Sixteenth Minute (of Fame) - william hung, pt. 2

Episode Date: November 12, 2024

In part two of our William Hung series, Jamie takes a look at two of the biggest conversations that William sparked upon his debut: the representation of Asian Americans in the U.S., and how reality shows remove authorship from their subjects. Twenty years later, what can we take away from this moment? We speak with sociologist Nancy Wang Yeun about her experience first encountering William’s narrative and the legacy of Asian representation up until that time, and reality show editing vet Steve Flack about how reality television can Frankenbite its subjects into completely different people. Follow Nancy Wang Yeun here: https://www.nancywyuen.com/  Read Serve the People: Making Asian America in the Long Sixties by Karen Ishizuka: https://bookshop.org/p/books/serve-the-people-making-asian-america-in-the-long-sixties-karen-l-ishizuka/9337769?ean=9781781689981  Read The Making of Asian America: A History by Erika Lee: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-making-of-asian-america-a-history-erika-lee/16653245?ean=9781476739410  Tickets to Jamie’s show The Tiny Man is Trying to Kill Me: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-tiny-man-is-trying-to-kill-me-special-tapings-tickets-1077914925559  Listen to We the Unhoused: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/we-the-unhoused/id1490017575  And reach out to Jamie for manosphere sources at [e-mail] !See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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This technology is already solving so many cases. Listen to America's Crime Lab on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you're looking for another heavy podcast about trauma, the same it. This is for the ones who had to survive and still show up as brilliant, loud, soft, and whole. The Unwanted Sorority is where black women, fims, and gender expansive survivors of sexual violence rewrite the rules on healing, support, and what happens after.

And I'm your host and co-president of this organization, Dr. Leah Trettae. Listen to the Unwanted Sorority, New Everett. episodes every Thursday on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's Black Business Month, and Money and Wealth Podcast with John Hope Bryant is tapping in. I'm breaking down how to build wealth, create opportunities, and move from surviving to thriving. It's time to talk about ownership, equity, and everything in between. Black and brown communities have historically been last in life. Let me just say this. AI is moving faster than civil rights legislation ever did.

Listen to Money and Wealth from the Black Effect Podcast Network on iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I just normally do straight stand-up, but this is a bit different. What do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club? Answer, a new podcast called Wisecrack, where a comedian finds himself at the center of a chilling true crime story. Does anyone know what show they've come to see? It's a story. It's about the scariest night of my life. this is wisecrack available now listen to wisecrack on the iHeart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts

what would you do if one bad decision forced you to choose between a maximum security prison or the most brutal boot camp designed to be hell on earth unfortunately for mark lombardo this was the choice he faced he said you are a number a new york state number and we own you Listen to shock incarceration on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. CallZone Media. Hello, everyone. Jamie here. Just a few quick housekeeping things at the top of this episode. First off, I'm excited to say that I'm doing my first proper taping of a special of mine on December 4th in Los Angeles.

it is called The Tiny Man is Trying to Kill Me. I'm so excited if you've been following my work for a long time. I really love building shows like this. And it's cool to finally be making kind of a proper production. So there's going to be two tapings on December 4th at the Lyric Hyperion. It is a mix of some of my newer stand-up and a performance about the titular tiny man who's trying to kill me. And it's all kind of about the tendency to bastardize every part of your life for material. and hashtag content, working some shit out, if you will. But it's also very silly and very fun. And there's brief nudity. I'd love to see you there. Tickets are in the description. Second, I wanted to plug another show that I produce on IHeartRadio called We the Unhoused with Theo Henderson. It's a long-running podcast about issues that face the unhoused from unhoused there aren't really shows that do that. And it's especially important to be informed on right now, given the recent Supreme Court decision called Grant's Pass that makes it all but illegal to be unhoused in the U.S., which will get worse in the coming administration.

For more on that, the link is also in the description. And finally, today we are talking about part two of William Hung, as the title of the episode indicates, but I wanted to give you a heads up that in December we're going to be doing a multi-part series on the main characters of the manosphere, obviously a big conversation, right now, and I'm looking for sources for that episode. So if you are or know someone that was interested in the Manosphere and then got out of interest in the Manosphere, I would love to talk to you. It can be anonymous, and the email to reach out to is Small Ice Resurfaceer at gmail.com. Okay, I hope everyone's hanging in and enjoy William Hung.

Idol is guilty of a lot of things. It's guilty of letting Ryan Seacrest wear jeans with a blazer, like he's Kamala Harris giving a pep talk at an elementary school. It's guilty of burdening us with Chris Daughtry. But if you watched Early American Idol, you'll know it wasn't just guilty of Millennium Kitch. But damn, there was a lot of that. And there were also

elements, elements of racism, of xenophobia, that you could literally hear on the show, often from Simon Cowell. But there was a diverse pool of American Idol winners in those early years. In the first six seasons, three winners were white and three were black. But there are also full half decades where the winners were truly profoundly random white guys. A winner named Philip Phillips? You're joking. And this has been called out throughout the show's history. Elton Goddamn John called it out all the way back in 2004,

when future E. Goddor Jennifer Hudson was eliminated from the show on week. For it, Barry Manilone Night. From the LA Times in 2004. The three people I was really impressed with, and they just happened to be black, young female singers, and they all seem to be landing in the bottom three, said John, commenting on the tally in which the lowest vote getter is eliminated. They have great voices, the fact that they're constantly in the bottom three, and I don't want to set myself up here, but I find it incredibly.

racist. While it did feature a diverse array of contestants, it's impossible to argue that American Idol was a truly inclusive show, and not just because of the very existence and concept of Barry Mandelow Night. There were elements of discrimination that you couldn't see as a viewer, and once, that went all the way to court. In early 2013, news broke that 10 black contestants had filed a suit against the show with the equal Opportunity Commission that alleged that they were, quote, deliberately exploiting black contestants to improve the show's ratings, unquote. The suit is an extremely long one, but to summarize, I'll quote from this guardian piece

from Amanda Holpich at the time, speaking here about filing lawyer, James Freeman. Freeman said he noticed something was awry when Jermaine Jones was kicked off the show in March 2012. Producer said at the time that Jones was disqualified because he had not told the show there were outstanding warrants for his arrest. Freeman also said in the letter that he saw that only nine other people had been publicly disqualified from the show and they were all black. Freeman claimed in that letter that by asking potential contestants if they had been arrested, producers violated California employment law under which employers are not allowed to ask potential employees about their arrest history.

