How pop culture broke Jen Sookfong Lee's heart

Jen Sookfong Lee is a self-described superfan. As a teenager, she taped NKOTB songs off the radio and sent love letters to Beck. The constant churn and evolution of pop culture has been a constant companion in her life, a form of reliable entertainment and distraction, and a way to process and make sense of the world and her own life.

Superfan is a mixtape of Sookfong Lee’s most loved, hated, and meaningful cultural touchstones, both high and low—a lively and moving deep dive that stokes moments of recognition in readers and asks us to examine our cultural fabric through new eyes.

Kobo: As a young person, pop culture gave you a way to rebel, to express an identity, and to escape from the challenges you faced at home, including the difficult relationship you had with your mother. I’m wondering, in the midst of that challenging relationship, whether you ever found a point of connection with your mother through pop culture?

Jen Sookfong Lee: The one thing that we used to do together is watch beauty pageants on TV. My mother’s greatest aspiration for her daughters was for one of us to start competing in beauty pageants. Which was the most ridiculous thing. We had braces, glasses, bad perms. You didn't look at us and say beauty pageant. But that was her goal. She literally paid for piano lessons so that we'd have a talent when we were in the beauty pageant.

So we used to watch them together. The one she most enjoyed watching was what used to be called Miss Chinatown, now called Miss Chinese Vancouver. It's very small and it's very specific. And every time we'd watch that, she'd always say, See, you could do this, she's not that pretty. Or, You could do this, she's not very smart.

It's pretty much the only time she ever said we were pretty enough or smart enough or poised enough to do stuff. It brought us a little closer together in the sense that we definitely weren't fighting when we were watching it.

My mother’s greatest aspiration for her daughters was for one of us to start competing in beauty pageants. Which was the most ridiculous thing. We had braces, glasses, bad perms.

Kobo: Pop culture has also been a comfort and a catharsis to you. Anne of Green Gables in particular was a constant for you through difficult childhood years when your father was dying, and again when you went through your divorce. Why is rereading/rewatching so comforting? Are there other works you return to as comfort?

JSL: Rewatching is almost like being in a cocoon because you already know what's going to happen. There are no surprises. And that's really comforting for a lot of people, especially for people like me who struggle with anxiety. Rewatching things is a real exercise in absolute zero anxiety.

I reread Anne of Green Gables pretty much every year. I reread Possession by A. S. Byatt, almost every year. Little Women, and the Little House books. I could go on. For movies, you're gonna laugh, but it's Uncle Buck, with John Candy.

Kobo: Why Uncle Buck?

JSL: You know what it is? In the movie, he's a guy who's a bit shady. Maybe he's a gambler, maybe he has bad investments. They never really say. And then he's forced to take care of these three kids that he hasn't seen in a long time. And he really rises to the occasion and he's so lovely and protective. And there's something about a very teeny tiny McCauley Culkin in that movie that gets me every time.

Kobo: It's nice when you can count on someone like that.

Uncle Buck will never disappoint you.

Kobo: Does rewatching help you see different things in yourself?

JSL: Oh, yeah, 100%. With Anne of Green Gables, there were a lot of things I saw as an adult that I never really understood as a child. Rereading it has made me really think about the reasons why I loved Anne as a child. Those things didn't really become clear to me until I was older. Like, clearly I was going through some things with my dad being sick and then dying. That is something that Anne went through. There's a lot of lessons in those Anne books about grief and loss and a lot of lessons about being a child who feels too much and says too much and is too angry, which I was all of those things.

When I got older and was reading the part of the book where she loses one of her children, who is a soldier in World War I—that kind of adult loss really made me see that there have been a lot of things in my life that I've had to lose and grieve. And it made me think about who we become at the end of the day when all that has occurred.

I reread Anne of Green Gables pretty much every year. I reread Possession by A. S. Byatt, almost every year. Little Women, and the Little House books.

I think for sure rewatching points out things about us. I mean, like the movie Say Anything, which I loved so much at 13, and then hated so much at 35. It shows me that I actually never really wanted to be that girl. Like I didn't want to be the girl who's getting that attention.

Kobo: Our romantic desires are so heavily influenced by pop culture. I wonder what society would be like if we didn’t have these images and expectations to contend with. What are the movies that are setting a new paradigm, in romance or otherwise?

JSL: The Farewell by Lulu Wang was one of the first films that had a majority Asian cast where there was no explanation and no apology. I remember watching it and thinking, 10 years ago, you would’ve needed to explain. And how great it was that they didn't do that.

Since then, there's been Everything Everywhere All at Once. Again, no explanation and no apology. And that's a wild ride, right? Some viewers might have not really liked the chaos, but the thing is that who the family is and their backgrounds and where they come from and what these cultural signifiers mean is never actually really explained. We're just there for the wild, chaotic fun ride. That's amazing. It’s pushed the possibilities for Asian and racialized and queer stories, and pushed the limitations that previously felt like they were set in stone.

Every single door that opens leads to many other doors that are opening. I'm really glad that I get to sit here and watch all these amazing possibilities unfold. It seems to me it's happening fast, but I think it's only happening quickly because for most of my life there was none of this.

Kobo: In the Rage House chapter, you ask what happens when rage becomes too big to be contained? Are there good examples of depictions of women’s rage in pop culture?

JSL: That's a really interesting question to me. Often with female rage and depictions of it, it’s just destructive or monstrous. Say something like Promising Young Woman with Carrie Mulligan. It was destruction, right? She's really angry and she's going to destroy everybody. That is so often what we see or what we get out of media when women are angry.

Every single door that opens leads to many other doors that are opening. [...] It seems to me it's happening fast, but I think it's only because for most of my life there was none of this.

I think that a show that has done female rage really well is Hacks with Jean Smart. Because it's funny. The two protagonists are so angry, but it's funny, and it actually forges a relationship between them that is quite lovely and fraught. I wish we could all be as articulate as those two when we're angry.

Kobo: You talk about destructive anger and for me that brings to mind Beef. Did you watch it?

JSL: I did watch it. I really liked it. I think it's a perfect piece of television. I'm their ideal viewer, probably. But watching it, I could not have imagined any instance how they could have done any better than they did. It so perfectly encapsulates the futility of being an Asian person in America and also being angry. Like, no one will care. No one will ever be scared of you and no one will ever feel threatened by you, even though you're burning white hot inside.

It’s been hard to talk about because of all the stuff that people have been saying about David Choe, but I would hate for people not to experience it because of one stupid, yucky guy.

Kobo: What are you reading right now?

JSL: I'm reading so many things! One of them is A History of Burning by Janika Oza.

Kobo: And are you working on a book project at the moment that you can talk about?

JSL: Yes! I'm writing a horror novel. The premise is there's a harried, overwhelmed single mother who owns her own business—not unlike myself. One day she wakes up and everything in the house is clean. And she's like, what happened? Did I have too much wine last night? I don't remember cleaning. What's going on? And then as time goes on, you start to realize that there’s something very evil that was doing her work for her. And of course, that thing is going to be repaid in terrible terror. ◼

JEN SOOKFONG LEE writes, edits, and sometimes sings badly on a podcast. She is the author of The Better Mother, The Conjoined, Good Mom on Paper, and Superfan. Born and raised in East Vancouver, Jen now lives in North Burnaby with her son and very emotional rescue dog.