Anger is almost always part feeling and part performance. Unlike sadness or joy, though, it’s very difficult to experience anger silently. That’s probably why, as a shy Asian kid in Texas, I never allowed myself to feel it. I simply didn’t know how to manifest that emotion outwardly, especially since I was taught that anger was a sign of emotional weakness.
As an adult, I’ve more than made up for the anger I didn’t allow my younger self to feel, so much so that people send me emails to point out how “angry” my writing sometimes sounds. And they’re right. I am angry — angry about what I was taught to believe about my worth as a queer Asian Latino person growing up in America. I’m also angry about the fact that I feel I have to make it right for others like me.
That’s why “Beef,” a new Netflix series by Lee Sung Jin that features an almost all-Asian cast, including Ali Wong and Steven Yeun, resonates so much. The show, which dropped on April 6, is a complex dramedy that, as Vulture eloquently put it, throws “us straight into the trenches of modern American malaise.” But to me, the most glorious and simple pleasure of watching “Beef” was that I got to see a bunch of angry Asian people on TV.
“Beef” begins with a seemingly routine road rage incident: A frustrated guy in a pickup truck (Yeun as Danny Cho) backs out of a parking space and almost hits a passing car driven by another stressed-out person (Wong as Amy Lau). There is honking and yelling and a middle finger. Cho decides to drive after Lau and the two end up chasing each other through suburbia. Lau floors her car and drives full speed toward Cho before stopping abruptly. He flinches. We laugh. The ensuing 10 episodes, hilarious and heartfelt, look into their complicated lives and unveil the ethos behind a petty argument that refuses to end.
As you keep watching “Beef,” it’s obvious that the conflict between Cho and Lau, like many real-life instances of road rage,…
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