'We Bare Bears' is a kids' show tackling modern millennial anxieties
Popular Cartoon Network show We Bare Bears is the story of three bears living a modern human life in San Francisco.
But at its heart, it's also a parable about the charms and perils of an increasingly connected society.
The show's creator, Daniel Chong, said he tries to pick modern references for the show, to reflect his audiences. "We do like to make fun of trends, but we have to be very careful that they're not things that we know are going to go away quickly," he said, during a visit to Singapore.
His three protagonists, Grizzly, Panda, and Ice Bear always seem to be chasing internet fame, and the script works in trendy references, often to hilarious effect:
But as "modern" as they are, the bears often struggle to fit in -- a deliberate choice by the animator, who grew up in southern California as the child of Singaporean immigrant parents.
"I think a lot of it just stems from feeling like a minority in America," Chong told Mashable.
"You do feel a little bit like an outsider, you don’t feel like representation is always there, and you don’t have a lot of role models," he added. "Even in animation there weren’t people around me that were doing this kind of thing."
That's why the concept of representation is so present in the show. In an episode, Grizzly stars in a movie that ends up portraying bears in a negative light:
Chong said his approach was to fit the bears into the city and subtly highlight the way people were affected by them as a minority.
"People kind of accept [the bears], but they’re just a little annoyed," he said.
And in representing racial minorities, We Bare Bears also tries to dispel race-related clichés. For instance, Chloe (voiced by Charlyne Yi), is a 10-year-old Korean prodigy and friend of the bears.
The show was careful not to make her parents the stereotypical "tiger" parents.
"To me, it just felt like if [being overbearing] was true for Chloe’s parents, it just might feel a little cliché. It’s been done, you know?
"I think that I’m in a position that I have to be aware of how I present Asians because I am Asian. I know that not every mom is like that," Chong added.
He plans for the show to continue to seek out more digital culture trends for its plot points -- it's the world his audience knows best, after all.
"There are opportunities for new kinds of stories. There’s just a new world to navigate now," he said.
I am an intern with Mashable Asia, focusing on viral news, lifestyle news and feature news in the region.
