Steve Park is wanting again at his time on “Friends.”
The actor, 62, bought candid on visitor starring on a 1997 episode of the sitcom, claiming the set was “kind of a toxic environment.”
He starred on two episodes — Season 2, Episode 23 in 1996, titled “The One with the Chicken Pox,” and in 1997 throughout Season 3, Episode 24, “The One with the Ultimate Fighting Champion.”
The comic shared that whereas on set, he overheard a crew member use racist language to refer to a different visitor on the present — actor James Hong.
The unnamed crew member allegedly referred to as Hong, now 96, to set “and essentially saying, ‘Where is the Oriental guy? Get the Oriental guy.’”
This spurred Park to take motion. He filed a criticism with the Display Actors Guild and wrote a “mission statement,” which referred to as for higher therapy of Asian People in Hollywood.
“When I called Screen Actors Guild after that happened, the person I spoke with recommended I write an article to the LA Times,” Park informed hosts and “Boy Meets World” alums Danielle Fishel, Will Friedle and Rider Sturdy on their podcast.
“This is bigger than this show,” he defined. “This isn’t the first time this has happened. But this is the environment where this is business as usual in Hollywood in 1997, I guess it was. And nobody felt the need to correct this or say anything about it. So this was normal behavior.”
The Submit reached out to “Friends” co-creator Marta Kauffman’s rep for remark.
Park stated the LA Instances despatched reporters to interview him about his mission assertion, “and then they never printed it.”
So as an alternative, he distributed the assertion himself by e mail, which led to “responses from all across the country from publications that were asking permission to reprint it. It went viral before ‘viral’ was even a word.”
Throughout the spring of 1997, the open letter was revealed in a number of shops, shedding mild onto not solely the alleged “Friends” incident however different abuse towards Asian People and folks of shade working within the leisure trade throughout that point.
“If this was an isolated incident, I would not have felt compelled to write this mission statement. Unfortunately, I find this attitude and behavior commonplace in Hollywood,” Park wrote on the time. “I know many people who have experienced this kind of indignity on a movie or television show set, and you can be sure this kind of thing is going on in the corporate culture as well.” He additionally famous, “Hate crimes against Asian-Americans are on the rise in this country, and negative portrayals of Asians in the media only encourage this trend.”
Fishel, 43, stated Park’s mission assertion was “ahead of its time” and “incredibly brave.”
“I really recommend everybody read it. It is still on the internet,” she informed listeners. “And you’ll realize, you know, Steve was saying these things 26 years ago, and they are still relevant.”
Park additionally visitor starred on “Boy Meets World” in 1998 on Season 5, Episode 12, “Raging Cory.”
The letter triggered Park to take a step again from performing.
“I had become so race-conscious and so angry that I was looking at everything through the lens of race,” he stated. “I felt like there is no freedom. I didn’t feel any freedom. So I didn’t have any idea what I was going to do, but I just decided to drop out. I told everybody, ‘I’m not acting anymore.’”
