Billboard: Make It Pop’s Megan Lee Comments on Male Controversy

Nickolodeon’s Make It Pop wraps up its first season with the season finale today.

In an interview with Billboard, co-star Megan Lee commented on the controversy that erupted before the show–the lack of Asian American male actors in a show inspired by K-Pop.

“I heard some things about that and some people kind of misunderstood and got slightly offended,” said Lee. “We do have Asian male characters in the show, I want to make that clear, we might not have an Asian male lead, but that was not specifically cleared out that way. We’re not trying to exclude Asian males in any way. The casting kind of went that way. It was an open-ethnicity casting call. It was not even meant to be three Asian female leads either. It was all open ethnicities and, from what I’ve heard, whoever portrayed the role right got the part. It’s not specifically “This is a Caucasian role, this is an Asian role, this is a whatever role.”

Make It Pop features three Asian girls at a boarding school pursuing their dream of forming a music group. Lee repeated what she has said in other interviews. The show is not specifically about K-Pop, but was inspired by it. I’ve read that comment numerous times and I’m not quite clear what the distinction is or why she thinks its important.

“The show is inspired by K-pop and I’m trying to say like whatever outfits we wear, whatever kind of music that we do, the way we act, we’re not trying to say “This is what K-pop is all about, this is how K-pop fans act.” I just wanted to clear that up.’

You can read Lee’s thoughts on the difference between working on Korean Television and American TV and about her rise to fame in Billboard.