Community: “A fist-full of Paintballs”

By: Guadalupe R.

Community, is an American comedy show that was created by Dan Harmon. Community, is a successful comedy series that aired on NBC for five consecutive seasons (since 2009-2014). The series follows an elder group of students and faculties, all of different ethnic backgrounds, in a fictional community college called, Greendale.

However, the only reoccurring Asian American actor in the series is Ken Jeong –who plays the role of Ben Chang; also known as “Senor Chang.” Although, the Asian character, Ben Chang, is not a static character he is still marginalized, to some extent, for his Asian background. His marginalization is evident throughout the series by his limited amount of air time. Though Ben Chang has become a success in the series, and the public wants to see more of him, he is still not one of the main characters nor has his air time increased. There are some episodes where Mr. Chang is not included at all and when he is –he only comes on like two or three times, with a span of a couple minutes or less, throughout the entire episodes.

Mr. Chang is not the only minority; there are other minorities in the shows like Abed Nadir, as Danny Pudi, (Palestenian) and Donald Glover, as Troy Barnes, (African American).  However, they are not as marginalized as the Asian Character Ben Chang. This shows the media’s continued marginalization and success of Asian Americans on screen.

In addition, watching the episode “A Fist-Full of Paintballs” reminded me of the article, “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: A Diasporic Reading” by Christina Klein, because in the article Klein compares Bruce Lee with James Bond and their differences in fighting –where Bruce Lee fought with his hands and James Bond with firing weapons. It seemed ridiculous then, that an Asian American could be taken seriously with a firing weapon like James Bond. However, it seems like times have not changed as much because Asians are still not taken seriously with weapons on the media.  In this episode, “A Fist-Full of Paintballs,” Mr. Chang has two paintball shooting weapons determined to execute everyone in his path, and instead of looking menacing, this is seen as another hilarious part of the show; indirectly enforcing the stereotype in the media.