As the U.S. faces a growing number of hate crimes directed at Asian Americans, Hollywood is reflecting on its own treatment of stereotypes.
Actress Kat Ahn, who had a one-time bit role in The Office, spoke with the Washington Post about being cast as 'the joke' in an episode titled A Benihana Christmas.
The episode aired some 15 years ago but, according to Ahn's own experiences, the notion that Asian actors are there to serve only as a punchline remains mostly unchanged.
In the holiday episode of the much beloved NBC sitcom, Michael Scott - a well meaning but bumbling, out of touch and often offensive middle manager of a paper company - refers to Benihana as 'Asian Hooters.'
Scott, played by Steve Carell, uses a Sharpie to mark up one of the two Asian waitresses at the restaurant so he could tell them apart. Ahn was cast as one of the two.
She told the Washington Post that she was initially elated to have scored a role on the popular show but soon learned that she was 'just there to be the joke.'
'You're told to shut up and be grateful,' she explained. 'Actors have no power until they become a star.'
Ahn first spoke out about her role on The Office in a now-viral TikTok: 'The storyline with myself and the other Asian-American actress is that we were the uglier version of the actresses at the Benihana.
'Also that all Asian people look alike; we're one big monolith; and we're just one big, walking stereotype without any personality or individuality, which is problematic.'
Ahn's critique of the way Asian characters are portrayed on screen comes amid a reckoning of Asian hate in America which seemed to reach a boiling point recently with the devastating mass shooting in Atlanta.
Earlier this month, eight people were shot and killed - the majority of them Asian women - when a gunman opened fire at several Atlanta-area massage parlors.
Just a week before the shootings, a report was released revealing almost 3,800 incidents of Asian-American hate.
That number was up significantly from 2,600 incidents reported in the previous year, with 68% of the incidents from this past year reported by Asian women.
The report studied data compiled between March 19 of last year and Feb. 28 of this year, which reveals that 503 incidents took place in 2021 alone.
Over the summer, Hollywood got similarly introspective about its treatment of BIPOC following the death of George Floyd and coast-to-coast Black Lives Matter and police brutality protests.
NBC removed two episodes of 30 Rock that portrayed blackface, as well as cutting out a blackface scene from another holiday episode of The Office, season nine's Dwight Christmas.
'The Office is about a group of people trying to work together with mutual respect despite the inappropriate actions of their boss and assistant manager,' Greg Daniels said at the time in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter.
'The show employed satire to expose unacceptable behavior and deliver a message of inclusion,' he continued. 'Today we cut a shot of an actor wearing blackface that was used to criticize a specific racist European practice. Blackface is unacceptable, and making the point so graphically is hurtful and wrong. I am sorry for the pain that caused.'
There has been no word as to whether the Benihana episode of The Office will removed from streaming platforms.
