Fresh off the Boat has an interesting and unique representation of gender. In the family, everyone is scared of the mom, including her husband. She makes all the big decisions and can be very feisty. This is a nice change to having the man always in power. Gender power is definitely represented through age at the same time. The grandma is very quiet and only speaks when spoken too. Her feet are also bound, and she cannot walk. This show does not have much relating to queerness, so far at least. In season one episode five, the main conflict was between the family and their in laws because there has been an ongoing “competition” on who is more successful and financially stable. One aspect of the competition was looks and Eddie’s mom curled her hair because that represent money and Eddie’s cousin’s mom got breast implants. This shows how body appearance is connected to value in this show and community. This is intriguing because in today’s day and age, class and value is trying to separated from looks and appearance. However, the setting of this show is in 1995 when this present wave of equality was not as present. As a result, this show has an accurate depiction of what society was like over twenty years ago. Over the duration of this episode, the two families continued to battle for the prize and the two moms battle to be the favorite of their mom. Eddie’s mom was always the favorite but lost her spot after she “abandoned” her. Overall, this episode was not very related to any gender representations beside the stereotypes of Asian culture. It was ironic to see how Eddie’s cousin’s family was lying the entire time and how happy Eddie’s family was when it was confirmed that the Miata was used.
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