I just really can't get angry over the way Mrs. Kim is portrayed. I don't know why, but it doesn't make me even slightly mad. And, as I said before, I'm pretty sensitive when it comes to race.
I can't speak to how
accurate the portrayal of Mrs. Kim is (in terms of the majority of Korean-Americans), but I think part of what keeps those of us who don't from getting angry over that portrayal is that, by and large, it presents a positive image. While, shamefully, I can't confess to having seen every episode of the series, it's my assumption that variation on this image is limited--representing, in fact, the integrity which is very much a part of Mrs. Kim's strength as a character. While she may be enacting certain stereotypes in the process, what we get as the end result is a person who is a professional success, an involved (single?) parent, a principled and intelligent woman, and much more than a paper-thin counterpoint to Lorelai's "cool mom," but rather one whose values and arguments are thoughtful and persuasive. Maybe few of us envied Lane her former place in that household some days, but that dichotomy is intergenerational, and has nothing, discernibly, to do with race. (And if you think it's because Mrs. Kim embodies too many Korean stereotypes that she doesn't get along with her more typically American(ized) daughter--comparing their relationship to Lorelai and Rory's--just consider the ongoing clashes between Lorelai and Emily, or Jess and Luke. The whole show is based on the idea that L and R are the exception, not the rule, in parent-child relations; like the Fresh Prince said, parents just don't understand. All told, Mrs. Kim's way of living up to that particular stereotype, anyway, seems believable, sincere, and fair.) Considering how Asians have been presented by the Western media in the past--and it was truly contemptible--having a character like Mrs. Kim as one of the regulars on a show as popular as this one seems more like cause for celebration than the spitefulness with which this thread was begun.
As for the lack of minorities peopling Stars Hollow: I admit, it's an unfortunate tendency at work throughout a lot of television targeted at a certain demographic, but in defense (even if it's circumstantial) of
Gilmore Girls in particular, it takes place primarily in a population-nothing town in Connecticut, a Hartford mansion (and the social circle of its inhabitants), and one of the most expensive and elitist universities in the country. It's not like
Friends or
Sex & The City where you could practically go whole seasons without seeing a member of a minority even in the
background of what, in the real world, is one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the country. Don't get mad at
GG for being representative of a sad and inequitable state of affairs in the USA--get mad at the system it represents (and better yet, start trying to do something about it).