And the letter he said that the show perpetrated destructive stereotypes about black people by using their answer to that question and employing private investigators to examine their arrest history, allowing them to disqualify the contestants. And from the lawsuit itself, a staggering 31% of every American Idol semi-finalist contestant who happened to be a young black male was disqualified from the singing competition for reasons wholly unrelated to their singing talent.

Even though there were three times as many white or non-black contestants featured on American Idol over the course, of 10 years, there has never been a single white or non-black contestant disqualified from American Idol, not ever. Nine out of 10 complainants were black men who said they were disproportionately focused on with speculation to their criminal history, then punished for it. A similar discrimination case had been brought the year before by black contestants of The Bachelor, and the case was thrown out on the ground that casting isn't the same thing

as hiring, and that rejecting black applicants was fair under the First Amendment. What? But things didn't go much better in the Idol lawsuit. In late 2014, it was revealed that the statute of limitations didn't apply for nine out of ten contestants who sued, and the other got dismissed on a technicality. But there's no doubt that American Idol has a history of racism and discrimination in the treatment of their contestants. And it's not like this was Idol's idea. For my money, this just reflected the amount of permissible discrimination that was acceptable

at this time. I'm not saying it's much or at all better now, but the post-9-11 era was rife with casual xenophobia, with shaming women into eating disorders, to closeting queer people by threatening retaliation or shaming for being out at all. This was the world then, and Idol was reflecting it. And when it came to reinforcing existing stereotypes around marginalized people, no one was safe. And no contestant kicked off the questions about how race was treated within the show like William Hung. In part one of this series, we revisited how William's infamy rolled out and spoke with the man himself.

And today, we are looking at his cultural. impact, and what we can learn about representation and reality TV by taking a closer look at his story. So let's start key-banging, baby. It's part two of William Hum. I'm not so bad when you turn up the lights, but I can be perfect all over time. So make me a star, let's take it too far, then give me one moment. Sixteen minutes of fame Sixteen minute of fame Sixteen minute of fame

One more minute of fame I'm not so bad when you're saying here on my mind Welcome back to 16th Minute, the podcast where we take a look at the Internet's main characters and learn how their moment affected them and what it says about us and the Internet. And this week, we're delving deeper into the saga of William Hung. Sir, she bangs himself. She bangs, she bangs.

Oh, baby, when she moves, she moves. Getting to speak with William was really wonderful. and his huge cultural moment was so impactful that it became literally impossible to get everything I wanted to talk about in the space of a single episode. Because one issue in particular is so significant in the discussions that surrounded William at the time and since that I wanted to give the topic its own space. And that's what we're doing today. Because there's framing an audition as bad, and framing an audition as bad, while referencing and capitalizing on racial stereotypes to make the audition seem even worse.

For example, here's how a mediocre white contestant might be rejected. Thank you so much, Victor. Should we just do this together, you guys, on the count of three? One, two, three. No. Victor, you are a terrible singer, you are a terrible dancer, you have no charisma. Terrible. I mean, everything.

No charisma. No. I've seen some of those people that you sent through there, and I know I'm a lot better than that. Oh, dude, come on. I got all the energy. I got a wonderful voice. Victor, you know what? It doesn't matter what we think.

It's at all that matters is what you think anyway. Your voice is terrible. It's definitely what America thinks. Victor, America would hate you. And here's how William was treated. Yeah, he's not great, but listen to how he's spoken about. William, what's your last name? Hung.

H-U-N-G. Hm? Yes. Do you have brothers and sisters? No, I don't. I'm the only child. You're the only child? Yes.

Do your parents tell you you have a great voice? No, they don't realize that, actually. Great. Are they excited for you that you're here? Actually, they would not like it if they hear that, you know, I'm missing school two days in a row. So they wouldn't like it if you got through? Huh? They wouldn't be happy if you got through.

No, they would be happy if I go through. Okay. They wouldn't be happy if I don't go through. Because you missed two days of school. Yes, that's a big sacrifice. William, it's one of actually the worst auditions we've had this year, if I'm being honest. Seriously. I mean, everything about it was grotesque.

Oh, stop it. Not grotesque. It was. Stop it. Already, you can hear the judges leaning into common early odds tropes around Asian-American people and, more specifically, East Asian men. He's hyper-focused on academics. He should be doing homework.

His parents wouldn't approve of a career and entertainment and would rather he excel in school. In subsequent media appearances William made, he would often be asked how he's doing with the ladies or in his own music video would be surrounded by conventionally attractive white women who were only into him because of his fame. I'm Tony, the record company got.

Nice to meet you. I want you to meet you in their girlfriend. And did that swisting. Hi, nice to meet you. Hi. And did that boya-yoing sound happen over the image of William's eyes bouncing out of his head, horny cartoon wolf style? Yes, of course it was.

