{"id":794,"date":"2004-04-06T23:37:00","date_gmt":"2004-04-06T23:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/?p=794"},"modified":"2018-08-14T09:07:59","modified_gmt":"2018-08-14T14:07:59","slug":"794","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2004\/04\/06\/794\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Questioned Emil Guillermo’s Virility?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In today’s SFGate.com, Emil Guillermo looks at the microphenomenon that is William Hung and finds what he expected: anti-Asian American racism<\/a>. (Hurry, that’s a perishable link.)<\/p>\n

For those of you who don’t know, William Hung wanted to be a contestant on the television show American Idol<\/i>, but whose cover of a Ricky Martin song, “She Bangs”, proved so awful that he didn’t make the cut. Instead, he was thrown out at audition, but since these auditions aired, became an anti-star of sorts. He’s made the rounds of the television shows and has a CD coming out. America likes an earnest, but ultimately undertalented, performer. Sure, it’s funny, but it’s also endearing. A lot of us can project ourselves into William Hung.<\/p>\n

What does Guillermo project? Seemingly, a lack of virility:<\/p>\n

With William Hung, is there any other reason to extend the joke on America except that it plays to a racist image of the ineffectual Asian-American male?<\/p>\n

What is Hung but an infantilized, incompetent and impotent male image? Strong? No. Virile? No. Sexy? The guy’s a virgin. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You know what, Emil? A lot of people are virgins, and some of them don’t care for it. The modern message indicates you’re a freak if you’re not getting head in third grade. I haven’t seen William Hung in action–I get my entertainment and pop culture news on the Internet– but I wouldn’t be so quick to call him infantilized, incompetent, and impotent. As a matter of fact, those words don’t tend to come to mind for most people unless they’re writing television ads for male supplements. Those men are incompetent.<\/p>\n

Guillermo hits the v-word again with this bit:<\/p>\n

It wouldn’t be so bad if we saw positive images of Asian-American males in the media. But, for the most part, we’ve been invisible, and the images have usually come with martial-arts enhancements.<\/p>\n

Bruce Lee’s combative persona has been the most virile and most enduring icon for Asian-American males. But the stereotypes that predominate are the sinister and inscrutable or ineffectual and effeminate. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Jeez, buddy, give it a rest. You’re so caught up in making William Hung’s name ironic that you fail to see what makes him iconic: that he’s an underdog member of a multicultural society that appreciates underdogs.<\/p>\n

Guillermo might want me to prove it:<\/p>\n

You certainly wouldn’t see them glorify a black man who couldn’t sing and dance on “American Idol.” Nor would they prop up a clumsy, tone-deaf white person.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He’s wrong. For starters, Don “No Soul” Simmons was a joke in 1987<\/a>. But that’s not the point.<\/p>\n

America braces people who sincerely try, often even if they’re not the most talented. When I look to my hometown sports teams, I see that the fan favorites are often blue-collar players, not the superstars. The St. Louis Cardinals have had Joe McEwing and Bo Hart; the St. Louis Blues have had Tyson Nash, Mike Danton, and Dallas Drake. They play their hearts out, but they’re not eight-figure players.<\/p>\n

Still, we lesser mortals can see ourselves in their positions and can root for them to succeed beyond their ability.<\/p>\n

Well, some of us do, anyway. Others, like Guillermo, have other projections to see.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In today’s SFGate.com, Emil Guillermo looks at the microphenomenon that is William Hung and finds what he expected: anti-Asian American racism. (Hurry, that’s a perishable link.) For those of you who don’t know, William Hung wanted to be a contestant on the television show American Idol, but whose cover of a Ricky Martin song, “She […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3334,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3334"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=794"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23474,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794\/revisions\/23474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}