It's okay that House of Ho and A Sugar & Spice Holiday represent mediocre attempts at Asian-American representation on TV

HuffPost

Lifetime's first Asian-American-led holiday romcom A Sugar & Spice Holiday and the new HBO Max reality show House of Ho, focusing on the Vietnamese-American Ho family in Houston, are "decidedly mediocre ... and that’s OK" in their attempts to bring Asian representation to "two generic, highly mass-produced genres," says Marina Fang. "Their flaws are to be expected because they follow the conventions of two easily reproducible genres," Fang adds. "While inserting some culturally specific details, they mostly regurgitate elements of each genre’s formula. Yet, whether it’s a messy reality show or an anodyne holiday rom-com, every new show or movie means there’s a little less weight placed on each show or movie about Asian Americans to succeed. And it means there’s a little less of the absurd expectation that each show or movie needs to somehow represent an entire, extremely diverse racial group — because of course it can’t. A Sugar & Spice Holiday doesn’t pander to viewers or feel cringeworthy or overly performative, in part because it sticks to the classics of the genre. These made-for-TV movies reproduce a bland, monochromatic aesthetic and aspire toward some vaguely WASP-y ideal, even when they attempt to be more diverse...House of Ho begins as many reality shows about large, raucous families do. We meet the Hos, who are full of outsized personalities and, of course, lots of drama — whether it’s real or contrived for the cameras. Some of the developments are culturally specific, but others follow the familiar rhythms of reality TV." ALSO: House of Ho is aimed at a broad American audience, a crash course on Vietnamese culture cloaked in obscene wealth.