Married with Children

第一次听到 “白（人）垃圾”这个词，是从我的一位白人同学嘴里，当时就愣住了，这么BH。我不过是有兴趣问问一个市区里爵士乐的赶集，据说有音乐，有小摊，游人如织，热闹。那位同学是当地的，就想问问什么样的人在那，结果看看他撇嘴吐出这么一个词，这位和着与这聚会有仇，吓得我没敢再问，去了也没敢张扬。去了这么一次，红黄白黑绿色都有，到底怎么样的是”垃圾“呢？这个答案是在电视剧里找到的。

Married with Children was the first US TV series impressed me when I came over to US. Broadcasted between 1987 to 1997, it is about a stereotypical “white trash” American family.  The description about the show (borrowed from imbd.com) says: “Al Bundy is a misanthropic women's shoe salesman with a miserable life. He hates his job, his wife Peggy is lazy, his son Bud is dysfunctional (especially with women), and his daughter Kelly is dimwitted and promiscuous.” The cast is excellent and the scripts are so admirable and reflected the best work from comedy screenwriters.  The show was nominated for many awards during the time.

 

The characters behaved so silly that they were hilarious. On the other hand, it is alarmingly true in all details here and there mirroring many people I met in life. All of us who immigrated to US with the blindly admiration of western culture or believed the whites being the best race, should watch the show to get back on the ground. Then you quickly realize that not all American are handsome, generous, smart and kind. They are mostly funny though. This show, after all, is a comedy.

 

When I watched the show back 15 years ago, I saw myself so often in “Amanda”, the character of the family friend and a neighbor. She thought she was totally above everyone and lacked the basic sense of humor, just to name two personal traits. Those, unfortunately, were so me at one time.  I am about Al and Peggy’s age now and my daughter about Kelly's age. I was reminded again how true the show could be in our life. I found my daughter’s pictures on her facebook site last week. Despite the fact she is a much smarter student than Kelly (well, Kelly is a blonde and my daughter  has100% asian face),  she had the exactly the signature look of Kelly, totally self absorbed and dumb with pretended innocence. 她自己觉得这照片美的冒泡，我都气乐了。

 

I am wondering if any screenwriter is daring enough to break the political correctness and put the stereotypical Asian immigrant family on the screen as a comedy show. The father probably has no non-Chinese friends and is an invisible man at work. The mother probably has decorated the house with all the cheap crafts from China. Her only fun in life is to whip the kids to academic excellence. The family lives in an expensive large house without decent or even any real furniture. The kids are all skinny and wear glasses. They play piano despite the fact that they hate it totally. They all believe that they are americans. They go to Chinese sunday school to speak English with each other. Many of them favor blonde dolls or fancy about dating white girls. The entertainment has to be in Chinese. And the top three topics in any chinese parties are ivy leagues, stock and real estate. Oh yeah, there could be a very long long list of things that we feel OK doing in them daily but quite ridiculous when we watch them live on TV.