Thread by @jean_yoon

@MisterJohnDoyle Dear sir, as an Asian Canadian woman, a Korean-Canadian woman w more experience and knowledge of the world of my characters, the lack of Asian female, especially Korean writers in the writers room of Kims made my life VERY DIFFICULT & the experience of working on the show painful

@MisterJohnDoyle Your attack on my cast mate @SimuLiu, in the defense of my fellow Korean artist Ins Choi is neither helpful nor merited. Mr. Choi wrote the play, I was in in. He created the TV show, but his co-creator Mr. Kevin White was the showrunner, and clearly set the parameters.

@MisterJohnDoyle @SimuLiu This is a FACT that was concealed from us as a cast. It was evident from Mr. Choi's diminished presence on set, or in response to script questions. Between S4 and S5, this FACT became a crisis, and in S5 we were told Mr. Choi was resuming control of the show.

@MisterJohnDoyle @SimuLiu The cast received drafts of all S5 scripts in advance of shooting BECAUSE of Covid, at which time we discovered storylines that were OVERTLY RACIST, and so extremely culturally inaccurate that the cast came together and expressed concerns collectively.

@MisterJohnDoyle @SimuLiu Under Mr. Choi's leadership, S5 restored many of the core values of the original show, and most offensive "jokes" were removed. To give you an idea of what we are talking about, here is one scene from the original S5 drafted under Mr. White's leadership.

@MisterJohnDoyle @SimuLiu Pastor Nina comes to the story to pick up Mrs. Kim for a Zumba class. Mrs. Kim is wearing NUDE shorts, and Pastor Nina is to embarrassed to tell her she looks naked from the waist down. Mr. Kim enters, and the joke is that if you're married you can say anything.

@MisterJohnDoyle @SimuLiu No one, esp. Mrs. Kim, would be unaware that a garment makes her look naked. Unless she is suddenly cognitively impaired. or STUPID. Stripping someone naked is the first act before public humiliation or rape. So what was so funny about that? At my request, Mr. Choi cut he scene.

@MisterJohnDoyle @SimuLiu THAT scene would have aired hours after 8 people, 6 Asian women, were shot in Atlanta, GA in a hate crime spree that shocked the nation. THIS IS WHY IT MATTERS. If an Asian actor says, 'Hey this isn't cool,' then maybe should just fix it, and say THANK YOU.

@MisterJohnDoyle @SimuLiu And I'm sick of holding this back-Koreans hardly ever get MS: 0.1/100,000 or one in a million. You are 5x more likely to get a blood clot from the AZ vaccine than you are to get MS if you're Korean. The producers: "But why does it matter?"And "Jean doesn't understand comedy."

@MisterJohnDoyle @SimuLiu And hey, if I hadn't spoken up all the Korean food in the show would have been WRONG. Ins doesn't know how to cook or how things are cooked, no one else in the writers room were Korean, and THEY HAD NO KOREAN CULTURAL RESOURCES IN THE WRITERS ROOM AT ALL.

@MisterJohnDoyle @SimuLiu What I find tragic about this situation was the refusal to believe the urgency with which we advocated for inclusion in the writers room. The failure to send us treatments, outlines, the resistance to cultural corrections & feedback. There is so much I am proud of. But

@MisterJohnDoyle @SimuLiu But S3 & S4 in particular had many moments of dismissal & disrespect as an actor, where it mattered, with the writers. And the more successfully I advocated for my character, the more resistance and suspicion I earned from the Writers/Producers.

@MisterJohnDoyle @SimuLiu In the final bedroom scene in S5, Mrs. Kim weeps because she believes that God has abandoned her. The more she prays for something, the more certain it will get worse. That's what it felt like. The love died. 사랑 없으면 소용이 없고 아무것 도 안입니다.

@MisterJohnDoyle @SimuLiu Source, please.

@MisterJohnDoyle @SimuLiu A correction: In S5, at the cast's urging, a Cultural Consultant was hired and she was very helpful. An episode featuring Korean Chicken Stew 삼계탕 was VERY well-researched, and well-handled.