Will the brilliance of Netflix's 'Beef' be lost in the shadow of a sexual assault controversy?

Don’t Call Me Resilient

Beef premiered on Netflix this month to rave reviews and quickly became the top watched series on Netflix in the U.S. In Canada, it took the No. 2 spot.

Beef is a dark comedy series created by Lee Sung Jin. It follows two L.A. strangers, courageously played by Ali Wong and Steven Yeun, who get into a road rage incident — and end up in an escalating feud.

The show is a beautiful meditation on life and survival and highlights universal issues of alienation and loneliness as well as class and race and gender. Critics have praised Beef for its performances and also for its revolutionary representation of Asian Americans.

But over the weekend, a Twitter storm erupted after a podcast episode featuring supporting actor David Choe resurfaced. In the 2014 podcast, Choe vividly relays a sexual assault story where he is the perpetrator. Choe has apologized since and has also said the story was made up.

This week on Don’t Call Me Resilient, we explore the advances Beef has made in television. As the controversy continues to swirl, we also explore the limits of those advancements and ask whether the brilliance of Beef will be overshadowed by Choe’s controversial history.

Joining us to discuss this is Michelle Cho, an assistant professor of East Asian Studies at the University of Toronto, specializing in Korean film, media and popular culture. Also with us is Bianca Mabute-Louie, a PhD student in Sociology at Rice University in Houston with a background in Asian American studies and racial justice work.

[Beef showcases] “a really compelling portrayal of Asian American women’s experience of female rage and the nuances of living in a world, in a society that expects a certain type of docility and a placid surface” — Michelle Cho, assistant professor of East Asian Studies, University of Toronto