RG Beefcake and Boyfriends: Hudson Yang: From "Fresh Off the Boat" to Harvard, cooking, dudes, and the best gay comedy of the year. With Hudson and Xu bedroom stuff

Fresh Off the Boat (2015-20) was nostalgia program based on the memoirs of celebrity chef Eddie Huang. Hudson Yang (left) plays the 12-17 year old Eddie, growing up in the 1990s in a Taiwanese-American family "fresh off the boat."

Dad (Randall Park), who runs a cowboy-themed restaurant in Orlando, pushes him to embrace the best (and worst) of American culture, while Mom pushes him to embrace his Taiwanese heritage, resulting in conflict and plot complications.

Eddie has two younger brothers (Ian Chen, Forrest Wheeler, right) and a surprising number of gay friends and acquaintance:

Officer Bryson (Alex Quijano), a regular at the family restaurant.

Oscar Chow, Mom's college boyfriend, whom she helped come out (Rex Lee, playing about the same character as on Suburgatory). He brings his dull-as-dirt boyfriend to Thanksgiving dinner.

Randy and Andy, who buy a house from Realtor Mom.

Next door neighbor Nicole, whom Eddie helps come out (after dating her)

A good beginning for a gay-inclusive career. Let's check on Hudson's other roles.

While on the Boat, Hudson appeared in a 2016 episode of the Disney Channel's Liv and Maddie, either as a basketball player or an art student.

The short Hum (2017), about a preteen boy-girl romance.

A 2018 episode of Sofia the First, about a girl who becomes the Princess of Enchancia when her Mom marries the King. Hudson's episode is about mermaids.

Seven 2019 episodes of The Lion Guard, featuring Kion, son of Simba from The Lion King (voiced by Matthew Broderick, left in 1994, Rob Lowe here).

After the Boat, Hudson appeared in Run & Gun (2022), with Ben Milliken as a criminal-on-the-run trying to live a quiet life with the heterosexist trajectory of job, house (well, trailer), girlfriend, and kid. You know that won't work out well. Hudson's character is not listed in the plot synopsis.

Next he played the Honor Student (2023), who loses his brother in a mass shooting, and gets revenge by holding a teacher hostage. No indication that he's gay.

So, only one show with gay representation. That's not....

Wait, I forgot to research Extremely Unique Dynamic (2024).

The premise: best friends (Harrison Xu, left, Ivan Leung) spend the weekend making a movie about making a movie. Extremely Unique made the rounds of 17 film festivals and won five awards. Reviews calls it "A new standard in LGBTQ and Asian-American representation" and "the dumbest, dopest gay meta comedy of the year."

More after the break

Left: Harrison Xu getting intimate with Ian (Cameron Monaghan) on Shameless.

Hudson plays himself.

In 2025 Hudson graduated from Harvard with a degree in psychology, and his show, Crash Course Cuisine with Hudson Yang, appeared on Hulu. He cooks for his Boat co-stars, works in his favorite burger place, travels to Houston, New Orleans, and Singapore. I fast-forwarded through some episodes: male co-stars, male friends, male mentor chefs (except for the lesbian).

Hudson reviews a Japanese restaurant with a male and a female friend, and occasionally posts friend groups with a girl or two, but otherwise his Instagram and Facebook pages show only men. He goes to a game with three guys. He goes boating with four. He visits Harvard with alumnus Simu Liu (of Kim's Convenience). Philip Ng (of Birth of the Dragon) pretends to throttle him.