Funny Asian
July 10, 2008
Just when you think our relationship with reality television was limited to dancing, dancing and more dancing, a light in the cloud breaks and Esther Ku arrives in hot pink tights, tall black boots and pigtails.
It is season six of Last Comic Standing, and 40 countries have given up their funniest stand-ups to compete for a large sum of money, prizes and an exclusive talent deal with NBC. Weeks of auditions have aired and finally the semifinals have come and gone. Standing in the debris of the ha-ha maelstrom is Chicago native Esther Ku, one of the 12 finalists who will compete this week for the title of “Last Comic Standing.” Her shtick is to playfully undermine Korean American stereotypes. “People think all Asians are smart,” she opened last week. “That’s not really true. It helped me get through college, ’cause you could be the only one sleeping in class and the professor would never be able to tell.” Irreverent and not afraid to poke fun of sensitive subjects like accents and telling one Asian apart from another, the divide between Asian Americans and Asians is refreshing and not-so-mysteriously offensive, as her childlike approach to the jokes renders them insightful without any malicious subtext. Her jokes translated well with the audience and Law and Order star-cum-talent scout Richard Belzer, who commented: “It’s legal for an ethnic group to make fun of themselves. You walked that line and did it very well.”
Esther knew she was funny at an early age. At 3, she lifted her legs for a vacuum at a Wendy’s restaurant, which elicited a laugh from the employee, and she knew that comedy was indeed powerful. She conducted skits to tell jokes, banging on a drum like the Energizer Bunny, incorporating what she knew to be funny from her mother, siblings, teachers and even her pastor. It should be no surprise that Esther, who comes across as sweet and a little confused, was reared on Amelia Bedelia, a fictional character who naively blundered by taking things too literally. Esther seems to have a gag bag of confidence, and she’s shooting for the moon (translate that into an NBC sitcom about the Ku family).
When asked if it’s difficult to be a female in the business of making people laugh, she answers that it actually helps her stand out. Will she win the title and perhaps open the door to a future that she could possibly share a marquee with Margaret Cho? It looks promising as she advances to the finals.
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5 Responses to “Funny Asian”
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What planet are you living on?? This women is not funny, she is racist, she hates her own race, she’s using her race to get ahead with mainly white and racist audiences. She is a disgusting human being. Why would you ever write anything positve about her? Do you believe anything you just wrote?
I agree with Jerry. Please watch her act and decide for yourself.
http://www.racialicious.com/2008/06/02/meet-esther-ku-the-asian-sarah-silverman/
So its okay when Asian Male Comedians make fun of whites with hack jokes? One only gets upset at a joke when they hit a nerve. Please show me when these same people, get mad at Asians for doing white jokes. Are these same Asian men angry at the killing of baby girls in China or the forced prostitution of Asian Women?
I have yet to see any Asian comedian tear into white people with such bigotry, condescension and hatred as certain white comedians or actors do with Asians. Show me any example of that, Tim. Here, I’ll start with a white celeb who’s filled with venonous hate for Asian and you can counter: Adam Corolla.
And this mindset of “You’re guilty of what people who like you do on the other side of the world” shows how Asian AMERICANS have to deal with a lot of resistance when we try to bring up specific concerns. Let’s stick to one topic at a time, shall we?
Elise, you didn’t do your homework as a journalist, when you did this article. We all saw her act on “Last Comic Standing” and it was pure self-hate and did not show any sense of poking fun at racial and gender inequities. She wasn’t multi-layered and subservise like other comedians of color.
Aside from the fact that she was using cheap bigotted jokes and the audience was uncomfortable, they didn’t find her particularly funny. Nobody likes it when somebody betrays her own kind.
Why is it that Asian American women are the only ones who bash their male counterparts? What would you think if you heard a white, Black, or Hispanic female talk with such hatred for men who resemble their fathers and brothers?
MOST Asian American women have the utmost respect and love for Asian American men, and these women deserve our loyalty and praise. But every once in a while, there’s an Asian American woman like Esther Ku who really screws it up.
I didn’t get to watch her on TV, but after reading this article in Asian Weekly, I was filled with hope and pride that an attractive Asian female funny enough to make it to the semi-finals on LCS, surely a rarity. So I decided to look up some of her clips online, and half way through the clips, my hope and admiration took a 180 degree turn into shame and disappointment.
This woman does nothing more than setting the Asian race back several decades and perpetuating negative stereotypes against Asians, both males and females. Whenever I hear the someone so offensively mimic “fuky suky 5 dolla, me love you long time” or “Ching Chang Chong”, I think of people like Esther. “Asian women are dating white guys, black guys, hispanic guys, just not asian guys. So what, are asian guys gonna be extinct? As they sit there playing their video games?” Or “I feel bad for them, but I don’t feel bad for them enough to date them.” “I don’t want to date Asian guys, I want to date regular people.” Wow really? I personally don’t have an issue with interracial dating, but this is straight up self-hate. It’s disturbing, and it’s damaging to the image of Asians in America period. I don’t know how an article promoting a sell-out such as Esther Ku made it through the editing room at Asian Weekly.