Is 2006 the Year of the Asian American Male?
December 29, 2006
All hail, Yul Kwon! Talk about representing. But let’s not make him King Yul just yet.
Believe me, for years I’ve been one of the loudest complainers about the Asian American male image in media — from local TV (where are our Asian American male anchormen?) to national TV. (Is B.D. Wong a “special victim?”)
I know what a special breakthrough Kwon’s prime-time victory is on CBS’ Survivor.
It’s a reality show, so Kwon’s an everyman.
I’m wondering if the producers would have preferred runner-up Ozzie Lusth, the Latino contestant. The winner of most of the physical challenges, Lusth lost out by just one vote.
“It’s the first time I’ve ever felt bad that somebody didn’t win,” host Jeff Probst said.
Latinos are the largest, if not the fastest, growing minority group in America. A Lusth victory would have given Survivor massive marketing opportunities for the show in the Latin media.
They could’ve done “Survivor: Border Patrol” next and offer up U.S. citizenship as the grand prize.
Instead, of seeing Survivor propagate in Spanish syndication on Univision stations, the show’s producers are stuck with most of us gloating about Yul’s win like he’s the Asian Joe DiMaggio.
And why not?
Kwon is young, smart and shredded.
Kwon is everything that the Asian American male is not in the media image presented to the American public.
He’s a far cry from Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, or Gedde Watanabe’s Asian nerd, or Masi Oka of NBC’s Heroes.
But all that’s fiction.
Survivor is a reality show. Kwon was plucked from life and asked to outwit everyone.
The Stanford undergrad and Yale Law School grad did what he’s done best so far in life — taken good advantage of all his opportunities.
When we can fairly compete, we can deliver.
In doing so, Kwon’s updated our male image from “Straight-A Asian American” to “Straight-A Asian American as Adonis — with a bag of cash.”
Now everyone can see that:
We speak English without an accent. No “ching chong.”
We’re good at math and puzzles, even with our shirts off.
Many of us have better haircuts than Kim Jong-il.
So I love Yul.
It’s just too bad his victory was on Survivor.
The problem with ‘Survivor’
The 13th season of Survivor was so crass when it began with the gimmicky idea that this would be a war between different minority groups.
The producers were race-baiting for ratings, showing their desperation to survive in TV’s primetime jungle.
I watched Survivor the very first year, but like many others, the format became somewhat predictable. The infusion of race as a factor piqued my curiosity, but just for a few shows.
The problem wasn’t race. Indeed, the producers chucked the idea after a few shows in. The real issue is that putting real people through “fake” challenges in a deserted place becomes kind of dumb.
The competitions and games start to look like slightly crazed summer camp stunts that merit a shrug.
The true test of that was the night Yul actually won it all.
Sunday night isn’t the show’s regular time, and I had no idea it was on.
Didn’t matter. I was too busy watching coverage of the real survivor drama going on in Mt. Hood.
Quite simply, reality trumped “fake” reality.
That night, the search teams had found the body of Kelly James, one of the three missing climbers. The two others remained missing, including Jerry Cooke of New York, whose wife, Michaela Javan Cooke, appears to be an Asian American.
The real drama just consumed me.
And it put Yul’s “survival” into a much-needed perspective.
And Then There’s James Kim
I wrote about Kim very recently (“Honoring James Kim: Our High-Tech Tragic Hero,” Dec. 15). Frankly, I still can’t stop thinking about the guy.
Outwardly, he was more the classic Asian American male stereotype. No model-good looks here. Just straight black hair, but with hip longish sideburns. Black glasses. Unaccented. Soft-spoken. He was the man who loved his gadgets.
But in the end, what was the image that counts and lasts forever?
It’s the image of Kim, who stepped out of his nerd zone and braved the elements to seek help for his stranded family.
It’s instructive to have Yul’s victory, the saga of the Mt. Hood climbers and James Kim’s tragic death all occur within days of each other.
The image of Yul, the Survivor champ is a great pop culture memory, one that hopefully obliterates another Asian American reality show icon: William Hung.
We will all thank Yul if he does that.
In the meantime, we must put his achievement into perspective.
It’s nice. But it’s still just showbiz reality.
As 2006 ends, we’ve been given our choice of male images. One is real. The other is realer. I’d say the Asian male image that may have more of a lasting impact isn’t the sexy glamorous one with the primetime pecs.
The most memorable male image of the year may indeed be the more ordinary one thrust into an extraordinary situation where the truly heroic don’t survive.
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