SNL’s ‘Filipino’ gives all Asians a gift for AAPI Heritage Month

Bowen Yang | FILE PHOTO

Bowen Yang is the versatile Asian on SNL. He plays Filipinos, whites, and of course, gays? But that’s easy because he’s gay, right?

No, he’s still very Asian and straight.

And the very married Scarlett Johansson is still a white temptress with an unrequited crush on Yang that demands to be requited.

Both of them have wild sex with each other in an empty control room in 30 Rock.

And that’s just the first punchline.

It’s a premise for a sketch you wouldn’t have seen the last 50 years on “Saturday Night Live.”

But you’re seeing it now.

Happy AAPI Heritage Month?

Uh, sure. Of course. Why not? The show, which has been a barometer for cultural representation for the last half-century, finished its 50th season this past weekend with a finale that screams diversity, reflective of a multicultural world that demands it be satirized.

And Yang is a big part of it.

As a critic-at-large in my columns over the years, I’ve written all too often about how the show in the past has been off-target when it comes to Asian representation or visibility.

It was just unrealistic, or stereotypical, relying on hacky jokes about Asian accents, the staple of everyday morning DJ racism. It made the hiring, then firing of Shane Gillis an issue.

But ever since Bowen Yang joined the show and emerged as a go-to-star, the show has found its way to be more than black and white. Kenan Thompson doesn’t get to have all the fun.

Yang, who caught fame prior to SNL by doing comic lip-synching on the web, has become one of the show’s chief diversity tools. He’s adept at playing all sorts of Asians, including Filipino TSA agents, and even white folk like JD Vance.

And, of course, he has a penchant for playing inanimate objects like the iceberg that sank the Titanic.

I was struck at the bold way his gay openness was made fun of in the finale, when cast members in a filmed sketch reveal that Yang has been only pretending to be gay “for the clout.”

It leads to a workplace hookup between Yang and Johansson, that leads to more.

But it turns out Yang is hooking up with female cast members Ego Nwodim, Heidi Gardner and even Emily Ratajowski.

Satire!

If you’ve bemoaned for years about the lack of Asian male leads or Asian male sex symbols in TV and movies in general, that sketch just satirized the whole issue and sexualized every non-sexualized Asian on the planet.

In a good way.

But wait, there’s more.

It wasn’t the only sketch in the show that screamed diversity. The musical guest was Bad Bunny who appears in a bit as new hire as an air traffic controller. I’d like to see Pete Hegseth do that job.

Another sketch with Mr. Bunny, featured him as the boyfriend of a bewigged Johansson, the both of them confronting another interracial couple, Marcello Hernandez and Ego Nwodim.

Mr. Bunny and Hernandez have a heated argument in Spanish where instead of defending their girlfriends, the punchlines are translated in the subtitles – as complaints about their girlfriends.

It’s a funny bit based on our multicultural, multi-lingual world.

And then there was the cold open which featured James Austin Johnson doing his Trump impression with the president doing what he does best – falling in love with dictators.

After Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin comes another notch in the Trumpian belt, Saudi Arabia’s Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Couldn’t have been done as effectively without new cast member, Emil Wakim, who should thrive now that Trump has developed a thing for murderous Arabs.

Add it all up, with Bowen Yang – the Australian-born, Asian from China, who immigrated to Canada, then to the US in Colorado – as the cherry on top, and you have a season finale that shows how far SNL has come to look like the world it makes fun of.

That’s not the way it’s always been. And that’s progress. There have always been other non-white cast members. Rob Schneider was a half-Filipino comedian/actor and is known for being the “names guy by office copy machine.”

But there’s more of a mix in the SNL cast than ever before. And Yang’s presence also seems to keep moving the humor in a more edgy and diverse direction.

It only took 50 years to get it more right than not. And to keep it all funny.

Emil Guillermo is an award-winning journalist, news analyst and stage monologuist. He writes for the Inquirer.net’s US Channel. He has written a weekly “Amok” column on Asian American issues since 1995. Find him on YouTube, patreon and substack. See him at the SF Marsh, 1062 Valencia St. on June 2.