Writer, chef provocateur Eddie Huang isn’t known for pulling punches, even when it comes to his own work.
The 33-year-old let fly a Twitter tirade recently, this time targeting “Fresh Off the Boat," the ABC sitcom based on his book of the same name, which in turn is based on his experiences growing up in Orlando, Florida in the 90s.
On Twitter, Huang listed a number of criticisms, most aimed at how he thought the show had sugarcoated his childhood memories. He prefaced his series of tweets by saying he doesn’t watch the show.
"My relationship to hip hop & black culture rose from being the victim of domestic violence. It's not a game. That music meant something to me,” Huang tweeted.
But he also struck out at the ways Asian Americans as a whole aren’t being authentically portrayed.
"I don't think it is helping us to perpetuate an artificial representation of Asian American lives and we should address it."
The show, which depicts a fictionalized version of Huang's real family as they acclimate to life in a sun-splashed, white-dominated Orlando, received strong buzz when it first aired as the first network show starring an Asian-American family in 20 years, although the luster has worn from it in recent weeks, with ratings down significantly.
Huang had previously expressed mixed feelings for the show in a piece written for New York Magazine, saying ABC wanted to, "tell a universal, ambiguous, cornstarch story about Asian Americans resembling moo goo gai pan”.
Huang, who narrates each show, says he was compelled to speak out following what he saw as further dilution of his words away from his original story.
"I had to say something because I stood by the pilot. After that it got so far from the truth that I don't recognize my own life."
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