Tonight, as I was washing dishes, I saw a glimpse of the new season of the popular reality show, American Idol. I had heard recently about a Saratoga native who made it into the show, Paul Kim. However, the shock that came to me was that he was Korean-American. This might cause one to wonder why I was in shock and here is my reasoning:
There is no support from the Asian community so why bother auditioning?
His audition performance received praise from all the judges and one in particular mentioned that Kim has one of the best male vocals he has heard this season (Wikipedia). But in contrast, Kim barely made it to the final 24. It made me think, why wouldn’t he make it? Out of all the seasons of American Idol, there has only been one male singer to ever come out of it with partial fame and that is William Hung, or otherwise known to me as the single man who brought shame upon anything Asian. When it all boils down, Asians just can’t seem to cut it. The reason’s a little different than you might think. It’s not that we don’t have talent, because there’s plenty, and not because we don’t have the look, that’s proved with Ziyi Zhang, it’s because we don’t care.
Reality shows cost timed investment, possibly time that Asian-Americans are not providing. As I can say, my own parents watch the show when there is nothing else on, and even they don’t care enough to vote. Even when a performance is outstanding, there isn’t a reach for the phone. It makes it hard for me to imagine any other Asian family sitting down to watch a bunch of singer wannabes, critics, and Ryan Seacrest. It’s the underdog that gets rooted for but when there isn’t an audience for that underdog, well, the dog just gets put to sleep. Kim is just another victim of this awful tragedy but he doesn’t stand alone. Over the years, Asian immigrants have come to this great free land of America to fulfill their hopes and dreams but these dreams don’t include show business. Maybe the occasional success but overall we’re trapped in a mold that says if we can’t do martial arts, we might not be cut out for acting. So Asian parents tell these stories to their young about how each of them should grow up to have responsible jobs—these are lawyers, doctors, market analysts—and not thinking impractically. The response is great, we have successfully entered all of those fields but now our art has died. We have killed our own image in proving that we don’t shine as much as the rest and our names hardly go up in lights. It’s been long since an Asian actor has had achieved fame without being tied anything martial arts. And the few that do make it without a kick? They suffer because now no one cares enough to watch them give their award worthy performances. Instead, we have embarrassments like Hung who paraded himself with humiliation for the price of fame. Where was his dignity? People weren’t laughing with him, they were laughing at him! So now, without the support, we’re just left with a few “Hai-ya”s and Hung. It makes me pity how much we have lost when trying to achieve so much.
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