Making the idea that women would be interested in William into a joke reinforces another long-standing media stereotype against East Asian men, that they are somehow less masculine or. worthy of any sexual attention. This is an extremely complicated topic, and one that I'm going to get into with our guest, Nancy Wangian, today. And I just want to add already that these stereotypes being thrown at William here are just as tied in the Western tendency to turn Asia into this big monolith in their minds, when,

of course, that's ridiculous. And the bad faith that we're seeing here revolves around stereotypes rooted in East Asia in the West. And yes, William Hung is framed to embody many of the tropes that Americans had embraced around Asian men at the time, but William Hung is also a real person. As you heard in our interview last week, William's feelings towards the role anti-Asian racism played into his moment are complex and have changed over time. For him and many, the message of perseverance and positivity is what he feels catapulted him to success on Idol. And he's generally said that he doesn't think the Idol production itself was discriminatory,

but he has been critical of how the media treated him in the 2000s. Here he is in 2020. I remember when I auditioned for American Idol back in 2004. I had a lot of fans, but I also had quite a bit of, probably a big number of haters. Some people say that I portray Asian stereotypes, other people say that I shouldn't be an entertainment business. There's all these negative things, but let's take a step back. Why are we being so negative? Does it help us to improve our lives by taking out our anger on people like that? Not really. And in this same talk, William discusses how he was upset by the massive wave of anti-Asian racism that came in the early months of the coronavirus pandemic. It really bothers me that there are people locally in the Los Angeles area getting shamed, getting attacked, getting spat on.

It's not right. So, of course, he's well aware of the cultural stereotypes that he's being judged by. and he's also just being himself. So what do you do? First, let's focus on that media reception, because American Idol couldn't make a star without the interest and cooperation of both the media and the public.

I can't cover this subject comprehensively in the space of an episode, and I am not the ideal person to, but I want to give you an idea of the attitudes towards Asian men specifically when William Hung first came in to the American spy. For further reading, I would recommend the making of Asian America a history and serve the people making Asian America in the long 60s, which takes special care in analyzing how Americans were conditioned to see Asian people as a monolith in the back half of the 20th century. You can find those at the links in the description.

In brief, racism against Asians in America is longstanding and far-reaching. There's unfortunately no shortage of violence, harassment, and discrimination against Asian Americans in recent years, particularly around the time of the pandemic. There were tremendous waves of propaganda demonizing Asian countries and people during both the Korea and Vietnam wars, and the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act in the U.S. made it all but impossible for Asian people to integrate into American society at all. And much of the violence toward Asian people is elevated and reinforced by the pop culture that portrays them in the West, including truly horrific yellow-faced performances from white actors that would have been remembered by many older idol viewers in 2004. Major examples that audiences might have known about included, of course, Mickey Rooney's trash performance as Mr. Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany's. Mr. Co. Rifery! I protest! Oh, darling, I am sorry, but I lost my key.

But that's what two weeks ago! You cannot go on or keep ringing my bill! You disturb me! You must have a key made! But there's more where that came from. John Wayne played Genghis Khan, Catherine Hepburn in a movie called Dragon Seed, the white actor who played Charlie Chan in 16 movies' entire career. The list goes on. And part of this was related to the Hays Code,

an extremely restrictive policy in American movies from the 1930s into the 60s that explicitly banned any sexual contact between different races on screen. So if you did cast an Asian actor in an Asian role, they couldn't have a love interest who was of any other race. But this isn't the sole reason this happened. It's also just mask off a American race.

American racism and a vested interest in affirming negative stereotypes around Asian people. And this continued after 2004, more recently with the casting of Scarlett Johansson as a Japanese character in Ghost in the Shell in the 2010s. In 2018, Teen Vogue interviewed Keith Chow, founder of the pop culture blog, Nerds of Color. He says, It's all connected, Chow tells Teen Vogue. It all results in the dehumanization of people of color and in the specific case of yellowface

in the dehumanization of Asian people. And that's not to say that there were not impactful Asian stars that broke through in the West in the 20th century. Stars like Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan experienced global success and movies that centered Asian characters and culture like the Joy Luck Club had a big moment upon its release in 1990. But that's not very much good representation and certainly isn't proportional to the Asian-American population.

That's one mainstream movie for an entire generation, while other Asian characters in popular movies were most often relegated to side roles to mainly white protagonists, and even more often embodied these racialized stereotypes. And if you've taken a media studies class, you might know where I'm going with this. For Gen X, and that's none of my business due to my radiant youth, but for Gen X, one of the most prominent portrayals of an Asian man

came in John Hughes's 1984 movie 16 Candles, in the form of a character named Long Duck Dong. And not only was his character's name written as a joke by a white guy, this character embodied basically every cultural stereotype we've discussed so far. He is literally introduced with the sound of a gong, repeatedly. What's happening in hot stuff? He's a quote-unquote, good boy, a model minority stock character with an overemphasis on good behavior and academics.

I love a visiting with a grandma and a grandpa and writing letters to parents and pushing lawn mowing machines so grandpa's hyena don't get disturbed. And later on, when he has a white girlfriend, it's presented as ridiculous. I've never been out with a boy before. Oh, me neither.

And maybe you saw this coming, but the actor you heard performing Getty Wananabe he's of Japanese descent, but he's from Utah. And the fact that he had to take this roll on has everything to do with the kinds of parts that were available to Asian American actors at this time. In a white-dominated entertainment landscape in front of and behind the scenes,

there was very little imagination to see Asian men as anything but caricatures. Long Duck Dong is indisputably presented as the butt of the joke. And studies found that this happened more often than not throughout Hollywood's history. Here's our guest today, Nancy Wang Yun, talking about Long Duck Dong in an interview with NBC in 2021. Anything he said was something you laughed at, not with.

He kind of defined Asian characters for decades. And this kind of representation makes a difference. In the early 2020s, the Gina Davis Institute on Gender and Media studied the top gross films of the 2010s and how AAPI people were represented in them, and the study found that over half of these characters were the butt of a joke. In the opinion of a number of Asian-American writers in 2004, it's this long duck-dong playbook that is being weaponized while portraying William Hung on reality TV. This is a trope specifically weaponized against East Asian men, and you can hear echoes of it in the way that William is spoken to at the peak of his fame.

