“Background” is a brand new story by Elaine Hsieh Chou. To mark the story’s publication in The Atlantic, Chou and Katherine Hu, an assistant editor for the journal, mentioned the story over e mail. Their dialog has been evenly edited for readability.
Katherine Hu: In your brief story “Background,” an estranged father works as an additional within the hopes of encountering his daughter, a famend director, on one in every of her units. It’s a grand discussion board for reconciliation. What impressed this setting?
Elaine Hsieh Chou: I’ve been doing a little background performing since 2019. It began as a option to make ends meet after I was in between jobs, however I grew to essentially love being on set. I’ve met individuals from all totally different walks of life and have had some fairly enjoyable experiences (like reworking right into a zombie at nighttime!).
“Background” was impressed by a two-day set I used to be on of all-Asian extras. There had been over 70 of us. We had been all taking part in one ethnicity (Japanese), and all of the scenes had been truly “set” in Japan. What I discovered fascinating was how we had been such a different combine, from all totally different ethnicities and social backgrounds: multi-generation Americans, first-generation immigrants, even hard-core conservatives, like the one who loudly declared on the bus, “Trump has done more for this country than Obama ever did.” But while you watch our scenes within the present, you’ll by no means comprehend it. Because the principal actors had been from Japan, audiences assume that this whole portion of the present was filmed there. Through what Gene calls “movie magic,” our variations had been erased.
Hu: The clean areas are a captivating facet of the story and drive us to interact with the textual content in a novel means. My thoughts manages to fill a few of them in fairly simply, however others are tougher. What is their significance, particularly in a narrative about anti-Asian violence?
Chou: When I used to be first drafting the story, one thing about writing out all these scene breakdowns felt jarring. When I attempted utilizing clean areas in sure spots, they clicked into place. And with the usage of NDAs on units, which I needed to signal for the aforementioned present, it made sense. The clean areas additionally call to mind erasure poems—what’s not there says as a lot as what’s there. As this formal selection pertains to anti-Asian violence, I feel it was a means for me to mitigate writing out these beats as a result of it will be painful to take action, particularly as a result of the ending of the shoot is already violent in its personal proper.
Hu: Athena is estranged from her father by selection, however you’ve determined to inform the story from Gene’s perspective. How did this narrative choice inform the best way the story unfolds? Was it at all times advised so carefully from Gene’s perspective?
Chou: In my early notes for the story, I thought of writing a narrative a couple of single father with a daughter who desires to be an actress. Then I jumped to writing from the angle of a background actor, as a result of I had that firsthand expertise. I believed the director could possibly be controversial: an Asian director who writes a satirical movie about anti-Asian hate that casts Asian actors to be the victims of anti-Asian hate, however I wasn’t certain who the director’s character actually was. Then, within the fall of 2021, I simply began writing and new paths opened up. I trusted these instincts and adopted the place the story led me: The father is estranged from his daughter and she is the director. The movie she directs is totally different from the one I had initially imagined, however a few of these early themes stayed.
Hu: The movie set is eerily reasonable, but it’s not actuality. An additional, as an example, argues that being directed to act as a sufferer of anti-Asian violence on a faux subway set continues to be anti-Asian violence. How do you understand the connection between actuality and our depictions of it? Is it at all times a problem to depict a violent act with out the danger of perpetuating it?
Chou: This is one thing I’ve been pondering rather a lot about, and in recent times, there’s been extra dialogue of “trauma porn” and who it actually exists for. If you might be retraumatizing the very viewers a bit of media is supposedly for, can it actually be for them? Do any of us, after a tough day’s work of present on the planet, wish to unwind by watching or studying one thing that makes us really feel ailing? And when this occurs, does it routinely make the media in query for “educational purposes,” which is evenly coded for educating a white American public? Where is the road between making an viewers really feel seen and turning their ache into shock worth?
As for violent depictions being violent in and of themselves, a number of years in the past I learn that Gaspar Noé’s Irréversible (2002) features a steady nine-minute rape scene. I fixated on how Monica Bellucci might need felt whereas filming it. Even although I’ve by no means seen the movie and don’t plan to, that has at all times caught with me. I additionally just lately realized that, earlier than the widespread use of physique doubles, many baby actors needed to act in kissing or intercourse scenes with adults a lot older than them. Brooke Shields was 12 years previous when she performed a intercourse employee in Pretty Baby (1978), reverse a person greater than double her age; she additionally had nude scenes within the movie.
Hu: Gene and Athena each have novel methods of simplifying morality—the factors system, as an example. Given their tough relationship, and the trials of their respective lives, are these morality talleys easy makes an attempt at being good? Or is one thing higher at play?
Chou: Rather than makes an attempt at being good, I feel Gene and Athena each battle with navigating life in a wholesome and non-chaotic means—for Gene, due to his alcoholism, and for Athena, due to rising up with an alcoholic father. As Gene’s character got here into focus, I noticed that the good-day-, bad-day-bagel system is so deeply tied to his personal private restoration program as a result of he has not (but) been in a position to often attend Alcoholics Anonymous conferences. It’s additionally low-stakes sufficient for him to decide to. For Athena, she has needed to formulate a really inflexible imaginative and prescient of proper and flawed from a younger age, and took pleasure in the truth that she might decide to this imaginative and prescient, in contrast to her mother and father. That self-righteousness has adopted her into maturity.
Hu: The story ends with Gene volunteering to be the additional who’s violently attacked, with Athena watching him from behind the digicam. As readers, we’ve been watching Gene carefully, and are in a position to think about him extra straight by way of her eyes. Will this scene fulfill Athena’s need for management?
Chou: I don’t know if Athena is specializing in a need for management right here; I feel she acknowledges that Gene desires to punish himself so he can lastly forgive himself and transfer on from how he handled her as a toddler. He desires to fairly actually proper the wrongs of the previous—which in fact, none of us can do with out a time machine. So when this case presents itself, Gene grabs it as a last-chance alternative. And Athena lets him. Gene’s IMDb credit score is framed as Athena’s present to him. To withhold the “punishment” he craves would solely be additional punishment.
Hu: What different tasks are you engaged on?
Chou: I’m engaged on adapting my debut novel, Disorientation, into a movie with my co-writer, the unimaginable April Shih. There are another TV tasks I’m engaged on, too, that I’m very enthusiastic about. I’m additionally modifying my forthcoming short-story assortment, Where Are You Really From, which can characteristic “Background” and totally different genres of storytelling: satire, remixed fairy tales and Chinese mythology, comfortable sci-fi, and horror-inspired tales. I really like how brief fiction is an area for exploration and play, and I can’t wait to share these tales.