#Even if it’s a fictional

[cyarsk52-20]

'Beef' Stars Respond to David Choe Rape Controversy: 'We've Seen Him Put in the Work'

Denver Sean

After much controversy, the stars of Netflix’s hit show ‘Beef’ have responded to resurfaced criticism against cast member David Choe.

In recent days, a 2014 podcast interview resurfaced where he had joked about being the “successful rapist” of a Black woman during a massage.

via Variety:

On Friday, “Beef” creator Lee Sung Jin and executive producers and stars Steven Yeun and Ali Wong released a statement to Variety, calling Choe’s story “undeniably hurtful and extremely disturbing” but that he’s “put in the work to get the mental health support he needed.”

“The story David Choe fabricated nine years ago is undeniably hurtful and extremely disturbing. We do not condone this story in any way, and we understand why this has been so upsetting and triggering. We’re aware David has apologized in the past for making up this horrific story, and we’ve seen him put in the work to get the mental health support he needed over the last decade to better himself and learn from his mistakes,” they said.

In resurfaced clips of the 2014 “DVDASA” podcast episode, Choe told co-host Asa Akira a sexually explicit story about a massage he received from a massage therapist he calls Rose. “I’m getting turned on just telling this story,” he said in the footage. “I just take her hand and I put it on my dick. She just holds it there.”

Choe detailed numerous sexual acts and ended the story by saying, “The thrill of possibly going to jail, that’s what achieved the erection quest.” Akira replied, “Ew, you’re basically telling us that you’re a rapist now, and that the only way to get your dick really hard is rape.” Choe responded, “Yeah,” then answered other guests’ questions about Rose’s appearance. “What the fuck is wrong with you guys?” Akira asked. “Who cares what she looks like? Dave is telling us he’s a rapist.” He joked in response, “A successful rapist.”

Choe originally responded to the backlash in 2014, denying he was a rapist in a statement and saying that the podcast was “a complete extension of his art” as a storyteller.

“I never thought I’d wake up one late afternoon and hear myself called a rapist. It sucks. Especially because I am not one. I am not a rapist. I hate rapists, I think rapists should be raped and murdered,” he said at the time. “I am an artist and a storyteller and I view my show ‘DVDASA’ as a complete extension of my art. If I am guilty of anything, it’s bad storytelling in the style of douche. Just like many of my paintings are often misinterpreted, the same goes with my show. The main objective of all of my podcasts is to challenge and provoke my friends and the co-stars on the show. We fuck with each other, entertain ourselves and laugh at each other. It’s a dark, tasteless, completely irreverent show where we fuck with everyone listening, but mostly ourselves. We create stories and tell tales. It’s not a news show. It’s not a representation of my reality. It’s not the place to come for reliable information about me or my life. It’s my version of reality, it’s art that sometimes offends people. I’m sorry if anyone believed that the stories were fact. They were not! In a world full of horrible people, thank god for us.”

He doubled down on the apology and posted a statement in 2017, writing “I have zero history of sexual assault. I am deeply sorry for any hurt I’ve brought to anyone through my past words.” He also revealed he had went through three years of recovery and rehabilitation.

Clips of the “DVDASA” podcast resurfaced on Twitter last week, but some of them were removed with Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notices that were filed seemingly by Choe himself under the David Young Choe Foundation. The DMCA notices called the Twitter videos “copyright infringing media” and asked for their “immediate” removal.

“Beef” released on Netflix on April 6, after which it rose to No. 2 on Netflix’s Top 10 list of English-language shows. In its second week of release, it received over 70 million hours viewed. Opposite Yeun and Wong, Choe plays Isaac, the older, frequently-incarcerated cousin of Yeun’s character Danny. Choe, who is a painter and artist, supplied the artwork for nine episodes’ title cards.

This statement smell like PR cover — and we’re not buying it.

Sent from my iPhone

Not-Black POC perpetuate and benefit from anti-Blackness,

Are NOT the natural allies of Black people and CANNOT be trusted to do the right thing regarding Black people without prompting FROM Black people.

Only rapists think it's OK to "joke" about violating the bodily autonomy of someone else, and David Choe went so far as to describe this Black woman's looks IN DETAIL,

So Ali Wong and Steven Yeun are sticking beside David Choe, covering for a rapist,

Cause ANYTHING for Asian media representation.

