|
|
« Buffalo Theory | Main | Death And Taxes »
The Scene: Driving Mom to Hillsboro. Korean in Italics.
Radio: (Commercial for American Idol) ...And William Hung!
Me: Haha. That Hung guy cracks me up!
Mom: He's the Chinese boy?
Me: Yes. Shows you don't have to have talent for the American public to like you, I guess.
Mom: Mama thinking he is Ritalian.
Me: (Confused) No, uh, he's Chinese.
Mom: (Confused) Oh, okay.
Me: (Dismiss topic; starts singing to radio) My milkshake's better than yoooos.
Mom: OH! RETARD! That's what Mama saying. Chinese boy is retardian!
Me: Mom, William Hung is not retarded.
Mom: Yes, but he has ugly teeth.
I guess I can't argue with that.
When I first saw William Hung on American Idol try-outs, I laughed. He's fresh off the boat, has no rhythm, and (like my mother says) has bad teeth. He told Paula "I have no professional training" and Simon said "Obviously" in that mean brit tone of his. I thought that was the end of Hung. Nope.
Now I see him on MTV, the Ellen Degeneres Show, Extra, the local news, etc.. There are dozens of websites for this guy, and I've even heard club mixes of his audition song. I know all about this guy. I know that he goes to Berkeley, he's a civil engineer, and girls are pining for him all over the nation. I am now seriously perturbed by his popularity.
We are not laughing with him. We are all laughing at him. My biggest concern is that he may think he's actually a good singer. William, if you are listening out there, please stop. You're a smart boy. Do what your mama tells you to, and JUST BE AN ENGINEER!
I think his popularity is spawned from a deep rooted racist nerve in America where it is okay to laugh at Asians. Seriously, isn't William Hung the Asian version of Jim Crow? He perpetuates certain stereotypes of the unmasculine, geeky, fobby, Asian man.
I hope Hung's family is making a ton of money off of this.
Posted by Stacy on March 9, 2004 12:30 AM | Filed In: Family & Television
|
|
donate
...because it costs money to purchase hosting services, DNS, domain names and the rest of the computer nerdy stuff that goes along with it. Use paypal, amazon, or send me a gift.
miscellany
Creative Commons License
RSS feeds
Site Feed
Flickr Feed
Livejournal Feed
categories