A Rhetorical Analysis Of Conan O Brien

Famously known for his sarcastic and awkward humor, Conan O’Brien’s late-night talk show, Conan often depicts witty, satirical skits that often have larger social and even political significance. On one specific episode entitled, “Conan Korea,” Korean-American actor Steven Yeun of the critically-acclaimed AMC Drama The Walking Dead joins O’Brien in his skit. As O’Brien’s “cultural ambassador,” as he states in the recording, Yeun’s role is expanded into more than simply being a celebrity guest on O’Brien’s show. By being the representative for this culture and the performativity associated in his interactions with O’Brien, Yeun is thus identified as the “native informant” whose duty is to negotiate the relationship between O’Brien/American audience

and South Korea. I argue that this “native informant” and “negotiator” role that Yeun is forced into sheds light on the motivations behind the American society’s fascination with South Korean culture and the implications of such exotification within their interactions.
In the section of the episode titled, “Conan & Steven Yeun Enjoy A Traditional Korean Meal,” this “native informant” role that Yeun is involuntary forced into is very apparent. Conan begins by introducing Yeun by saying, “In Korea it’s best to have a guide who really knows the country, fortunately I have such a friend, Steven Yeun.” This is the very first indicator that Yeun will be held to high expectations of being able to inform and perform to O’Brien the cultures of South Korea, simply due to the fact Yeun’s ethnicity is Korean. However, it is important that emphasize that although Yeun’s heritage lies with South Korea, how he grew up was Korean-American, and he is not much different than Conan himself. One might even say that perhaps Yeun shares more in common with O’Brien than a typical native South Korean. That similarity between the stars is shown when both Yeun and O’Brien successfully identify the “potato salad.” There lies the problem with the label “native informant.” The informant role is a product/creation of post colonialism when a Western visitor labels a person associated with a foreign or “exotic” culture as to be the authentic “other.” In “Conan Korea” it is the Western assumption that all South Koreans will be an expert on South Korean culture, when that is untrue.
Post colonial thinker, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak outlines her book, A Critique of Postcolonial Reason, “The possibility of the production of the native informant by way of the colonial/postcolonial route… is lodged in the fact that, for the real needs of imperialism, the in-choate in-fants ab-original para-subject cannot be theorized as functionally completely frozen in a world where teleology is schematized into geo-graphy (writing the world). This limited access to being-human is the itinerary of the native informant into the post-colonial, which remains unrecognized through the various transformations of the discussions of both ethics and ethnicity.” (Spivak 30) Because there is a sense of otherness that Westerns project onto non-Western cultures, it is the native informant’s duty to build a bridge between, in “Conan Korea,” the American Audience and South Korea. But this role is a post-colonial construct and a euphemism for the underlying issues with the ideas of the exotification of “otherness” in a cosmopolitan world— in which Spivak agree and say these issues are the “real needs of imperialism.”
Conan and Yeun then begin to discuss the different types of “banchan” or side dishes that are presented on traditional Korean tableware. O’Brien turns to Yeun and asks for an explanation of the various side dishes, which leaves Yeun flustered because he is unable to answer. Immediately, O’Brien says, “You’re my cultural ambassador, what are you doing?” Although on the surface Yeun’s failure to explain his own culture is comical, by O’Brien labeling Yeun as his cultural ambassador and Yeun’s inability to explain his culture further emphasizes the unfair expectations set by Westerners and their generalizations of other cultures. Additionally, when O’Brien calls Yeun his “cultural ambassador,” I believe it is really a euphemism and is masking the underlying problems in the exotification of other cultures by Westerns.
“While the exotic frame can be part of a democratic ideology of cosmopolitan openness and equality to multiple ethnic cuisines [or culture], it also draws from post colonial ideologies of status, and distinction that pass exclusionary, and arbitrary, judgments on entire nations and populations; at the same time, they perpetuate harmful stereotypes of naïve, unknowledgeable others.” (Johnston 110) As much as we would like to believe we live in an accepting and cosmopolitan world, there are limitations and sometimes bad implications that come with it. Although unintentional and purely for the purpose of comedy, O’Brien’s skit perpetuates an accidental judgment onto an entire nation, South Korea, because of his labeling of an innocent Korean-American as his “cultural ambassador.” As Yeun is unable to properly negotiate the relationship between the American audience and South Korea, a job that should be left to an actual professional guide— the audience will forget in this skit Yeun is actually a professional actor not a “cultural ambassador” nor the Korean version of “Anthony Bourdain.”
Additionally, O’Brien’s attempt at getting the “real” South Korean experience with Yeun as his guide is O’Brien’s effort at an “authentic” experience.

