Web series confronts anti-Asian racism

Under the fluorescent pink tiles that lit the red carpet and its dressy audience, the room looked more like a nightclub than a theatre. 

In front of the screen stood directors John Li in his royal blue suit and Ben Ephraim in a stylish collared shirt. No longer the goofy characters that the audience would soon see, the duo were instead playing a different role. They were in their element and starting to look like real professionals.

“The Li ‘Brothers’,” which was released on Friday, Sept. 24, follows the budding friendship of random roommates, Chinese American John Li (John Li) and Pilipinx American Ben Lee (Ben Ephraim), through their shared experiences of anti-Asian racism at a predominantly white institution after being mistaken for brothers by the overly positive yet unintentionally racist resident’s assistant, Emily (Erin Lucid). 

The webseries is a sitcom set in a college dorm hall that expands on the absurdity of anti-asian microaggressions experienced by the two Asian protagonists, John Li and Ben Lee. The characters are based off of the two directors who play them, and the story closely mirrors their own personal experiences with their Asian American identity. 

“These are things that we’ve experienced as Asian Americans and things we experience as students,” Li said. 

Following the recent trend of Asian American representation in the media, “The Li ‘Brothers’” is placed within the context of films such as the media frenzy of “Crazy Rich Asians,” 2020 Best Picture winner, “Parasite,” the critically acclaimed “Minari” and the box office success of “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.” 

What sets “The Li ‘Brothers’” apart is in its commentary on the dynamic between its Pilipinx and Chinese American protagonists in a college environment. 

“We wanted to make sure it wasn’t just solely about the East Asian experience, like we often see in most Asian American media today,” Ephraim said. 

Ephraim aimed to represent his personal struggle as a biracial Pilipinx and white student that brought him “a lot of frustration and identity confusion.” 

Ephraim also wanted to highlight “how differently East Asian people and Southeast Asian people can navigate these issues and also how that can bring animosity among each other,” an issue he feels “isn’t always talked about.” 

Rather than tackle the topic of racism through a dramatic lens, the web series instead chooses to promote activism through comedy. Li often feels that racism against Asian people is ignored. 

“Sometimes, certain behaviors and actions are so absurd that they are only laughable,” Li said. “It’s important to highlight that even though it’s a ‘microaggression,’ or like subtle, it’s still there.” 

By poking fun at the absurdity of the microaggressions experienced by Asian Americans, “The Li ‘Brothers’” hopes to unearth the deeper issue of racism.

“There are lines that we write in the show that have been said and we, like you, laugh at it, but like the reason we wrote it is because someone said it before, like we want to identify how comical it can be and use that to sort of raise an awareness to it,” Li said. 

The duo first met on GroupMe, as most freshmen entering USC at the height of the coronavirus pandemic typically did. From there, they decided to become roommates at The Lorenzo where they would take their film production classes online and eventually come up with the premise for “The Li ‘Brothers’.” 

Over the course of 2020 winter break, Ephraim and Li refined their concept into a 35-page sitcom pilot, which Ephraim said was “for fun” and “had in the back of our minds” until Spring 2021 when the duo was tasked with creating a three-minute short film for their final project in a film production class. 

“We were like, we should take the same characters from that show we wrote and adapt it to like a small, like proof of concept episode, basically something that would kind of take place in the middle of the season,” Ephraim said.

Because the project took place during an online semester, Ephraim and Li were unable to outsource actors, a problem they worked around by starring in their own production. 

“I want to first clarify that Ben and I are not actors,” Li said when describing the duo’s acting debut. 

After receiving positive feedback on their final project, which is now on episode two, the duo decided to develop the story into a web series. Production was slated to begin over the summer but had to be pushed back after Li tested positive for the coronavirus. In the meantime, the directors worked with their cast to flesh out the characters by holding Zoom rehearsals. 

As Trojans returned to campus in the fall, “The Li ‘Brothers’” officially began its three-week production, a process that director Li describes as “a logistical nightmare.”

“Neither of us had ever done anything on this scale,” Li said. 

Some of the actors, such as Javi Cassanova, also never acted on camera prior to starring in “The Li ‘Brothers’.” 

“It’s definitely a big learning curve because I did not expect to be that tired after the first day of shooting,” Cassanova said.

Cassanova plays Mateo, a Mexican immigrant from Texas who’s roommates with the arrogant Lucas (Eli Staub), and is “the complete opposite” of a Jewish person, according to Lucas’ introduction to the residents of his floor in episode one. 

Some members of the production team were also new to the world of television. 

“I was a bit nervous at the start because I didn’t have too much experience with specific lighting techniques or equipment, although I knew the theory behind it,” Mark Burnam, a sophomore  majoring in film and television production, who worked behind the scenes as a gaffer and lighting technician for the production, said. 

Despite the challenges, directors Ephraim and Li wanted to cultivate a fun and collaborative work environment. 

“I think bringing talented people together and getting to work with them and taking everybody’s best ideas is like the most fun part of film,” Ephraim said, who, in addition to Li, was receptive to suggestions from both the cast and crew. 

The directors also held individual rehearsals and interviews with their cast members so that they could both be on the same page with who their characters were and what the overarching story arc of their characters would look like. “They really understood, you know, how to direct us and how to make us really bring and breathe these characters into life,” said Cassanova, after recalling a method acting phone call with Ephraim, who wanted Cassanova to have a conversation with him as the character Mateo. 

On Wednesday, Sept. 22, “The Li ‘Brothers’” premiered at The Lorenzo theatre. 

“It was really surreal,” said Li when describing what it felt like to finally showcase the end result of a project that had been almost a year in the making. 

While the cast and crew celebrated their hard work, the best part for Ephraim was hearing positive feedback from a friend of a cast member after the premiere.

“He came up to me and he was like, ‘Hey, I’m Pilipino. That was so awesome to hear you say that you were Pilipino on screen. I never see that.’ That made me so happy.” 

“My only goal is to really make something I’m proud of and that other people can be proud of,” Ephraim said. “So whatever happens beyond that is really like auxiliary.” 

The first two episodes of “The Li ‘Brothers’” are available on YouTube with new episodes coming out every Friday.