Whassup with the Wongs

BEAST is a series of short films. The objective of the research is to look at the underrepresentation of British East Asians in cinema and TV and increase the visibility of British East Asians on screen.

Whassup with the Wong’s is made in the style of an English costume drama and uses the verbatim dialogue to create pathos and satire in order to highlight the marginalization of British East Asian writers in the commissioning process.

BEAST Ep1 Whassup with the Wongs verbatim dialogue These shorts tell the real life experience of East Asians working in U.K. film and TV

Whassup with the Wongs deals with many of the criticisms levelled at the CBBC’s sitcom Living with the Lams and exposes the following:
• suggests that the requirements of ‘experience’ needed to gain work may differ for white and British East Asian writers
• demonstrates how the ideas of British East Asian writers may be appropriated, while they themselves are excluded
• shows how little value is placed on empowering British East Asians writers
• and shows how, by contrast, it is deemed entirely unproblematic for a British East Asian narrative to be authored by writers with no knowledge or experience of British East Asian life
• hints at the risks of the production and perpetuation of racial stereotypes by such writers
• attests more widely to the racialized – and racist – construction of British East Asians in British society as a ‘joke’