How I Got Radicalized
When Lucy Liu Used a Riding Crop to Seize the Means of Production
This scene from ‘Charlie’s Angels’ proved you could have it all — hot friends and socialism
Welcome to the first installment of “How I Got Radicalized,” a new series at GEN that tells a story about a cultural moment — a TV show, commercial, character, song, book, musical, etc. — that made you drastically rethink how society works. Here’s how you can pitch us.
For an East Asian American girl of a certain age, there is everyone else, and then there is Lucy Liu. I don’t mean this as a deep cross-examination of the lack of representation in Hollywood, but rather as a simple fact of life. I experienced time before I first saw Lucy Liu on-screen as some sort of amorphous blur; afterward, my life crystallized, organizing itself into a single, essential question: Do I want to be Lucy Liu, or do I want her to step on me?
My first encounter with Lucy Liu was when I was eight years old. At the time, I was living in rural New York and carefully creating a “personality” around the fact I was the only person who brought salmon rice balls for lunch. The few friends I had were all boys; my passion was birds of prey. It was during this time of my life when Lucy Liu appeared…