And how about the girls? Have you noticed a big difference with the attention from the girls? I notice that I make a lot of friends in general, not just girls. Not just girls and friends in general. But there's a lot of girls. Yeah, all right. By 2004, around 13% of the American population were people of Asian descent. But the representation was still nowhere near proportional. Then or now.

As recently as the late 2010's, only 4% of speaking roles in Hollywood films came from Asian actors. And so this meant when an Asian person appeared on American TV, the way they were framed disproportionately mattered. Something that is entirely the fault of American media. And while William was often presented as unaware of the conversations around Asian representation taking place, of course that's bullshit. He was well aware and genuinely struggled with it. Here he is during his 2018 TED Talk discussing why it was challenging to accept a record deal in the first place. Now, I know what you're thinking. How hard can this be?

Take the money, fool? But for me, it wasn't easy at all. You see, I was aware that I was made the laughing stock for Asians on American Idol. In my heart, I felt like there were magnetic forces pulling me in different directions. But these forces gradually disappeared when I realized that perhaps I have the power to bring smiles to people's faces. Because remember, there was criticism of William's success on American Idol coming from within the Asian activist community. citing the sting of feeling like these stereotypes were once again being lifted up by the American media for the purposes of mocking Asian men the same way they had with Long Duck Dong.

One of the most influential critics was SF gatewriter Emil Guillermo in his piece, William Hung, Racism or Magic from 2004. 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. 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. One thing that can be said for those who seek to exploit William Hung, he has not been asked to demonstrate any karate moves or threaten the American way of life.

Hung doesn't see himself reinforcing stereotypes with the lame dancing and the accented rhythmlessness of it all. He's proud of his badness. And Guillermo revisited this critique over a decade later in 2016 when William Hung made a return guest appearance on Idol. Publishing this time in the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, And he wrote, Besides, here was the all-too-willing hung, glad to extend his 15 minutes of fame under the guise of good, clean fun,

reveling in his accented, unmusical oddness. Only it wasn't all that fun, because it's not just hung up there. Given our relative invisibility, we are still in a U.S. society that believes if you've seen one hung, you've seen them all. Asian Americans, that is, at 5% of our nation around 20 million strong with a population

that is two-thirds immigrant, many with accented tongues, hearts, and minds, to trot hung out there as a joke in prime time is still offensive. However, as Guillermo acknowledges in both of these pieces, there were also Asian American people that enjoyed and embraced William's persona and message. The reaction to William Hung was not monolithic, then or now. So I was excited to speak with a media critic who had seen and reflected on Hung's journey from its beginning. And there's no one better than Nancy Wong-Yun. We'd met before when she appeared on my other podcast, The Bechtelcast. Shout out, and she's wonderful. She's the author of Real Inequality, Hollywood actors, and racism. And I was really interested to hear her thoughts.

on this 2004 wormhole. Here's our talk. Sometimes it's hard to remember, but... Going through something like that is a traumatic experience, but it's also not the end of their life. That was my dad, reminding me and so many others who need to hear it, that our trauma is not our shame to carry, and that we have big, bold, and beautiful lives to live after what happened to us.

I'm your host and co-president of this. organization, Dr. Leitra Tate. On my new podcast, The Unwanted Sorority, we weighed through transformation to peel back healing and reveal what it actually looks like and sounds like in real time. Each week, I sit down with people who live through harm, carried silence, and are now reshaping the systems that failed us. We're going to talk about the adultification of black girls, mothering as resistance, and the tools we use for healing. The unwanted sorority is a safe space, not a quiet space. So let's walk in. We're moving. We're moving. We're moving towards liberation together.

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I am Nancy Wang Yun, I'm a sociologist, and currently I'm also teaching ethnic studies. I write on Hollywood and representation, especially Asian Americans, but I write on representation in general. And I've written a book called Real Inequality, Hollywood Actors and Racism. I think about Asian American representation as an Asian American immigrant myself, having come here when I was five, and growing up here and understanding that there's a world out there, even though Asian Americans are about 7, 8 percent of the population. Having grown up in Taiwan, I remember what it was like to see lots of, lots of different kinds. kinds of different Asian Americans who look maybe similar to people who don't know Asians but are quite distinct and different and we have multitudes. And so I think it's really weird to be in a country where, you know, people tend to lump us all together when we are quite distinct and

different. I hate to bring you back to 2004, but unfortunately that is my sacred duty. Do you remember this moment? How did you receive it at the time? So I think I was a little disturbed by the popularity of it at first because I think my instinct on why William was so popular was that because he had fit a pre-existing stereotype of the kind of awkward, nerdy Asian guy, like Long Duck Dong from 16 Candles. you know, William himself is a real person, right? He is not a character. No one invented him.

He is himself, authentically himself. But I think the fact that, I mean, American Idol auditions was just part of so many American Idol episodes. And there's a lot of people who audition and are not good or are not, not not good, whatever, not up to par in terms of what a pop star is supposed to sound and look like. There's that too. There's the kind of racialization of, you know, what an American pop star should be. I think black and white usually are the, you know, winners predominantly of American Idol. Asians are really such a minority. And so here comes William, right? Who comes and becomes this phenomena. And I think a lot of Asian Americans were perplexed because he really fit into a stereotype that we wanted to distance ourselves from the kind of that Asians can't sing, can't dance, and are only

nerdy. So he fit into what people thought of as Asian American. I think I was already in graduate school at the time studying Asian American representation and thinking about it in that context was, okay, he's popular because he fits into a stereotype, not because he is a stereotype necessarily, but what about all the Asian young folks who are auditioning who actually, you know, could sing and dance in a way that was, you know, conforming to pop music standards. They didn't seem to enjoy the same popularity. So he went viral for the wrong reason. That was what I thought at the time.

