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This is something I am happy to talk about! I can tense up when asked about my mistakes (because I'm worried I'll say the wrong thing) but it's good for me to reflect on them and I hope others seeing me do so will help them not make the same mistakes! THREAD (with links!): https://twitter.com/carmelaantonio/status/1275655532737691649
In the first few seasons of BoJack, I was asked about the casting of Diane a few times on twitter and reddit but I evaded the question, mostly because my own understanding of the issue was evolving (it still is!) and I didn't want to give a defensive or half-thought-out answer.
I thought when I was ready I'd write something - like a blog post or twitter thread - explaining why I had cast a white actress to voice an Asian character and why it was okay, but the more I thought about it (and listened to other people) the more I felt like it WASN'T okay.
After season 4, I felt like I was never going to feel "ready" to talk about it, and I just had to do it, ready or not. This is the first interview I gave on the subject, with @pilotviruet for Uproxx: https://uproxx.com/tv/bojack-horseman-diversity-diane-interview-raphael-bob-waksberg-alison-brie/
One of the reasons I wanted to do an interview instead of writing something myself is I knew a journalist would hold me accountable in ways I wouldn't necessarily do on my own. I like that Pilot calls out some of my hedges in that piece.
I also make some unforced errors there, like saying about the conception of Diane, "She’s going to be fully American, her race is barely going to play a factor and she’s just going to be a person," which is a very ignorant way to talk about a WOC, real or fictional!
In season 5, we did an episode about Diane taking a trip to Vietnam, which spurred more conversation around the casting. Here's an interview I did with @inkookang at Slate: https://slate.com/culture/2018/09/bojack-horseman-raphael-bob-waksberg-diane-nguyen-representation.html
Some people took my answer to Inkoo's question about if there were Asian writers on staff ("As of Season 5, no, there are not.") to mean we'd NEVER had Asian writers, which isn't true, but it is true we never (in all 6 seasons) had a Vietnamese writer, and that was a mistake.
Even in the small ways we wrote to Diane's experience as a woman of color, or more specifically an Asian woman, we rarely got specific enough to think about what it meant to be SPECIFICALLY VIETNAMESE-AMERICAN and that was a huge (racist!) error on my part.
The intention behind the character is I wanted to write AWAY from stereotypes and create an Asian American character who wasn't defined solely by her race. But I went too far in the other direction. We are all defined SOMEWHAT by our race! Of course we are! It is part of us!
For the Vietnam episode, we brought in @cest_la_vyvy as a consultant and actress. Vyvy was ENORMOUSLY helpful and we couldn't have made the episode without her. But hiring a consultant for one episode is not real representation.
We should have hired a Vietnamese writer, and a Vietnamese actress to play Diane - or if not that, changed the character to match who we did hire.
Every time I talk about this, people comment, "This is silly. Why does it matter? Actors act!" I think I answer that question in each of these interviews (and a little in this thread) but if you still have to ask it, go ahead and reply to this thread; it's fine, I can ignore it.
Finally, here's a conversation I had around the same time with @e_alexjung for Vulture, about this topic and a lot of other topics too (we got very granular): https://www.vulture.com/2018/09/raphael-bob-waksberg-bojack-horseman-apology-tours.html
I am grateful to the people who have engaged me in conversation, or criticized me on this. Sometimes (not the times I linked to above) I will be blindsided by a question about this in an interview, and I'll think "Ugh. I have to talk about this AGAIN? I have nothing new to say!"
But that's okay! It's important for me to keep saying it until everybody hears it. ESPECIALLY when my show suggests the opposite of it. And the "it" is this: the appearance of diversity without true diversity behind-the-scenes isn't real representation; worse, it's appropriation.
