Bowen Yang, a gay comedian and the son of Chinese immigrants, is serving to make SNL's cast more numerous than ever. Here’s what you will have to know.

The addition of comic Bowen Yang to the cast of Saturday Night Live is a triumph being celebrated by means of two minority communities that have been traditionally underrepresented on the long-running caricature comedy display. Though the show is embarking on its 45th season at the air, Bowen joins the cast as the first Chinese-American performer in historical past and considered one of only 3 overtly gay male cast individuals ever.

Only three different past cast contributors are of Asian descent. Alum Fred Armisen is section Korean, whilst Rob Schneider is 1 / 4 Filipino and Nasim Pedrad is from Iran. 

The queer community has additionally been underrepresented throughout the display's history. The best openly gay men to appear at the display prior to Bowen are Terry Sweeney on one season from 1985 to 1986 and John Milhiser, who used to be in brief a part of the cast for the 2013-2014 season. He joins Kate McKinnon, who identifies as a lesbian. 

Though it later got here to light that Season Eleven participant Danitra Vance was a lesbian, she was once not out all through her time at the display.

Bowen Yang is SNL's first openly gay, Asian cast member.

All of this minutiae confirms two issues: SNL has a long-standing drawback with representation that appears to be getting addressed (then again slowly), and Bowen Yang is for sure a first for the show as the first brazenly gay, Asian player within the display's five decades on television. Unreal!

Bowen has been a creator at the display since ultimate year, and he has gave the impression on the show prior to. When Sandra Oh hosted final year, he appeared as North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un, with the Killing Eve superstar enjoying his translator. 

It used to be more or less a full-circle second for Bowen, who initially deliberate to develop into a doctor particularly as a result of he wanted to be like Sandra's Grey's Anatomy character, Cristina Yang. After graduating with a point in chemistry, he realized he if truth be told sought after to be like Sandra, now not her persona, as he printed on NBR's Ask Me Another.

Prior to becoming a member of SNL, Bowen has appeared on the HBO sequence High Maintenance and in a small role within the 2019 film Isn't It Romantic. 

He additionally lately hosts the popular culture podcast Las Culturistas together with his NYU classmate Matt Rogers. Though both are openly gay now, when they had been in school, they had been in fact romantic rivals over a woman. When they both later came out (one at a time), they did not assume they might essentially be friends just because they both happened to be gay, however right here they're years later and are overall BFFs. 

However, they're surely no longer courting each different. They're just partners in comedy and each different's chosen family. It isn't clear whether Bowen is lately seeing any one significantly.

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