In 2004, what is Asian American representation in media like? Yeah, so there wasn't very much. I think Margaret chose All-American Girl was a pretty big, I mean, it wasn't a huge show. I don't think everybody knew about it, but Asian-Americans did. It was about her family, set in San Francisco. It was essentially one season and then counseled. And it did show Margaret as someone who was the antithesis of maybe Asian-American stereotype. She was very kind of rebellious, more quote-unquote Americanized, more westernized.

There was racism. There was sexism that she experienced. She was told to be more Asian, which maybe, you know, in that time was thinking be more like William Hung. I don't know. Yeah, it's like, what does that even mean? Yeah, what does that even mean? Because she is definitely herself. That was probably one of the few TV shows about Asian Americans. And then, of course, I mentioned Long Duck Dong, which was a John Hughes movie. And that basically was a stereotype that it was more akin to who William was. And I think that was why people were pretty disturbed. But I also think, yeah, I think it's because we had such a dearth of Asian American representation that anyone who goes viral or becomes popularized becomes a stand-in. Of course, there was also Apu, who was South Asian, also a stereotype based on Peter Sellers' performance in the party, which was a brown-faced performance. So this is

the kind of, the representations were pretty bad. And of course, if we think about the predecessor to Long Dad Dom, played by Getty White Nabe, was essentially yellow-faced performances of Asians like Mickey Rooney and Breakfast at Tiffany, who was also, you know, had Buck teeth, was nerdy, was awkward, very emasculated. Fortunately, William Hung, I think if you watch the audition, the judges, except for Paula Abdul, are laughing at him and he becomes kind of a clown and a buffoon, but he's a real person, right? And I think that people are also drawn to his sincerity and his positivity and really kind

of confidence despite the fact that he, you know, wasn't as skilled as maybe some of the other people who auditioned. He didn't seem to let it bother him. And I think that people were drawn to that. It's possible to be drawn to that and to the stereotypes that he invokes, right? So it's like it's complex. And I think that if he were to audition today, the post, post crazy rich Asians post everything everywhere at once where we have someone like

Kui Kuan who is, who plays both kind of a endearing, awkward kind of person. But in another universe, he's like Wongarwai, cool with, you know, his tuxedo. I think William hung today. I wouldn't see him as problematic because we have so many more representations of Asian Americans that we can say, okay, well, William is a real person. He's, he's cool. You know, I know people like William. So it wasn't like a stereotype in the sense that someone like him, many people like him exist. But yeah, I think the fact that there was a dearth of representation back then made his, his stardom much more kind of cringy for those of us who didn't see a multitude of

representations to balance out William's kind of stardom. I felt like William Hong fit into the model minority stereotype, something that we really wanted to push against, I think, during that era. Actually, I feel like we're always trying to push against that. So we definitely were cringing because he fit into the mono minority stereotype. well. You can sort of feel the authorial hand presenting you with a stereotype that a lot of Western people are going to be familiar with and latch on to unquestioningly. And that is a problem when there's no other representation. In the 20 years that have passed, how has Asian American

representation in Hollywood evolved? I think that there has been, there's always been independent Asian-American filmmaking, even during the time and preceding the time of William Hong. But I think that only in recent years that Hollywood has elevated, I think Asian-American stories more, Menari and The Farewell, you know, Sundance movies, now DD this year. So there's still a lot of independent movies. But I think it is because of crazy rich Asians doing really well at the box office. People are more open and interested in more studios. So even, you know, even, yes, there have been so many more Asian American representation, but I think the majority of Americans are still unaware of those representations.

It feels, at least for, I think for Asian Americans who want to see themselves, we can actually see ourselves much more. Like when I was growing up, I'm a little bit older than William, so I would have, you know, experienced similar things to him. and I never saw myself. I think it was the Joyla Club in high school was the first time. I read the book. I saw the movie and that was the first time I had ever seen myself. But it's not like the Joyla Club ushered in a whole golden era of lots and lots of representation.

It wasn't until crazy rich Asians that we had another kind of epic movie. You know, that was a predominantly Asian-American cast. And prior to, this is again, East Asian, prior to Joyla Club, it was the flower drum song, which was a, you know, a movie in the 60s, right? So it's like, you got the 60s. then the 90s, then 2019. I mean, this is like generational differences. One movie per generation, which is just really terrible.

I also wanted to tell a story before I forget. So I was part of an Asian American watchdog organization called Mana, and they got a phone call that someone wanted to protest William Hung. And guy, guy who was the head of it. 2004? Yes. This is in 2004. And he had said to us, who, you know, were part of the organization, he's like, we can't protest a real person. Right. You know, like you can protest like negative representations of Asian records, but you can't protest a real person. And I, that always sticks with me, you know, that William Hung is a real person. He's not a stereotype. He's a real person. He's a real person. right? And of course, you know, why they decided to highlight his audition and the way that he was maybe treated by the judges, you know, although Paula Abdul bless her heart, she was so

encouraging and didn't treat him at all like a stereotype, you know, and used her kind of stardom and maybe, yeah, her lived experience to connect with William in a way that the other two judges didn't as much. Simon certainly was the worst. I mean, time is always terrible. He called William grotesque. And I think that he didn't understand, well, maybe he did understand, but the weight of those words, I felt was there was racism in it, even if he didn't intend it that way. When you have so few Asian, East Asian contestants, and you call him grotesque, I thought that was over the line. And yeah, and definitely racist. And And I do like the fact that the other two judges really pushed back on that.

The other two judges who happen to be people of color pushed back on that because I think instinctively they knew that that's not okay to call, you know, a young man of color grotesque. Yeah. I do feel like, yeah, that audition, it revealed more about, I think, America's perception of Asian Americans than William Hung himself. It was a kind of mirror onto U.S. racism against Asians, anti-Asian racism. But he himself, as a real person, deserves to be who he is. So just because he wasn't bothered by it, it doesn't dismiss the fact that others were bothered by it. Because, again, one Asian shouldn't have to speak for all Asian Americans. So because a lot of times people would be like, well, what's the problem?

