30 Rock Adoption Humor Questions the Status Quo

"Surprise, you're adopted!"-- is no laughing matter. Keeping adoption secret from your child is also not a laughing matter. Yet, I absolutely love this scene from 30 Rock which uses an overused and perhaps outdated adoption gag in an inventive, new way that turns convention on its head.

In the episode, The Moms, Danny and Lutz are white and are workers on the SNL-esque skit comedy show, TGS. All the moms are coming to town for Mother's Day, and as Danny's mom steps into the room, clearly Asian, this happens:

Danny (white): Hey, Lutz. this is my mom, Miho.
Lutz (white): Oh, hi. I didn't know you were adopted.
Danny (white): What?
Miho (Japanese): Thanks a lot, Lutz.

I'm not saying Asian people don't adopt kids. They do! But as a Chinese adoptee who has had so many people take one look at me and one look at my parents, make a thousand quick, inaccurate, and callous assumptions about my life, and treat me weirdly, it was extremely refreshing to have this trope turned on its head. The gag is that how could Danny not know he was adopted by his Asian mother. And while, it's just a joke, Danny is fictional, and so his is mother, Miho, I found it inexplicably refreshing to be caught in this same net of assumptions: that I too had taken one look at Danny and his Asian mother and thought, well duh. I loved the "role reversal" and the implicit commentary on race and adoption in America. How we are so conditioned into believing adoption only flows in certain racial directions like a downstream hierarchy, even when the numbers DO NOT support this very myopic view. In truth, people of all races can adopt and be adopted. I know this. I have seen this. And a pie chart full of broad, overgeneralized statistics where people are reduced to single-races (even though I highly doubt anyone in this age is a true pure-blooded specimen) is extremely misleading and highly disempowering to individual lived experiences. This joke by 30 Rock was a slap in my face but also gave me the freedom to laugh.

At the end of the day, we need to remember to laugh.

Fun fact:

Adoption comes up quite a lot in 30 Rock.

Liz Lemon ends up adopting two children who are basically child versions of Tracy and Jenna.

Jonathon, Jack's assistant, is adopted from India and while they don't go into his back story a whole lot, he does mention after the holiday vacation that he met his birthparents, not that anyone asked.

Danny, a Canadian citizen, is adopted by a Japanese woman, Miho. While some online translations say that she's Chinese, she speaks Japanese in her few lines of her only appearance.

*The show itself, like all works of art and commentary on society, have an expiration date. But I think we can appreciate it still. Recently, they got rid of all the episodes where a character wears blackface. Despite the fact that each and every time, it was a commentary on race relations in America (for instance, Tracey putting on white face while Jenna put on black face in a commentary of who has it worse, women or black people? A battle I have often seen waged online.) The act of black face itself is so steeped in the trenches of America's ugly history that all of those episodes were pulled at Tina Fey's request. It wasn't "right" to do them back then, but it was done knowing that it was "wrong" but with an intention to teach and have a discussion around race. In these times, though, good intentions are not enough. I still love 30 Rock and appreciate it for what it is. Some things that people claim are "wrong" I think are just commentaries on reality. For instance, Toofer's nickname in the show is because his white, idiotic coworkers think he is a two-for-one deal, being a Harvard grad and a black man (later joking he is a three-for-one because he is also gay.) Obviously, making fun of or relegating someone to that role is offensive...but a satirical comedy show that vaguely follows a slice of life (30 Rock is a spoof off SNL, CableTown on Comcast, etc.) For me, I thought that it was actually an ugly truth that Americans had to face. There are many people who get bullied and shoved into these stereotypical boxes. I thought it reflected badly on the white coworkers, those symbols of "ignorant, white America" and made it easier for the audience to see how these everyday office jokes were actually offensive. Despite how PC some companies pretend to be, these microaggressions are very much a part of everyday life, else you're labeled as not tough enough or too sensitive, especially in non-diverse work environments. I felt that 30 Rock was not endorsing these microaggressions, but rather, bringing them to the forefront, showcasing "Toofer's" struggles for being harassed on a daily basis by lazy, gross coworkers.

Not every joke lands with me, but 30 Rock is still one of my favorite series. One of the jokes which I didn't enjoy was Liz discussing with her last boyfriend (and eventual husband) Criss, eventually having a baby. They practice with a plant baby at some point, but in this conversation, she offhandedly remarks that at her age, they might have to get an "Asian plant" (read Asian baby) or "accept an older plant with some behavioral issues" (S6E21). I think the joke was meant to be a nod to the Asian adoption boom (notably from China due to the One Child Policy) as that season aired in 2012. It's a fast-paced "witty" comedy show so the jokes need to be edgy or relevant, but with so much of the plot revolving around adoption and Liz Lemon's desire for a family, some of the jokes just feel flat. Hearing parents, even fictional parents, discuss Asian adoptees (lumped together with older adoptees or those with behavioral issues) as a plan of last resort feels disheartening. Much of the adoption verbage has changed in the recent 20 years to make adoptees feel like the first choice, with language like "chosen" and "special," which honestly probably has a lot of blowback coming its way. For one thing, trying really hard to tell someone they're chosen is like acknowledging that they were not chosen. If it were true, why try so hard to convince someone of it? The other thing is that adoptees are never "chosen." You can never choose who your parents are, just as you can't choose who your child is. Choosing implies someone made a value judgment and decided how much value your life was worth before making a decision. It's too much like a purchase. Our value is innate and doesn't come from someone wanting us or not wanting us or picking us or choosing us. Many adoptees are even getting fed up with the whole "lucky" and "God's chosen" and "blessed" language because it's just really empty and cliche and shows zero understanding of what adoptees go through. 

Each individual is their own person. Even if, which isn't what happened with Chinese adoption or any international adoptions that I know of, you walked into an orphanage and selected which baby you wanted, there's no guarantee that they'll like football or flowers or reading, the way you might have hoped. You don't get to choose! This is a sentiment also often conveyed in 30 Rock, where they usually have a Mother's Day episode each season. One year, Tracey tells Jenna that no one gets to pick who their moms are...and they don't get to pick us either!