and co-workers; and neighbor Bob Stark, a conservative veteran who often comes over to complain about the loud Cantonese being spoken.
One of the show's progressive inclines focused on Bob Stark's archaic and bigoted views, though he was portrayed empathetically as a good man trying to acclimate to the changing world. Bob Stark would go off into intangible right-wing sociological arguments while the Wongs patiently listened. Such dichotomy implicated the growing strain between liberal and conservative sensibilities; that Asian-Americans were made the ambassadors of tolerance for the first time ever in contemporary culture, offered a complex dynamic which audiences rejoiced in though sometimes struggled with. The show, however, unintentionally elicited ambivalence in the Asian-American community, some of whom felt that Korean, Japanese, and even Hawaiian actors playing Chinese characters only propagated the racial notion that their maxillofacial qualities were indistinguishable.
At the conclusion of every episode Ronny Wong would prepare dinner, an intended inversion of gender roles, as the Wong family represented, according to Entertainment Weekly, "the new post-American family."[2] The show's creator Kay Boyd, a tireless advocate of the Wong's vegetarianism, notes the length at which he fought the studio executives to incorporate a unique vegetarian ramen recipe into every episode. With the growing success of the show, and an endorsement from both PETA and Maruchan® Ramen, Boyd eventually got his way.
Cornell West, in his Princeton lecture "The Visible Invisible Man: Meditations on Albinism in Popular Culture," proposed that Rupert's albinism represented an enlightened sans melanin "anti-ethnicity," a retroactively provocative negation of skin color which functioned as an indictment of racism in the United States.[3][4] Samuel L. Jackson (or his very talented impersonator) is heard in the recording in the background saying "damn straight" numerous times at fluctuating decibels.[5] The sociologically prophetic role of Rupert has been purportedly corroborated by Boyd himself, who, ironically, is color blind.
First criticized for its pun on "Everybody Loves Raymond," executive producer Marc Feinhorn replied "our semantic pastiche is a cultural critique of pedestrian values and the corporate agendas under which they serve."[6] Ray Romano, the star of Everybody Loves Raymond, retaliated "what the fcuk," [sic] albeit futilely on the show's ostentatiously designed yet obscure blog.[7] The exact reasons for Ray Romano's 2003 suicide is a point of contention between fans of the respective shows, though it is commonly accepted by the general public that Romano was severely depressed over the phonetic usurpation of his show.
It is best known for its revolutionary meta-fictional take on television, in which an anonymous boom-mic man faints off camera in every episode, his presence only ever alluded to by the loud thud and scripted "in camera" concerns of the actors and cued mumblings of the audience. At first publicly received with hesitation, especially among the less media savvy middle-age to elderly demographic, NBC eventually sold a record breaking 6.4 million I FAINT t-shirts from 1996 – 1997[1].
Of the Wong Family: Father Ronny Wong works for a software company; mother Lance Wong is an elementary school teacher; their two daughters Christine and Mickie, aged 11 and 14, are perky and energetic grade A students. The paternal grandmother "Nana," having suffered a stroke, experiences severe dementia and delivers some of the show's funniest lines. Other cast members include: the myriad of children who are friends with the daughters (including the lovable albino boy Rupert); Lance's younger sister Tessa Lu, a romantically challenged administrative assistant living in the city; Ronny's tennis friends and co-workers; and neighbor Bob Stark, a conservative veteran who often comes over to complain about the loud Cantonese being spoken.
One of the show's progressive inclines focused on Bob Stark's archaic and bigoted views, though he was portrayed empathetically as a good man trying to acclimate to the changing world. Bob Stark would go off into intangible right-wing sociological arguments while the Wongs patiently listened. Such dichotomy implicated the growing strain between liberal and conservative sensibilities; that Asian-Americans were made the ambassadors of tolerance for the first time ever in contemporary culture, offered a complex dynamic which audiences rejoiced in though sometimes struggled with. The show, however, unintentionally elicited ambivalence in the Asian-American community, some of whom felt that Korean, Japanese, and even Hawaiian actors playing Chinese characters only propagated the racial notion that their maxillofacial qualities were indistinguishable.
At the conclusion of every episode Ronny Wong would prepare dinner, an intended inversion of gender roles, as the Wong family represented, according to Entertainment Weekly, "the new post-American family."[2] The show's creator Kay Boyd, a tireless advocate of the Wong's vegetarianism, notes the length at which he fought the studio executives to incorporate a unique vegetarian ramen recipe into every episode. With the growing success of the show, and an endorsement from both PETA and Maruchan® Ramen, Boyd eventually got his way.
Cornell West, in his Princeton lecture "The Visible Invisible Man: Meditations on Albinism in Popular Culture," proposed that Rupert's albinism represented an enlightened sans melanin "anti-ethnicity," a retroactively provocative negation of skin color which functioned as an indictment of racism in the United States.[3][4] Samuel L. Jackson (or his very talented impersonator) is heard in the recording in the background saying "damn straight" numerous times at fluctuating decibels.[5] The sociologically prophetic role of Rupert has been purportedly corroborated by Boyd himself, who, ironically, is color blind.
First criticized for its pun on "Everybody Loves Raymond," executive producer Marc Feinhorn replied "our semantic pastiche is a cultural critique of pedestrian values and the corporate agendas under which they serve."[6] Ray Romano, the star of Everybody Loves Raymond, retaliated "what the fcuk," [sic] albeit futilely on the show's ostentatiously designed yet obscure blog.[7] The exact reasons for Ray Romano's 2003 suicide is a point of contention between fans of the respective shows, though it is commonly accepted by the general public that Romano was severely depressed over the phonetic usurpation of his show.