William Hung himself doesn't have a problem. He doesn't think it's racist or whatever. Again, because there's such a dearth of representation, he cannot, you know, speak for all Asian Americans who are perhaps being bothered by it because they themselves have experienced racism that was really painful. Now, 20 years later, what can we take away from this moment in, in 2024? I appreciate reality shows because there are people that are represented on screen that we don't see in narrative film or television shows. because those only come from the imaginations of a predominantly white male production team. Reality shows you can't predict who's going to show up. Of course, we have casting.

And if you look at The Bachelor, the Bachelorette, the first Asian American Bachelorette. And we have so few Asian male contestants, which I was concerned about. So we're still dealing with some of the same problem of scarcity, how Hollywood decides not to kind of show the multitudes of Asian American men and women. Yet we have also YouTube. And actually, Wang Fu Productions came out with an Asian American bachelor kind of spoof and actually invited some Asian American contestants in the past. Asian American men and women, but especially Asian American men,

have become celebrities in the YouTube world, much more so than I would say, Hollywood in terms of being able to create their own content week after week and and show different kinds of representations. And I think Asian American men as hot, sexy, whether it's leads, whether it's in music, if we want to talk about music, K-pop has changed the climate of how people in the West perceive Asian-American men because I think there's just a very, very small band of BTS in the U.S. Not at all an intense group of people. So I think that, yeah, the perception of East Asian men have changed, I think, for entire generations.

So young people coming up now, Gen Z, I think probably see Asian men in a completely different light than 2004 looking at William Hung, right? I think William Hong probably represented what people thought of of Asian men. There were, you know, those studies that showed, I think it was. about, was it OKCupid or match that show that Asian men were the least desirable on those dating sites? And I think that that perception has shifted because of K-pop, because of, I mean, Crazy Rich Asians, John M. Chu worked really hard to make sure that there were lots of hot Asian men on screen showing their ass off. It was very successful. It was very successful. Yeah, I think that that that perception has shifted, but it is very, very recent. We need more variation.

20 years later, we can look back on Wang Hung and see his sweetness and see his sincerity and not just see him as a stereotype, but we can see those other real aspects of him. And that's actually when I watched it again, you know, 20 years later today in preparation for this podcast. I did see those aspects of him. And I also noticed. this is the racism of Simon Cowell. So it was like I was able to, I think when he came on screen and knowing that he was, you know, representing us, that's all I could see at that moment and feel really scared that, oh my gosh, this is another, you know, ding against us.

But now I can see him as who he, for who he is and for who he was. And then also contextualize him in a way that, you know, young Nancy back in 2004 was just more reactive. We all are protagonists of our own story, right? And so we are all the romantic leads of our own story. And I think that there are folks that look like Wimhung, that look like Jimmy O'Yang, and

the fact that we can have stories about their lives and them as heroes is progress. Thank you so much to Nancy. You can follow her work online and buy her book at the links in the description. And

finally, when we come back, We take a look at Williams' lasting effect on reality television. What would you do if one bad decision forced you to choose between a maximum security prison or the most brutal boot camp designed to be hell on earth? Unfortunately for Mark Lombardo, this was the choice he faced. He said, you are a number, a New York state number, and we own you. Shock incarceration, also known as boot camps, are short-term, highly regimented correctional programs that mimic military basic training. These programs aim to provide a shock of prison life, emphasizing strict discipline, physical training, hard labor, and rehabilitation programs.

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Sometimes it's hard to remember, but... Going through something like that is a traumatic experience, but it's also not the end of their life. That was my dad, reminding me and so many others who need to hear it, that our trauma is not our shame to carry, and that we have big, bold, and beautiful lives to live after what happened to us. I'm your host and co-president of this organization, Dr. Leah Traitate. On my new podcast, The Unwanted Sorority, we weighed through transformation to peel back healing and reveal what it actually looks like, and sounds like, in real time.

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And all that stops here. If you like witty women, then this is your tribes. With guests like Corinne Steffens. I'd never seen so many women protect predatory men. And then me too happened. And then everybody else wanted to get pissed off because the white said it was okay. Problem. My oldest daughter, her first day in ninth grade, and I called to ask how I was going.

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The IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you go to find your podcast. Welcome back to 16th minute. I personally believe that the connection between Jack Skellington and teenage mall culture should be studied. And today, we're taking a closer look at the William Hung phenomenon of 2004. When most people look back in the 2000s, they think of it as the peak of the reality TV genre. Because it was, from Survivor in 2001 to peak Jersey Shore in the late 2000s, For nearly the entire decade, reality shows were the top-rated on TV. But why was this such a big moment?

The simple answer is it's traditionally cheaper than scripted TV. And if the American Idol debut to 10 million people was any indication, it got the same or better numbers when it came to viewers and advertisers. And as many hyper-specific genre surges tend to do, it was also related to labor strikes throughout the 2000s. SAG Afterra, the Actress Union, was on strike for 182 days during the year 2000, leaving the Union-averse industry to look anywhere else for content. We see another bump in reality in the later 2000s for a similar reason.

The WGA, the Writers' Union, went on strike then, which led to the late-aughts renaissance of shows like Jersey Shore, and 16 and pregnant. Of course, reality TV has remained popular and controversial in the years since, so I wanted to speak with someone who had been there through it all and could speak to Williams' moment in the year since from inside the reality industry. And of course, I wanted to talk to an editor. Steve Flack has been in the industry for a while and experienced every manner of ethical dilemma and massive media backlash that comes with working in the world of reality TV. You've seen his editing work on, Real Housewives, say yes to the dress, and according to his

IMDB page, something called My Husband's Not Gay. Here's our talk. Hi, my name is Steve Black. I'm a video editor, professional video editor, really been specializing in unscripted in reality for the last Oh, God, 20 years, I started working in the industry in 2003 as an assistant. I was a full-time editor by 2006, and I've been doing that pretty consistently ever since. You've been in the industry for a while. Was it the preference to stay in New York that brought you into reality specifically? I think it was just desire to work to pay off my student loan situation. It's like I graduated film school and I wanted to get right to work.

