By Louis Chan
AsAmNews National Correspondent
If you’re like me and don’t have tweeners living with you, you probably haven’t paid much attention to Nickelodeon’s Make It Pop.
The show,centered around three Asian girls who formed a KPop group, became a source of much controversy in the Asian American community last year when it debut without any significant Asian American male characters.
In fact it was the most talked about and read stories on AsAmNews all of last year.
A good thing happened in season two that pretty much went unnoticed among those upset about the lack of Asian American male representation.
Two Asian American male actors joined the cast. Vinson Tran plays Linc who forms a band of his own and gives the girls some real competition.
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Joining him is Alex who has a great fashion sense and is played by Micky Nguyen.
Reaction to the new characters has been positive.
DTM Universal who wrote the original blog on AsAmNews about Make It Pop had this to say about season 2.
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“Last year I called out that ridiculous casting in that Make It Pop show and the internet exploded and I probably freed 10,000 minds like Morpheus,” said DTM Universal to AsAmNews. “Then those dinosaurs up there at Nickelodeon had to buckle to the bad PR and pressure and finally cast a couple of Asian guys.
“Well, finally! The mainstream media is catching on? You know I been talking about this since 2009 (7 years ago)! I remember when I did my film pitch in front of my Sheridan classmates and faculty about mass media brainwashing, 90% of the people looked at me confused like I was an alien. Then the faculty was like “we don’t get your story, we don’t think you can pull it off” – so I got my team together and we got it done anyway.
“I even got weird looks from my fellow confused Asians (who were happily plugged into The Matrix living in their dream world and may never ever free their minds) who were ignoring, deflecting, telling me these issues weren’t real, or coming up with silly reasons (excuses) like “Asian stars don’t do well at the box office so they don’t get cast!” or “They have to cast someone relatable to the audience!” – Meanwhile box office superstars like Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Jet Li, John Cho, Steven Yeun, Sung Kang, etc. prove we are bankable and wanted by audiences when given the proper spotlight.
“I’m glad in 2016 it’s starting to become socially acceptable / that people are starting to talk about these sort of issues out in the open – but we still have a long ways to go in terms of proper representation as we still get the silly casting choices slipping through the cracks like Ghost In The Shell, Dr. Strange, etc.”
Make It Pop also features Megan Lee (Sun Hi); Erika Tham, (Corki); and Louriza Tronco (Jodi).
