Harry shum jr and why we need more people like him in the arts.
- Andrea Nunn
- Feb 15, 2023
- 5 min read
So it’s a Wednesday morning and this for me means blog post time but I am getting into self-destructive behaviour and I am finding that the blog for its rewards it’s diminishing returns but I feel that I will push through it and I find myself reaching for people who have championed people with disabilities and I know that there is a lot in Australia and I will get to them but in a misguided hope that this blog will reach a more international audience.
I am going to go back to one actor I do like and admire and that one has not had the traditional path to fame I see that it’s because of his upbringing and culture we see that this actor did have a lot of barriers to face and one being systemic racism and the threat of being typecast as he is an Actor of “cultural heritage” It’s harry Shum jr and this is someone whom we have all seen as he was climbing the ranks of dance and then moving over to acting and this is something that we see not a lot of dancers can do.
They very rarely have the success that Harry has had and it might be their decision not to pursue acting and go the stable route and teach dance more than anything else, but we see that people don’t realize that it is him in the iPod commercials and he is only starting to be a household name now and he has worked very hard to get where he is and he admits that he is timid and that this is his strength that he steps back and thinks his next move through and isn’t afraid to talk about the systemic issues that actors face and this ties into the wider debate that we are having as a society as we see that actors are being more sensitive to issues that women and people with disabilities face as well.
He has always been sensitive to the issues as he has faced very similar issues now and we see that there is a raging debate about whether actors with disabilities and that have same-sex orientation should play roles that reflect this, however, in a post-Hayes code world this might be a bit difficult because movie and Tv show sets are very fast-paced and nosy environments we see that a lot of TV content and now professional YouTube content is done by people with disabilities and they are starting to consult on representation in Tv and movies as well.
I notice that Harry has coped with a lot of pushback in saying that representation doesn’t always have to focus on race and I agree with him there now is a lot of good representation around race and we see that Harry has been a leader in pushing back against type casting and what we would consider being “problematic” storylines. Such as ones that he stood up to in glee such as his character Mike for a season being labeled the other Asian and having a romance with tina so keeping it within the context of the show focusing on high school romances.
When he talks about othering we see that this is a massive issue still and I see what he is saying about race and the risks that they take with stereotypical roles we see that this can be a massive issue because people need to see themselves on screens and we see that this is a conversation that others have hijacked and Harry has been actively working towards breaking the stereotypes that say Asian American actors can play roles only in the migrant storylines or in the community context and one of his very early film’s white frog, we see that he played a brother and a caregiver to a person with Autism and we see that this film is under-recognized for its work, in breaking down barriers as it’s a film set in the ’90s and it talks about something very close to my heart and that is the impact of disability on the wider family and the gatekeeping that families can have around it.
It shows the reality that is many peoples day to day lives and we see that he had one night for himself so this being his Friday night where he has a poker game with his friends and we see that he was struggling with his identity as a young person as the character he plays was one that was gay we see that people think the cult hit Shadowhunters was his first role where he played a bisexual character however white frog is the first one, and it to me is underrepresented in what we see him being able to do due to the fact that it didn’t screen widely, so we see that people need to be aware of this and I feel that we need to promote these things and that we need to realize one very important fact about the arts industry is that it’s hard and unstable work and that it might not be practical for people with disabilities to be an actor but there is plenty of work arounds such as having people with disabilities be a consultant or to have people with disabilities be supported to write their own stories as they still face stereotypical representation and this does carry over in to real life and we haven’t seen any more great representation since CODA and we need to be aware that this representation needs to happen more and not in the context of the stereotypical inspiration porn or the hero care giver we need to see them getting on with life and telling the rich and diverse story’s of people with disabilities and seeing them working towards their dreams as the internet for many people with disabilities has made this possible.
We now see that people are very aware of this and are actively working towards having more accurate representation, however, we do see that he did cop a lot of flack for saying this and I think it’s time that we address the elephant in the room that is the race card, as we see that iten Australia we see that we have a very different point of view towards race we say well if you can speak the language and want to contribute we don’t mind, where you came from and I have had support from people from all over the world and modern Australia is built on diversity.
However, we do see that sadly race does play a role in context but we see that representation and accurate representation does matter to people and we need to have a difficult and challenging conversation around race and disability however that is a blog post for another time.
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