They coulda kept this li'l statement, cause it just added insult to injury.

As for the show, I’m not watching.

Asians you must do better and condemn the antiblackness in your community

[problemnyatic]

the steven universe hate is insane bc people are (or at least were) more upset that fictional war criminals got fictional hugs than they recognize that it singlehandedly advanced queer rep in children's media by lightyears and then straight up ate heavy retaliation for the nerve.

It does have real flaws that are worth discussing, but it also put their male protagonist in dresses and skirts and played it straight and even empowering, they aired a lesbian wedding on television, it was a genuinely queer, genuinely diverse piece of media through and through. It did a lot of real good for the real world.

But also the fictional characters caused fictional harm to other fictional characters, and didn't get an onscreen firing squad sentence. So, you know, it's basically ontologically evil in real life.

[makenna-made-this]

Okkkkkk so where is Chicken Miku?

Anon the way i dropped everything when i saw this

HATSUNE BEAK-U

(based on the Onagadori chicken breed)

[novelconcepts]

I Saw the TV Glow is such a uniquely, devastatingly queer story. Two queer kids trapped in suburbia. Both of them sensing something isn’t quite right with their lives. Both of them knowing that wrongness could kill them. One of them getting out, trying on new names, new places, new ways of being. Trying to claw her way to fully understanding herself, trying to grasp the true reality of her existence. Succeeding. Going back to help the other, to try so desperately to rescue an old friend, to show the path forward. Being called crazy. Because, to someone who hasn’t gotten out, even trying seems crazy. Feels crazy. Looks, on the surface, like dying.

And to have that other queer kid be so terrified of the internal revolution that is accepting himself that he inadvertently stays buried. Stays in a situation that will suffocate him. Choke the life out of him. Choke the joy out of him. Have him so terrified of possibly being crazy that he, instead, lives with a repression so extreme, it quite literally is killing him. And still, still, he apologizes for it. Apologizes over and over and over, to people who don’t see him. Who never have. Who never will. Because it’s better than being crazy. Because it’s safer than digging his way out. Killing the image everyone sees to rise again as something free and true and authentic. My god. My god, this movie. It shattered me.

[ohmydais]

”Never ignore your gut feelings!” my gut feelings tell me that Freddy Fazbear is outside of my door at night

[emotinalsupportturtle]

Brb I’m going to go commit a crime

[starcurtain]

Teyvat's "Most Down Bad" Award Goes to Alhaitham for a Second Year Running

Seeing everyone making fun of Alhaitham for his "stalkerish" tendencies in this event is funny, because I feel like a lot of people missed that "Be literally everywhere Kaveh is" has been Alhaitham's MO from the day Kaveh appeared in the game.

From only grabbing his house keys after Kaveh returned from the desert (he couldn't have had both sets of keys at the end of the Archon Quest unless he went home and got Kaveh's copy) to ditching conversations to get back to his house only after Kaveh came home, to showing up without any warning or explanation in Kaveh's hangout with some ridiculous excuse about hearing his voice through noise-cancelling headphones... Refusing to offer any help in the Temple of Silence story quest other than staying in the library with Kaveh...

Since when does Alhaitham willingly cover anyone else's duties?

But this trend of "Be everywhere Kaveh is" didn't start when they were adults. It was already in place when they were still Akademiya students--and it's a trend that didn't end even when they had their fight.

Even when they weren't speaking, Alhaitham dogged Kaveh's every step through published responses to Kaveh's research articles in academic journals. He insisted on keeping a line of communication between himself and Kaveh open, even if the only way to do that was through very public ideological clashes. Pulling Kaveh's pigtails to get his attention lolol. It's implied that, for at least the few years between their fight and Kaveh moving in, this was the only communication between them--Alhaitham's refusal to allow their connection to entirely fade away. (And the fact that this is revealed in Kaveh's character stories--through his precious journal that records the moments of his life that had the most impact on him--shows just how deeply he values the fact that Alhaitham didn't give up.)

Another relevant side note: Alhaitham never asked Kaveh to give up his half of their house. Knowing half of it belonged to Kaveh, knowing that Kaveh may one day want to reclaim his part of it, knowing that it was listed as theirs, Alhaitham moved into the house and made zero effort to change its ownership. He was completely fine with living in "his and Kaveh's house." The stories suggest it was only months later (or even longer) that Kaveh even noticed he had the house, and he transferred away ownership of his portion without Alhaitham ever asking him (or even seemingly wanting him) to do so.

