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Chang is an odd character. In the context of characters he’s played since, it’s really Ken Jeong’s stock character. It either fits or doesn’t. Has he ever played anything else? This is the same character as the Hangover movies.
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Abed reminds me of Bird Person. Jeff, Troy, Annie are more standard sitcom characters afaict. Not developed subversively. Shirley would be awkward today. Cuts a bit close to the emerging black+antisemite thing. Pierce seems written for Chevy Chase to be himself.
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The pre-Weirding vibe is very disturbing though. It’s like we know, but the show doesn’t, that there’s a nuclear bomb under the set and everything they do either accelerates or slows the countdown. This is a good test for any show from 2000-15.
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Chang living in the air vents with a monkey is very much a cartoon kinda premise. Interesting how the gimmicky episodes (paintball, stop motion), while annoying, work better than they do in regular shows, since this is basically a live-action cartoon.
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Both here and in The Hangover he’s created a very interesting stock character: the personification of a system’s insanity. He’s the truest slave of the community college or Vegas crime world etc.
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Hmm. I haven’t seen this archetype tagged. Kramer is another example. Personification of systemic crazy. Like an animist spirit or something. Like a demiurge but as ultimate gollumized consumer of a system rather than its creator. An anti-demiurge.
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I don’t think this character exists in Rick and Morty. They were setting up the math teacher Mr. Goldenfold sort of like this, but I think gave up. R&M doesn’t have a Chang. Interesting. I guess Rick himself carries that aspect.
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Another way to understand it: Chang is pure shadow, no self. He pops as an individual only via projection of others. Otherwise he’s inseparable from the systemic unconscious.
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Replying to
I normally wouldn’t read this much Jungian significance into stuff, but Harmon clearly is a nerd of this stuff from his own writings.
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