And I fell into working in unscripted television. because that's, again, that was 90% of the industry in New York climbed through the ranks pretty quickly and I was pretty set. Also, I'll be honest, when I started in the industry, it was a little different. A lot more home makeover, makeover shows, not as much through exploitation the way modern reality TV has become, but also as someone who grew up on basic cable on MTV, on VH1, on, you know, stuff like that, Comedy Central. I didn't really have a problem with it because it was stuff I was watching anyway. Like, it's not foreign to me. The way I like to explain reality television editing is you have all of the positives of scripted with all the negatives of documentary.

Basically, you're not beholden to the truth, but you also don't have any of the stories already fixed in the script. So therefore, you're making it kind of up based on what you have in the footage. It's like being handed a puzzle and being told put it together, but not in the way it's designed to be put together. As an editor, it seems like you do have like a fair amount of, at least in my estimation, a fair amount of creative freedom about how the story is presented, but are you told, like, try to shape it in

this particular way? Does that approach on the producer's side vary? How does that work? Usually, you try and shape it the way the producers want at first and you put it together and it makes sense and then you present to the network and they don't like it at all and you

have to do something else with it. Again, like I said, you're not beholden to the truth or the script so therefore everything is kind of malleable until it airs on television because 90% of the time the people, the talent are 100% aware that they're going to be messed with and shaped the way the producers want it. And they think they're in on it and then they find out it airs and they disagree. You said this is this is mainly about William Hong and William Hung was on season what of American Idol? It wasn't season one or season, so it was season three. Yeah. It was Season three. So by the time you get to season three, people know what the gig is.

Like, it was one of the, like, I enjoyed watching season one of American Idol as a college student, but it was one of the things like I couldn't get to season two because I felt like by then the jig was up. Like, you go to the auditions, you know you're going to get made fun of the talent kind of nose going in. They're getting screwed with. Based on my conversation was William, it was like a little bit of yes, a little bit of no, like where by 2004 people who watched TV are familiar with the way. that these are shaped, but it did sound like just from his account that it does feel different when it happens to you, where he was like, he was, even though he was familiar with the cadence of even this specific show, he was like, oh, as an editor, when you have to shape a person, where do

you start? What are your instincts? Because I know it's like second nature at this point. It is second nature. I think a big thing for me is that they're not, I don't want to say they're not people but they're not something like especially in in post production an editor like even if I'm working on a show with hosts and recurring characters like when I worked on housewives shows I didn't know any of the housewives sure yeah people on my TV screen like you know none of these people are ever something I have to deal with I think a lot of it is just kind of giving the producers what they want things who go through so many hands you don't have any ownership of anything so even if you start something, you don't necessarily finish it.

Like, I try and, to the best of my abilities of the straits is white man, and try and be as ethically correct that I'm aware of. You know, of course, you have your own unspoken biases that you're just completely unaware of. But even if you put something in, someone comes down the line and changes it based on network notes, like there's a level of complete non-ownership to the editor. But at the same time, realizing like, this isn't my baby. This isn't a piece of art that's mine that I need to dick to. I don't want to say, like, I'm a tool, but sometimes you are just a tool for the producers and for the editors.

And if you're not going to give them what they want, they'll find another guy in the edit room. He'll do it. You have no idea where the notes are coming from and everything. Like, when I did Housewives, I got notes from Andy Cohen, but then you also get a rounded notes of Andy Cohen's boyfriend at the time. Oh, wow. Who wasn't hired or anything? He just got to, like, give a passive notes because, you know, he watched him with Andy. You're completely disconnected from so much that you're not exactly sure who's asking for what or what's what.

Like I said, 95% of the people involved in unscripted reality television art. I don't want to say they're in on it, but they're at least aware of what they're getting into. Everything's kind of fair game, it feels like. So what you've told me, it seems like you've worked on a wide range of unscripted to, how the approaches would vary on shows like Housewives where people don't always come off well, but they're cast members. And it's like it does seem like cast members versus contestants. Yeah, I mean, it's people want their 15 minutes a lot of times, you know?

Like that's a, I keep people keep always asking like, where did you get these people? I'm like there's a website. Do you know about reality wanted.com? It's like a dating website for reality television shows. You make a profile, you say the type of shows you'd be interested in being on, whether they're like makeover, competition, whatever. and casting people just go through it, looking for the next puck. I mean, that's a 30-year-old reference.

But, you know, like, he's, like, one of the first reality TV show turned into celebrity type person. There's a good chunk of reality television that's just, hey, what's this movie or TV show, and how do we make it real? Like, Laguna Beach was the O.C. Or Housewives is desperate housewives. In my mind, William Hung, while he does sort of come to prominence, at the time where reality, TV is somewhat understood. It feels like a million years ago, where it's like he stood in line for 10 hours. There was no website component. I feel like the way that people interact with reality TV as contestants or as knowingly, like, was not quite there. So I would love to talk about the changes

you have felt in the industry throughout your career. Big standout changes is housewives and docuropes where nothing is real. When I broke into the industry, there's a lot of, you know, home makeover makeover. I did what not to wear. I did while you were out, which was like kind of a companion piece to trading spaces, which everyone really was aware of. This is like, I remember all of these, yeah. MTV always

had, you know, real worlds and whatever. Then the housewives kind of changed everything, I feel like. Housewife style shows were like there's literally not a real thing about them. The stories are fake. The situations are fake. Every single thing is not

real. I mean, look, reality is television has a lot in common with another one of my hobbies, which is professional wrestling. Like, you know about the concept of k-fayb, right? Of course, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's all k-fay, but reality, television, professional wrestling, politics, it's all the same thing. Speaking of not being beholden to the truth, and this is where I have the conversation a lot with documentary editors.