Please, let that sink in. Alhaitham actively left his grandmother's (presumably comfortable) house to move into "his and Kaveh's house," with no apparent explanation for why, and after doing so, he made no attempt to change that "his and Kaveh's" label. He moved into the house with no promise that Kaveh wouldn't show up on the doorstep the very next day and move in too. It almost feels like another deliberate provocation--I've moved into our house, are you going to come stop me? LBR, if Alhaitham had had his way, Kaveh would have been living there with him from Day 1...

There's also the fact that Kaveh literally can't write on a single message board anywhere in the entire nation of Sumeru without Alhaitham hunting his messages down and responding to them (which absolutely no one else does, by the way).

"NUH-UH!" "UH-HUH." "NUH-UH!"

Alhaitham's own character stories tell us explicitly that one of Alhaitham's defining character traits is "He is never where you need him to be," yet somehow...

Shot, and chaser:

Any time Kaveh is in the slightest bit of need or danger or just wants Alhaitham near, Alhaitham is "coincidentally" exactly where Kaveh needs him to be, whenever Kaveh needs him to be there.

Alhaitham didn't just "happen" to run into Kaveh in Port Ormos, an entirely different city from where he was supposed to be working. He didn't just "happen" to read the same terrible book as Kaveh when we know he otherwise would not waste a moment of his time on poorly-written literature...

He didn't just "happen" to appear when Kaveh was upset and needed a distraction in the House of Daena during Kaveh's hangout. He didn't just "happen" to be sitting around waiting when Kaveh needed answers after the Archon Quest. He didn't just "happen" to find Kaveh's academic publications and every single message board posting and respond to them at length and in public.

Which is exactly what Kaveh's mother told Kaveh he needed.

What level of down bad is "Abusing your powers as an Akademiya employee to keep tabs on your crush's library loans"? Just asking for a friend.

The only person for whom Alhaitham just "happens" to be available is Kaveh, over and over and over again--because he is very deliberately making himself a constant presence in Kaveh's life.

(Like, out of all things, I think people really underestimate the devs deliberately paralleling the romantic relationship between Kaveh's mother and father with Kaveh and Alhaitham's relationship. If you want to point to one thing that says "These two characters are intentionally queer-coded," it doesn't get any more obvious than this.)

Alhaitham, are you not embarrassed to be this transparent??? 🫣

[aardvaark]

i don’t mind suspending my disbelief for leverage’s person-sized ventilation shafts bc that’s pretty standard for the genre, but that doesn’t mean i won’t laugh a bit at some of the egregiously large vents. particularly in the crowning acheivement job (lev: red s2 finale) because - well just look at this lol! harry and parker, two adults, can kneel side by side in those vents. parker can sit upright.

that museum was made for vent crawling purposes. that’s just an extra room in the museum they forgot to decorate. the leverageverse has a thief union that successfully lobbied for a better working environment. these vents double as a playground for museum-goers’ children. i was crying with laughter thinking about this and harry’s vent crisis was NOT helping me remember that there was a serious heist thing going on lol, i love this show.

[sergle]

there's lots of good fruits in season rn, you can tell by how juicy they are. fruit girls are this month's patreon stickers, if you wanna get in on that! :3

[zan0tix]

Need more callieroxy in the world.. (withering away) their yuri powers unmatched

[ihhfhonao3]

heyyyyyy girlies just a reminder that ao3 is by proshitters, for proshitters and your puritanical anti rhetoric isn’t welcome there byeeeeeee ship and let ship forever 🫶

(This is from the official AO3 TOS update btw)

[lazylittledragon]

ok someone please correct me if i'm wrong but am i weird for thinking those 'audiobooks don't count as reading' posts are ableist as fuck????

[supertaliart]

I went a little off the rails for a power-point-party, so I thought I'd share. Don't come at me about canonicity. Also yes, I spent hours using illustrator to make pose-able vector mando'ade.

Review from my friend: "I feel like I actually learned something?"

[deathricedrawn]

i'm ready to try

[tempo-takoyaki]

I forgot he had a birthday. Happy late birth little guy.

[warren-keplers-funk-band]

hi. this,,

is just the spiritual successor to