Asians Are Fed Up With James Corden And His ‘Spill Your Guts’ Segment That Trashes Cultural Food
“Seeing my culture's food used as a joke is offensive and lazy. Make better jokes.”
James Corden is in hot water for his ‘Spill Your Guts’ segment on his talk show, which people are calling out as racially insensitive,
In a video that has now gone viral, TikToker Kim Saira called an old episode of The Late Late Show with James Corden “racist af”, after host Corden, and guest Jimmy Kimmel, openly mocked and trashed Asian food during the segment ‘Spill Your Guts’.
The segment is a regular feature on Corden’s talk show, where guest celebrities are made to either answer a super-personal question or eat something “gross” off the table.
For many celebrities, they’d rather eat the “gross” food than dish up the dirt, and the segment usually goes pretty viral.
The controversy was sparked by TikToker Kim Saira, who pointed out in a video a 2016 episode of the show in which both Corden and Kimmel were openly mocking Asian cuisine, including thousand-year-old egg and balut.
During the segment, Corden also claimed to “not know what it [balut] is” but if you do a quick Google search of a balut the answer is pretty easy to find. A balut is fertilised duck egg that is steamed anywhere from 14 to 21 days after it is laid and is a common street food in the Philippines. However, different version of balut can be found in other parts of Asian culture in locations such as Vietnam and Cambodia.
Now with more than 2.5 million views on her video, Kim Saira has started a petition to have Asian food removed from ‘Spill Your Guts’.
“Many of the foods that he presents to his guests are actually from different Asian cultures,” Kim wrote on the petition.
“He’s presented foods such as balut, century-old eggs, and chicken feet, which are often regularly eaten by Asian people.”
“In the wake of the constant Asian hate crimes that have continuously been occurring, not only is this segment incredibly culturally offensive and insensitive, but it also encourages anti-Asian racism.”
In the comments section of the petition, people have shared their support of cancelling the segment, with one user commenting “Seeing my culture’s food used as a joke is offensive and lazy. Make better jokes.”
Sadly, this isn’t just one bad old episode resurfacing of Corden publicly mocking Asian food — it happens in nearly every segment, such as in another episode where Justin Bieber cringes at bird saliva and cow tongue during his appearance on the show last year.
Even though she shouldn’t have to, Saira goes on to explain the cultural significance of each dish and ends with “mocking our food is offensive and culturally insensitive af”.
The lack of understanding and representation of Asian food in the media or television has caused similar racist reactions in the past.
While Australia’s MasterChef is now mostly praised for championing diversity, just last year some of the judges — both white men — jokingly called ingredients from an Asian-inspired Mystery Box “evil” and their “worst nightmare.”
In her petition, Saira puts onus on the media for holding so much influence over how people perceive native foods from Asian countries — especially the audience of James Corden’s show.
“The Late Late Show averages over 650,000 viewers per episode. That means, 650,000 people are being influenced to think that native foods from Asian countries are ‘disgusting’ or ‘horrifying’.”
“At the very least, Asian American communities deserve an apology and this segment to be taken off the air.”
The petition to remove ‘Spill Your Guts’, has already 28,000 signatures. James Corden is yet to comment.