Are you aware of the term Frankenbite? No. You're not aware of the term Frankenbite. No, educate me. So it's one of the key things in reality editors' toolkit is the first. Frankenbite, which is basically, if they say it on camera, every word is available to be used to be recut in any way to make them say whatever they want. Oh.

Oh. I once went into a gig, started telling people like, I don't, I don't Frankenbite for ethical reasons and people freaked out. And I'm like, no, wait, it holds hot. Oh, the most famous one is, and it's not holding up in court, is the jinks, the famous confession. Right. The confession is a frankin bite. Look it up.

Look, I'll be honest with you. If I'm an editor and I'm working on a show and I have a guy admit to murder on television, I don't hold it for the premiere episode. Right. I go to the cops. They didn't go to the cops because he said something like, oh, what did I do? What are they going to say that I killed them all? They cut out like a bunch of words and say, oh, this is his confession.

You go back to the raw footage. You listen to what he says. And it's like, well, he didn't actually say he did it. He said a bunch of other stuff. and they manipulated it. The change of the whole true crime docudramas things where they're just completely unethical. They're trying to edit things in the style of like reality television

but make documentaries. I'm like, that's not how you make a documentary. Documentaries don't have cliffhangers every week. Documentaries don't say tune in for more. You just make your statement and you move on. They're not ethical. That is, wow.

As a former jinx head, that is, I feel like such a dumbass. Oh, wait, wait, just bring it back to the Frankenbite. And this brings in the future of, like, AI is now, like, you can make people say whatever they want. Because the whole drawback to AI was that it's not perfect. Like, if you really, if you really critically listen, you're like, oh, this doesn't sound right. But, like, listen to most Frankenbites. They don't sound right anyway. So it's now you're kind of beholden to nothing.

I mean, I think, like, reflecting on the William Hung story, I do feel like the way that, like, his narrative was presented was to be humiliating, was to be like, oh, this guy bombs, let's edit it to make it look more humiliating than it even was at the time based on, you know, William Hung's account, seems to be like a very intensely edited version of something that happened versus what you're describing, which is like it doesn't even need to have happened to be aired. Part of what I find really interesting about William Hung's story is that it happens at a time where TV and the internet are starting to be in more regular conversation with one another. This was still wasn't a time where you could vote for American Idol online. But, you know, when William Hung was on TV, a lot of the reason it seems like he kept being brought

back was because there were like forum posts about him and there were online petitions to like bring William back. There was the sort of inklings of like what happens now in the space of two hours like you're saying happened over the course of two weeks. In your internet, industry, has the way that the internet interacts with unscripted TV shifted? Do they feel more in conversation with each other? It just feels like endless churn. And the people who came to fame on it, the Housewives, the Kardashians, are just trying to like hold whatever they have for as long as possible because they've made it

a lifestyle, a career, and they don't know what else to do. Thank you so much to Steve Flack for offering his experience in the industry. and you can follow him at the links in the description. And here we are, at the end of our journey with our boy William. William Hung is mainly discussed today as a relic of pop culture, one who inspired conversation that ranged far beyond his first 15 minutes. You see William become a focus of, and by some people's standards, a perpetrator of cultural stereotypes.

But when you talk to the guy, he was just having fun and capitalizing on this moment. It is not fair at all that his very existence was politicized from every angle. But as we see time and time again, that's often the nature of capitalizing on your moment in America. And in spite of the road bumps along the way, William has remained adamantly himself, something that is extremely difficult to do with 20 years of public and Internet, opinions being hurled at you. It's pretty amazing.

Now, if we could just get him to stop working for the L.A. County Sheriff's Department. William Hung, your 16th minute, ends now. Thank you so much for listening to this two-part series. I really hope you enjoyed listening as much as I enjoyed researching it. And again, a lot of what we've talked about in these episodes truly only scratches the surface. So please grab yourself a copy of Nancy Wong-Yan's book, Real Inequality, at the link in the description. And for your moment of fun, here's my full rendition of the National Anthem in 2002. See you next week.

This is your Jamie Lofton with the singing of our national anthem. and don't turn behind What's so crows me we hail Have the flag that's left We've got strikes and bright sides To the perilous fight Or the ramparts we roll Where shall man be seen

And the rocket Redford The most Ineer gave proof to the night That our clever

Sending Oh, Satan that's our angels Then I'm away End of the peace and the home of the grave. Woo!

16th Minute is a production of Cool Zone Media and IHeart Radio. It is written, hosted, and produced by me, Jamie Loftus. Our executive producers are Sophie Lichten and Robert Evans, The Amazing Ian Johnson is our supervising producer and our editor. Our theme song is by Sad 13. Voice acting is from Grant Crater. And pet shoutouts to our dog producer Anderson, My Cats Flea, and Casper, and my pet rock bird who will outlive us all.

Bye. What would you do if one bad decision forced you to choose between a maximum security prison or the most brutal boot camp designed to be hell on earth? Fortunately for Mark Lombardo, this was the choice he faced. He said, you are a number, a New York State number, and we own you. Listen to shock incarceration on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Every case that is a cold case that has DNA. Right now in a backlog will be identified in our lifetime.

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AI is moving faster than civil rights legislation ever did. Listen to money and wealth from the Black Effect Podcast Network on IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. If you're looking for another heavy podcast about trauma, the saying it, this is for the ones who had to survive and still show up as brilliant, loud, soft, and whole. The Unwanted Sorority is where black women, fims, and gender expansive survivors of sexual violence rewrite the rules on healing, support, and what happens after. And I'm your host and co-president of this organization, Dr. Leah Trotate. Listen to The Unwanted Sorority, new episodes every Thursday on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I just normally do straight stand-up, but this is a bit different. What do you get when a true crime

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