Apparently I’m not only writing fan fiction for this, I’m writing King of the Hill fan fiction for it. Which is, honestly, not
the first time I’ve done that.I’ve heard they’re doing a reboot of the series in the new future, like with everything else these days. I found myself wondering how I would do it, which would probably involve a time skip to where the kid characters had grown up. I always pictured Bobby becoming a social worker who did stand up comedy at night, living a life that made the most of both his sensitivity and his creative talents. I’d also heard that a popular reading of Hank Hill is that he might be on the autism spectrum, which I think makes a lot of sense— his tendency toward extreme focus, his occasional struggle to read and understand the behavior of the people around him, his propensity for literalism. I think that could be a cool thing to incorporate into a modern take on the character. So I found myself imagining a scenario where Hank’s much-younger half-brother G.H. is getting a diagnosis, and Bobby, who shows up to help G.H. get hooked up with support and resources, suggests to Hank he might be dealing with something similar.
But Hank being Hank, he has trouble coming to grips with anything that messes with his self-image. I thought a good person to slap Hank out of his narrow minded perspective might be Kahn, his neighbor, occasional rival, and eventual antagonistic friend. I always really liked the character of Kahn. I thought he was interesting because in an era where there were so few human depictions of Asian people on TV, he was not only clever, successful, sexual, and meaningfully influenced by the racism he’d experienced, he was also allowed to be genuinely, interestingly flawed. Neither an idealized nor pernicious, he was arrogant, a little shallow, and jealous, and a lot of it came from the understandable circumstances of his life. He knew he’d worked twice as hard to get half as far as the white people he was surrounded by in his American life, and he resented those who had it easier and were more naturally likable than he was, which made him behave in a manner that was even less likable. He certainly isn’t a perfect portrayal— you could argue his pushing his kid Connie to success is a stereotype, and he was voiced by a white actor doing a Southeast Asian accent —but I thought there was a real and interesting character at the heart of him. So I made him the guy Hank would talk to about something so far outside his wheelhouse.
I struggled with how to depict Kahn’s voice. On the one hand, I actually think it’s really important to show characters who are intelligent and successful with strong ESL accents. I’ve had way too many students who were ashamed of theirs, and having someone who clearly had to learn English later in life who also achieved a high level of success is important representation. But on the other hand, as I mentioned Kahn was played by a white actor putting on a voice, which is kinda problematic. If I were to do the reboot, I’d recast Kahn, but still maintain the accent. It’s meaningful to his history— in exemplifies how hard he had to work to get where he is, and how much racism does affect him in everyday ways —but I think that would make it a little more honest.
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