The Power of the Relic Hunter

The Pull of Real, Well-Rounded, Non-Stereotypical, and Rare Asian and Asian-American Characters on TV

by Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, AAV Contributing Editor

The day that Maxine Hong Kingston came to Ann Arbor, I was so nervous that I could not decide what to wear. She was giving a public lecture at the university, and I was going with my worn copy of Woman Warrior to meet her and get her autograph. Do I go with the academic look with a turtleneck and long straight skirt, or do I try for urban chic with black boots and black pants? What will I say to the grand dame of Asian American literature? "Thanks for changing my life?"

I am sure she hears that all the time from gushing freshmen. What do I ask her about her new book? About writing? After two weeks of planning—finding a babysitter, getting some friends to go along, feeding the kids early, finding her book on my bookshelf, calculating what time to leave, and filling the car up with gas, here I was at the last minute stuck in my closet paralyzed with indecision.

Then I heard this voice inside my head, so embarrassing I could never have uttered them out loud: "Let’s go as the Relic Hunter."

So I got into costume as I got into character. As I pulled on my tall black riding boots and slung a leather bag over my shoulder, I felt a wave of confidence and attitude come over me. I stood taller, radiating toughness as I thrust out one hip.

Nothing can stop me. I am "The Relic Hunter."

The Brownout and Relic Hunter

The hold that this television adventure series, Relic Hunter, has over me is so strange and powerful that I do not know quite what to make of it. It all started with the Brownout. Last fall, the NAACP and Latino and Asian-American groups called for a two-week boycott of network television to protest the new fall lineup, which failed to cast persons of color in significant lead roles. I read about it, then promptly forgot about it. I had not noticed that there were no Asian Americans on television, because there had never really been any Asian Americans on television. Well, except for Star Trek, of course, and for the requisite Asian-American woman co-anchor (in California…in Detroit it is one African-American woman)—always co-anchor and always only one—of every news show. I suppose I was used to it.

However, because of the Brownout, one Saturday afternoon, when I was listlessly channel surfing to kill some time and I spotted the long black hair and golden brown skin of Tia Carrere dashing across the screen, I stopped and asked, "What is this show?"

I braced myself, but the usual stereotypes never came. I was so amazed to see an Asian-American woman lead that I had to watch for quite a while before I could even figure out Relic Hunter’s premise.

An actress of Hawaiian and Filipino descent, Tia Carrere plays Professor Sydney Fox, an ancient history professor whose sideline is to search for lost historical artifacts, from Buddha’s alms bowl to Elvis’ guitar. She is a female Indiana Jones, brilliant, beautiful and brave. She is accompanied on her adventures by a bumbling Hugh Grant character—a bookish, repressed, stammering teaching assistant with an English accent. The show is formulaic: one gratuitous boob shot, a couple of big fight sequences (not strictly martial arts), exotic location, and lots of sexual tension—all elements needed to survive on the same channel as Xena Warrior Princess and Hercules.

In any case, I am addicted. Whenever the show is pre-empted by sports or specials, I panic, thinking they have taken it off the air. It still seems impossible that a show with an Asian-American lead and intelligent academic characters could even exist, let alone survive.

Beyond Representation

What is it about Sydney Fox that so resonates with me? Is it just that she is Asian-American? Or is that merely the starting point? I have looked for heroes and role models before, but have never tried to dress and walk like them. What next, a Star Trek convention? There is something more powerful than just representation on television going on here.

I am so in love with the character of Sydney Fox, I want to be her. I want to be gorgeous, looking as good in academic glasses as without, having adventures all around the world and knowing who everyone is. I want to be able to remember arcane historical details and to speak many languages, ancient and modern. Double-crossing men from Sydney's past do not faze her; beautiful new men do not slow her down; no wilting flower stereotype, she always sees through them and puts them in their place. I want to be just as blasé about single-handedly punching out all the bad guys as I am about taking off my shirt in front of people. I want to radiate confidence and composure. I want to carry a knife in my boot.

Nobody ever asks Sydney, "Where are you from?" and nobody ever assumes she is like Suzie Wong. The only thing that does throw her is when she has to figure out what to wear to a fancy or formal occasion—something we have in common. There is no mention of Sydney's ethnicity, yet it is always there. Occasionally, a Caucasian character will do some typically "Ugly American" thing like talk loudly and slowly to people in another country who do not speak English, or refer to t’ai chi disparagingly as "ballet," but then they are always foiled. For once, they are the comic relief.

I do not just want to see an Asian American onscreen, I want to imagine what it feels like to be seen as she is seen, to be treated with deference and respect the way other characters treat her.

Things that Really are Funny

At about the same time, I discovered Martial Law, a show with not just one Asian character, but two—one Asian and one Asian American, and an African-American character as well (played by Sammo Hung, Kelly Hu, and Arsenio Hall, respectively). One of things that has always irked me about television shows, especially cop buddy shows and the TV news, is that if producers want to portray minorities, they stop after they fill their quota of one minority face. It makes me feel like an afterthought, part of a formula. This show has three minority leads, and the fourth main character, who plays their boss, is a white woman.

