Meet Bowen Yang: Emmy-nominated comedian, Saturday Night Live’s first Chinese-American, third openly gay male cast member and one of Time’s ‘100 Most Influential People’

He may not have received an Emmy last weekend, but Bowen Yang has won in so many other ways, with numerous accomplishments under his belt. The charming comedian is the very first Chinese-American cast member on the sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live, and he is also among the cast’s first openly gay men. He has become famous for his hilarious portrayals of former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, Chinese trade representative “Trade Daddy” and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. He also has a well-known pop culture podcast Las Culturistas and stars on the sitcom Awkwafina is Nora from Queens. Superhero salaries: the 12 richest Marvel stars ever, ranked “There are these deeply entrenched ideas about what an Asian person should do in front of the camera,” Yang said in a video for Time. “Everything I try to like in life is tainted by this weird mental model of what an Asian person does in film and in television. I feel like I spent a lot of my career playing into those things. Then realising that, ‘I don’t have to do that.’” Yang was recently selected to be part of Time magazine’s “The 100 Most Influential People of 2021” list (along with cover stars Prince Harry and Meghan Markle). Here, we look at his rise to fame and how he has come to have such an influence today. Before emigrating to Australia in the 1980s, Yang’s family originated from China. His father grew up in rural Inner Mongolia, living a lifestyle that was very different to Yang’s current one: he was raised in a straw and mud hut and, since his parents were illiterate, he taught himself how to read and write by reading books, eventually enrolling in university. He eventually moved to Brisbane with Yang’s mother, an obstetrician and gynaecologist, to get his doctorate. Carter Reum: writer, entrepreneur, millionaire … and Paris Hilton’s ‘soulmate’ While the family has come a long way – both literally and figuratively – Yang’s parents still maintained a conservative mindset, and Yang, who was once on the cover of Entertainment Weekly’s Pride issue, remembers that his parents even once wanted him to undergo conversion therapy. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Bowen Yang (@fayedunaway) Last year, he told The New York Times: “They just sat me down and yelled at me and said, ‘We do not understand this. Where we come from, this does not happen.’” He continued: “Even though as I read up on [conversion therapy], I was just like, ‘Oh, wait, this is all completely crackers.’ It was just crazy. Explain the gay away with pseudoscience.” View this post on Instagram A post shared by Bowen Yang (@fayedunaway) But Yang remains immensely patient with them. “Both my parents are doing a lot of work to just try to understand and I cannot rush them,” he said. “I cannot resent them for not arriving at any place sooner than they’re able to get there.” Meet Marvel’s new gay teen superhero Now, Yang is known for opening up the conversation about Asian LGBTQ+ communities, and does it in both overt and subtle ways. On the Emmy’s red carpet last weekend, he wore a Zegna suit and gender fluid, silver heeled boots created by queer Asian shoe label Syro. Shang-Chi’s Fala Chen on Marvel, motherhood and leading an Asian-majority cast “I think the first thing I thought was, ‘Wow, queer Asians are supporting other queer Asians,’” Syro co-owner Shaobo Han told The Daily Beast. “Not only did the shoes look fabulous on him, it kind of shows how with red carpets, the Emmys and Hollywood, genderqueerness is breaking in. We’re seeing it with so many other celebrities, and to see an Asian face from New York carry it off the way he did is incredible. There’s a whole generation of young Asian queer people looking at this moment like, ‘He did it, I could do it.’” Want more stories like this? Sign up here. Follow STYLE on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter.