Asian American Idol! (2 of 3)

In some ways, Harlemm Lee’s win is less surprising than Dat’s. Harlemm, the Hollywood Asian American, is a talented singer and dancer, but his style and delivery is essentially American, with little ethnic content. One can see the young Harlemm growing up in Tinseltown, with stars in his eyes, adopting the kind of show bizzy, urban-hip style of singing and dancing, with its undeniable influence of Afro American dance and flavor, and dreaming of making it big time. The fact that Harlemmj, at 35 years old, is not only Asian and male, but an old guy among competing kids, makes his win certainly sweeter from an underdog point of view, but no more “Asian American”. His story was not unlike any other Horatio Alger/Rita Hayworth story. Young boy with a dream becomes a star against all odds.

“ Fame” was produced and put together by Debbie Allen. The talented African American singer/dancer/actress no doubt had considerable influence on who became the finalists and the fact that someone like Lee was in the mix at all. I think it was no accident that no less than 3 Asian Americans (two of them men, as well) were among the final cut of people in “Fame”, as well as numerous African Americans and Latinos. Allen represents a sector of Hollywood production including the likes of Bill Cosby who are African Americans with a commitment to representing the diversity of America, including a fair representation of Asian Americans. Just check out old episodes of “Cosby”, “A Different World” and such productions to see who ends up among the various extras and guest stars.

Dat Phan, on the other hand, won with decidedly Asian American material, and in a production setting that was not so diversity-friendly. With comedy, unless you’re talking about silent movies or slapstick, and especially with stand-up, it’s ultimately about ideas. What Arsenio Hall used to call “thinks that make you go ‘hmmmmmm.’ While some of his jokes were reminiscent of Margaret Cho a la “All American Girl” (of ‘my crazy Asian mother’ variety), Dat’s stuff was interesting in that he plays with the stereotypes, often turning them inside out and against themselves. He starts his act sometimes by coming out and speaking with an exaggerated “Vietnamese Oriental” accent, only to switch into his American accented Californian voice, letting the audience in on the inside joke he just played on them. He turns a sing-songy bigot’s making fun of Vietnamese language into a joke about “we don’t come up to white people and say ‘bread, toys, picket fence, expense account” – a semi-random string of words, with a little jab at middle America in phrases like “expense account”. While on his web site, Phan chats somewhat longingly about wanting to someday use more of his “non-Asian” material, he realizes his Asian stuff is his strongest, as well as what his audiences are drawn to. But even some of his “non-Asian” stuff seems to have a cross-cultural spin, such as Dat doing Irish accents. Despite the older white comics’ smug assertions that they were funnier than Dat; in the end I think it came down to their material was colorless. The usual dribble about wives, male/female stuff, Seinfeldesque observations about nothing. Phan is playing with some new takes on a superficially familiar but really unknown culture, and the prospect of Asians (and himself) both being up and coming and misunderstood.

Asian American Idol 3 - New American Comedy?