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Finally, there is a reality show for Asian and no, this show isn’t produce by an Asian network as this is produce by an American network. The new reality show, Alpha Girl is filmed in different cities in US. The show is all about the lives of four of its protagonists: model Soo Joo Park, hip-hop illustrator Mina Kwon, DJ and producer TOKiMONSTA (a.k.a. Jennifer Lee) and fashion designer Miss Lawn (Lanie Alabanza-Barcena), founder and creative director of the label Hellz Bellz.
Each girl got their personal style, which make it more appealing to viewers. However, the first two episodes didn’t capture the essence beneath each artist’s flashy garb. At the beginning of the show, they are all given a storyline — Park is concerned about her left foot injury, Kwon travels from South Korea to the U.S. so that she could shake her creative slump.
Mnet America, the English-language spinoff network to South Korea’s version of MTV, wants to use the popularity of the K Pop and bring it to the US with the help of Alpha Girls’ characters. But, the result is not something that the network would have wanted; the girls are defined with their association with local celebrities than the merits of their own work. Pharrell Williams makes a cameo appearance on the first episode of the show; he meets up with his friend Kwon and receives a painting from her.
Park on the other hand, visits her friend in California and the two has a meaningful conversation. They used two languages in conversing - Korean and English. There are times that she would use her pager to send message to her high-fashion Vogue Korea cover editorial in a happy collision of immigrant and generational, suburban and haute couture cultures.
“We’ve reached a point in Western culture where an indie artist can be bigger than a pop artist,” as said by Lee during the second episode. It is all about the intriguing conversation between Western and Easter culture, which is left unexplored.
Despite not been able to live to its promise on the first two episodes, Alpha Girls does offer airtime to “dominant females; girls who have found their place in a non-traditional career path.” There is a need to be stated that conventional media portrayals of Asian and Asian-Americans are STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math)-oriented. If the reality show can find a way to make the story more interesting throughout its eight-episode run, then there is still hope for the reality show.
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