With Yeun flustering and unable to produce that “authentic” explanation, O’Brien, as representative of the American audience, is then establishing himself as the authority to judge Yeun based off of the “native informant” expectations he sets in the beginning. To elaborate, Yeun’s helplessness to describe the side dishes is mocked and judged by O’Brien when he says, “You’re sort of like Anthony Bourdain if he knew absolutely nothing.” Here O’Brien is “performing acts of stranger fetishism by turning specific strangers into bearers of “authenticity” and [himself] into a subject who can evaluate this authenticity as well as distinguish between what is ‘too authentic’ and what is ‘not authentic enough.’” (Leer 324) It is unfair to compare the Korean-American actor to a critically acclaimed chef, simply because Yeun is

Korean.
Another example of this performance of stranger fetishism can be seen in critically acclaimed chef’s, Gordon Ramsey, television travelogue—Gordon’s Great Escape. “In the first episode, Gordon is unambiguously excited to have encountered a chef wo is capable of producing ‘delicious, authentic, and amazing’ Indian food… The chef is hailed as a mysteriously old master of Indian cuisine and does not, as Gordon himself enthusiastically remarks, ‘speak a word of English’; here is thus a stranger who embodies a kind of pre-modern, pre-western strangeness, and who is as a result apparently able to produce ‘authentic and amazing’ food.” (Leer 319) The chef helping Ramsey is acting as the “negotiator” between India and the British. Chef serves as the bridge between the authentic (pre-modern) and the Westerners (modern). And his ability to produce “authentic and amazing” food—food that is associated with the past— is then approved by a Western “now/modern” chef. Ramsey believes that “ideal Indian cooking is here related to going back in time.” (Leer 320) Therefore, to Ramsey the older someone was the more “authentic” that person is, and because Ramsey is part of Western “time” he becomes someone who is able to judge the “authenticity” of the Indian chef of a more “primitive time.”
Finally, what was the purpose of O’Brien inviting Yeun?

Why didn’t O’Brien go alone? It is through the cultural capitalism that Yeun has being of Korean descent that allows him to enter certain spaces freely, like South Korea, according to Westerners. Which is why Conan O’Brien, as a Westerner who lacks such cultural currency, needed to Yeun to also enter into such “exotic” spaces. Additionally, without the presence of Yeun, O’Brien would have been limited in his ability to fully exhort his comedic value due the lack of cultural capitalism being a Westerner. For example, when O’Brien says “Aren’t you supposed to use these (chopsticks) for everything?” And uses chopsticks to pick up a spoon which has food on it. Yeun then further extends the joke by becoming part of it by saying, “My way is better.” This reveals the importance of Yeun being a Korean-American over being a just native South Korean. Yeun is less likely to object O’Brien’s, what would be odd maybe even disrespectful to a native Korea, behavior, because being American Yeun is able to understand O’Brien’s humor join in on it. Yeun’s acceptance of the joke reveals the flaw in categorizing Yeun as the “native informant,” and the naivety of O’Brien to assume that Yeun has complete cultural capital and knowledge of the

culture.
Ultimately, O’Brien looks to Yeun as his guide and “native informant” but by doing so it reveals and ignorance and flaw on O’Brien because Yeun does not necessarily have as much cultural currency as O’Brien projects onto him nor the cultural knowledge. Which is previously shown, when O’Brien introduces Yeun as not the famous Korean-American actor, but as his South Korean “cultural ambassador.” All, in all, the labeling of Yeun as the “native informant” is problematic and reveals the intentions of motivations of Americans’ fascination with other cultures and the implications with such labels onto “strangers” of “other,” “exotic” cultures.