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PHILIPPINE ASIAN NEWS TODAY July 16 - 31, 2016
TV comedy deals with issues of second-generation
Filipino Canadians
Amanda Joy, a Torontobased writer, has produced a TV
comedy airing in the fall, which
will have a second-generation
Filipino as central character.
Amanda Joy is playing
the character herself in “Second Jen”.
The pilot episode of
“Second Jen” will air in the fall
on CityTV, a major Canadian
television network.
In a report by a Philippine
Daily Inquirer correspondent in
Toronto, Amanda Joy related
that at age four or five, she and
her cousins would climb on top
of a pool table to entertain their
parents with plays they made
up and tales of make believe.
That auspicious beginning, plus Amanda Joy’s singleminded drive since high school
to bring the second-generation
Filipino millennial to the world
stage, gave birth to “Second
Jen”, according to the report.
The Inquirer reported
that “Second Jen” is a situation
comedy named after its two
main characters both named
Jennifer. The Jennifer character
that Amanda Joy plays
is Filipino Canadian,
and nicknamed Mo.
After the pilot
episode, the first six
episodes will be posted
online for the next three
months.
“In December,
the show will start airing TV, so a different,
younger audience will
be encouraged to share
the show with their
families and parents,”
Amanda Joy said in the
report.
“Second Jen”
tackles several important firsts second-generation kids face– first
move out of the parental home, first apartment, first real job, according to the Inquirer
report.
“We are influenced by
our parents to some degree,
even how we approach life as
second-generation
millennials–all the things that happen
to us, our parents shaping us
even if they are not with us,”
says Amanda Joy said in the report. “There’s a rule in screenwriting that you write what you
know, so my experiences–with
my family, friends, numerous
titas and titos, my lola– shape
my writing.”
“We are not living in a
homogeneous culture anymore.
My high school teacher asked
the class–who has parents born
here?– and nobody raised their
hand. A very different experienc e from maybe 20 years before, when most parents are
Canadian-born,” Amanda Joy
also said.
“The Filipino demo-
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graphic is often ignored or misrepresented. I wanted to show
that the Filipino experience in
Canada is three dimensional, I
wanted to have a second-generation Filipino Canadian millennial as a major character,
and not just as a sidekick,” she
said.