‘The Path to Equality is Rarely Easy’
Daniel Dae Kim and Grace Park, two of the four original cast members still on the Hawaii Five-O reboot, will not return for the eighth season of the crime procedural, set to premiere in the fall. While it’s always a cautionary tale to extend a show past seven seasons, as it tends to be when necessary cast and creative team members depart or run out of ideas, this shakeup is about much more than TV show policy. While failed contract negotiations are nothing new, Park and Kim’s departure represents a larger problem for CBS and mainstream television in general.
People commended CBS in 2010 when the network added two Asian-American actors to the main cast of a show which, in its first 1968–1980 incarnation, was incredibly whitewashed. It’s this comparison between the two Hawaii Five-Os that made the casting remarkable, when in reality these culturally accurate depictions should be expected of an industry that prides itself on progressiveness. According to the official 2016 census, 37.7% of Hawaiians claim to be “Asian alone,” while even more report that they are to some degree of Asian heritage. It would be ignorant to not have the demographics of Hawaii Five-O reflect the state’s reality.
The justification for not paying Kim and Park as much as their white co-stars stems from the vocabulary used when the reboot first premiered. While Alex O’Loughlin and Scott Caan were listed as the leads, Kim and Park were dubbed supporting characters, whose contributions were viewed as ancillary. In reality, the characters Kono Kalakaua and Chin Ho Kelly turned out to be two completely necessary forces behind the longevity of Hawaii Five-O. By the time that the seventh and most recent season finished, Kalakaua, Kelly, Williams, and McGarrett were framed as the four leads. This is exemplified in the show’s ensemble vibe, which focuses on each of the four characters’ personal lives and overarching development equally. Scott Caan, who plays the #2 character on the show, is credited in every episode, but has recently begun appearing in fewer than O’Loughlin, Park, and Kim.
An official statement from CBS said that the network “tried very hard to keep them [Kim and Park] with offers for large and significant salary increases.” The Hollywood Reporter spoke with a CBS insider and learned that Kim’s prospective Season 8 salary reportedly came “within 2 percent of what Caan and O’Loughlin make — minus the duo’s lucrative points of the show’s backend.” While this might not seem like a huge discrepancy, it was ultimately a deal breaker for Kim and Park, whose benchmark salary had been equal pay in the first place.
Kim took to facebook to explain his decision to leave the show, saying “that though transitions can be difficult, I encourage us all to look beyond the disappointment of this moment to the bigger picture. The path to equality is rarely easy.” Other Asian-American actors and actresses have spoken out, with stars like Constance Wu and Ally Maki sharing their solidarity. It’s also worth noting that Masi Oka, who has played Max Bergman since Season 1, also left the show this year. This means that the eighth season will have no Asian-American actors in leading roles.
The showrunner of Hawaii Five-O, Peter Lenkov, also used social media to comment on the shakeup. On twitter Lenkov stated, among other platitudes, “CBS was extremely generous and proactive in their renegotiation talks. So much so, the actors were getting unprecedented raises, but in the end they chose to move on.” Again, the vocabulary used here speaks to the greater issue at large. Park and Kim’s raises shouldn’t be “unprecedented,” especially ones that still didn’t achieve equal pay.
Salary negotiations are always a contentious topic, regardless of underlying implications, and are common enough that viewers could easily gloss over these disparities and chalk them up to a “natural” progression for any TV show. But the simple facts behind Daniel Dae Kim and Grace Park’s departure speaks for itself, and the greater forces of inequality at work here.
