Prometheus 6

An excellent editorial, fully explaining the problem with the William Hung Phenomenon.

Quotes of note:

Hung's fans are blind to all of it, e-mailing me such thoughts as, "Can't you just leave well enough alone? "

Or my favorite: "Can't you just take things at face value?"

Sure. Why look deeper at anything?

And then there are those who say there's no harm in Hung's exploitation, because everyone's making money and having fun. And that bothers me.

Kathie Lee Gifford, appearing on Fox TV, talked about Hung, and she -- a master of image herself -- knows exactly what she is laughing at. "If [Hung] gets his teeth fixed," she said, "his career is over."

"Producers are already saying that Asian-American males that look like William Hung are going to be big money makers," Liu adds.

That's why Liu half suspects Hung could be an act -- say, like a Jim Nabors, who could go from "Gomer Pyle" to a pop standard with the flip of a switch. Liu says he can deal with an actor who plays a role. But, he adds, he has a harder time with a normal guy willing to help set images of the Asian-American male back about 40 years.

"I cannot see a real Asian-American man allowing this to happen," says Liu.

If you still think the stardom of UC Berkeley engineering student William Hung is so innocent, you should read some of the e-mails I received from Asian-American actors about my last column.

Far from downplaying the exploitation of the "American Idol" reject as a subject of ridicule, the actors see Hung's rise as clearly linked to giving America permission to be racist.

I'll get to their specific comments a bit later, but note that such opinions are in the minority among all the e-mails I received. Judging from most responses to my last column, you'd have thought I had uttered a sacrilege against someone really talented -- like Paris Hilton.

When I linked race with the rise of Hung, I hit a nerve, one that reveals how people are so unaware of racism that when it roots itself in something seemingly innocuous, it moves through the culture like some stealth bacteria.

Many people are so in love with the engaging, no-talent Hung that they don't even see the obvious. Sure, there's an appealing earnestness in the tale of the man who dared to stand his ground to the show's "evil" judge, Simon Cowell.

But overriding all that is the real achievement of the student turned karaoke king: racist stereotyping.

He's bucktoothed, moves like a man in need of a straitjacket and sings English in a Chinese accent.

And you like him, you really like him. But not like you like Sally Field.

In a report on the VH1 Web site, even Alan Grunblatt, general manager and executive vice president of Koch Records, which had the gumption to sign and rush Hung to market, admits it's Hung's accent that makes the music funny.
Grunblatt wasn't sad last week when Hung's CD debuted at No. 34 on the Billboard charts and sold nearly 40,000 copies. In fact, he's giving our lad a little affirmative action. "He's taking lessons, and, I think, in a year from now, he's going to be a really talented singer," Grunblatt says. "I would sign 10 more people just like him."

That's entertainment?

No, that's racist. (At least admit to gross pandering to racist notions for amusement and the almighty dollar.)

Of course, none of the bad stuff is diminished just because you get to laugh at the same time.

The warning from Grunblatt is an indicator that Hung isn't going to be a one-note phenomenon. The record-company executive is planning ahead. We're likely to see more abuses justified by reality, creating an ambiguous, soft racism passing as entertainment.

Now, that's what I'd call insidious.

Hung's fans are blind to all of it, e-mailing me such thoughts as, "Can't you just leave well enough alone? "

Or my favorite: "Can't you just take things at face value?"

Sure. Why look deeper at anything?

Some correspondents claim I am jealous and out to sink Hung. But I'm no Omarosa trying to deep-six Kwame on "The Apprentice."

And then there are those who say there's no harm in Hung's exploitation, because everyone's making money and having fun. And that bothers me.

Do you think prostitution is a victimless crime?

Other Asian Americans are just glad someone finally spoke up about the not-so-innocent selling of Hung. They'd been silent because the guy's apparent success clouded their view: "He's making money. It must be good."

It's not.

African Americans e-mailed me, saying the whole thing has a Stepin Fetchit quality.

In considering the whole issue, I had actually thought of the pickaninny, the classic caricature of the innocent black child with the big eyes and nappy hair.

But then an e-mailer, an Asian American, beat me to the punch line.

Hung, the correspondent says, is the modern Buckwheat.

People laugh at his eyes, accent and hair. Now, we laughed at Alfalfa, too, but we knew that not all white people look like him. But for some people, Buckwheat was the most ubiquitous image of an African American.

Kathie Lee Gifford, appearing on Fox TV, talked about Hung, and she -- a master of image herself -- knows exactly what she is laughing at. "If [Hung] gets his teeth fixed," she said, "his career is over."

The people most aware of the exploitation are others in show business, mostly because they know there are real victims in this equation -- and it's not just the people who spend their hard-earned dollars for a Hung CD.

In Hollywood, where it's all about image -- and even as Koch Records' Alan Grunblatt expresses his desire to replicate his success -- no one involved in the industry doubts we'll see more, not less, of the Hung type.

That's why the most sensitive e-mails I received came from Asian-American performers. Not amateurs. Real artists struggling with their craft to make it in mainstream television and films.

"I am disgusted at what is going on with [William Hung]," writes Dennis Takeda, an actor from Los Angeles, in an e-mail to me. "The entertainment industry is still using this stereotype of the Asian-American male for their pocketbooks, and William is perpetuating it."

Takeda adds that when he goes to auditions, he usually doesn't see William Hung types. "But I guess if we want to work in this industry, we should have ourselves made over like him!" he adds.

"I never would have noticed all this, except that I'm an actor," writes Liam Liu, another e-mailer from Los Angeles.

Liu, in his 40s, quit his job as a doctor to help his daughter pursue acting, then was bitten by the bug himself. He's half white, half Taiwanese. He knows what it's like to be rejected for both not looking Asian enough and for appearing too Asian.

He says he actually started getting callbacks when he stopped going to auditions as an "Asian male" and started submitting his name as a "multicultural" actor.

His goal is be the first Asian-American leading male actor to win an Academy Award in Hollywood without having to leave the United States for work. In other words, without going to Hong Kong or Europe, by making it here as a home-grown romantic male lead.

But he says that if the William Hung type -- the ineffectual, infantile incompetent -- becomes the "look" for the Asian/Asian-American male, he knows his career is going to be compromised.

"Producers are already saying that Asian-American males that look like William Hung are going to be big money makers," Liu adds.

That's why Liu half suspects Hung could be an act -- say, like a Jim Nabors, who could go from "Gomer Pyle" to a pop standard with the flip of a switch. Liu says he can deal with an actor who plays a role. But, he adds, he has a harder time with a normal guy willing to help set images of the Asian-American male back about 40 years.

"I cannot see a real Asian-American man allowing this to happen," says Liu.

And it's not just actors who are hurt when a dominant image is allowed to pervade the culture and become a new stereotype.

It trickles down to the rest of us.

If you're the majority population and you want to keep the fastest-growing minority population from being a real threat in America, what do you do?

You mock them as infantile, ineffectual and incompetent, and then sell them as pop entertainment.

It works. Always has.

Consider the number of real Asian-American males with power and status in all aspects of society. There aren't many.

What about the good, the talented and the truly deserving? Some make it. But in this society, too often, they're left hung out to dry.