Martial Law also distinguishes itself by never confusing the difference between Asian and Asian American. The characters' relationships make sense. The younger Asian-American woman, Grace, always addresses the older Sammo in Chinese as "Teacher," and he calls her affectionately by her Chinese nickname; in moments of danger, he calls out a warning to her quite spontaneously in Chinese. When he is in the hospital with a broken leg, she brings him a stack of Chinese newspapers to read.

They get the details right. When they joke about ethnicity, it is actually funny. Once, when confronted with two blond rollerbladers busting out of their bikinis, Sammo walks away, eyes cast down, simply telling his partner to interview them instead. When the rollerbladers ask coyly if Sammo is shy, the reply is, "No, he’s just Chinese." I know how embarrassed my father would be to talk to them; I could barely look at them myself. When an arrested pickpocket tells Sammo her name is "Mary Poppins," he does not get the reference and so calls her "Ms. Poppins," but he is never ridiculed for the mistake. My dad misses all sorts of cultural references like that all the time. Another time, Sammo talks about the great truth he learned in Shanghai traffic jams. On any other show, that would be an opening for him to recite some ridiculous Confucian something-or-other, but here, the truth is, "Let someone else do your driving for you so you can sleep." When he is forced to take a week of vacation, he cooks in front of the television with none other than Martin Yan, just like my mom. It all makes sense.

And then, of course, there are the dazzling and hysterical martial arts sequences, with Sammo wielding everything from a fish to a cactus as weapons. It makes me want to learn more martial arts.

The "Spot the Asian" Game

When I watch these two shows, I find that for the first time I can relax and let down my guard, because, finally, I am not routinely offended or inadvertently ridiculed. Things that are supposed to be funny actually are, and I laugh. I do not end up spending days afterwards trying to figure out if some mischaracterization or mistaken detail was intentional. Perhaps it is because of the stars' ethnicities--either the writers do not want to offend them, or they have input into what does and does not ring true. Or maybe the writers are Asian-American, too? (On Martial Law, one of the producers is Chinese, and the other lived in Hong Kong for many years; enough staff are Chinese that they have a Chinese chef on the set every day. It clearly makes a difference.)

Unfortunately, this does not happen in ensemble casts when only one of many stars--or an occasional guest star--is Asian. Sometimes they get it right, sometimes not. For example, on Ally McBeal, everyone always mispronounces Ling’s (Lucy Liu) name. She always corrects them, but they never understand either how they are mispronouncing it or why it bothers her. It is merely a gag to make the Ling character even quirkier. She becomes part of the joke.

On a recent X-Files, there was a virtual reality computer game expert named Daryl Musashi idolized by all the programmers. He never spoke. Before he was killed (by a samurai sword, of course), the computer spoke to him in Japanese. It was only the next day that it dawned on me—his first name was Daryl, which suggests that he was probably Japanese American and did not even speak Japanese.

On an episode of Frasier, Frasier was at an awards banquet where his radio show was competing against a Hispanic show and a Japanese-American show, both of which ultimately won in a tie. They did not even bother to hire any Hispanic or Asian extras to sit in the background to represent those two shows. The room was all white. Did it not occur to them? How hard could it have been? I am only asking for a few extras with black hair, a discrete nod in my direction.

I used to find it odd when my mom would watch the news for no other reason than to see Connie Chung, but now I do the same thing. When I flip through the channels, I stop whenever I see an Asian face. AAV editor Stewart David Ikeda calls this game "Spot the Asian." Will I see myself in this characterization? Will this entertain or offend me? Is this show going to be a place where I can let down my guard and relax?

In real life, I am becoming more and more interested in meeting and befriending Asians and Asian Americans because I find a stronger connection with them and fewer slights. So, too, with my imaginary friends on TV. I no longer have any interest in the neurotic anguish of mainstream television characters, nor do I have any patience left to forgive their offhand jokes about "50,000 screaming Chinamen" in the Korean War (Everybody Loves Raymond). I am on my guard every day when I walk outside of my door; I do not want to have to be on my guard inside my own home.

I hunger for characters I can relate to, and when I find them on shows like Relic Hunter and Martial Law, they become an important part of me. Not just because they have an Asian face like mine, although that is what gets my attention; rather, I am searching for real, well-rounded, authentic, believable, non-stereotypical Asian and Asian-American characters who are treated with respect by the writers and the other characters.

The Brownout was not just about the frequency of representation, but about the quality, integrity, and authenticity of that representation. I want to see minority characters fully developed and center stage, not as an afterthought or quota-filler.

In fact, I want to be center stage, a main character, not somebody’s afterthought; and I want to believe—if only for an hour a week—that mainstream American society can potentially see me that way, too.

And so, although my destinations are hardly more dangerous or exotic than a Maxine Hong Kingston lecture at the university, I find myself pulling on tall riding boots and a retro shoulder bag like Sydney Fox's whenever I go someplace new. And in the Relic Hunter’s boots, I feel brave.

Related Readings

• An Asian-American Chandler Bing? by Frank H. Wu, AAV Columnist
• Beyond "Spot the Asian": Teaching Our Kids to Critically Read and Deflate Media Stereotypes by Frances Kai-Hwa Wang
• Secret Asian Man On - TV by Tak Toyoshima
• Where's the Real "Me" in Hollywood? by Jeff Ho, AAV Opinion