 Is Ken Jong good or bad for Asian Americans? This recent viral clip has sparked this debate again and we're gonna try to get to the bottom of it in this video. Let's play the video from ESPN. Hey, man, stop! No! We're gonna make fun of you! Sorry. Boom! You guys saw what happened. The baby ultimately was unaffected, but this small clip had nothing to do with racial stereotypes of playing off of them. This sparked a ton of debate in the next shark comment section. Some people pro Ken Jong and some people really, really against him. Right. I mean, they're basically judging him for his entire career, but mostly probably his character in the hangover. But anyways, guys, we're gonna be trying to answer the question, is Ken Jong good or bad for Asian Americans? Hit that like button and check out other episodes of The Hop Pop Boys. But you know what? It's not debated, Andrew. Smala Sauce from Sichuan. Assessively get it at SmalaSauce.com right now. It's interesting to see, Andrew, such a catalytic event. It was so innocuous, but all everybody's feelings come pouring out. Doesn't that go to show you, Andrew? In the Asian American community, people felt some type of way about Ken Jong for quite some time. Yeah. And I think a lot of people are coming out. And I think the number one thing that a lot of people are saying is like, man, I don't like Ken Jong's character. He's been an embarrassment to Asians. Obviously, there's people saying, oh, he's just being a comedian. He doesn't care. He's just being him unabashedly him. You know, like, that's cool to see. And then, you know, everything in between. So I guess we're gonna get into it. But David, what are your first initial thoughts? Because, you know, about this. I mean, my initial thoughts are that Ken Jong is a really interesting character. He's from North Carolina. He's 50 years old. He probably grew up at a whole different time, pre-Internet age. And it's like, it's so tough to say because I can see what people are saying when it's like, man, he played a lot off of a lot of negative Asian stereotypes his whole career. But I could also see people saying, man, I'm just such a fan of him because he's so bold. And he like, twists that stereotype. But I will say this. Sometimes people are naturally born a stereotype. Like, not everybody's gonna be small and Bruce Lee beating everybody up. Some people are small and a non-threat like how you would imagine them, right? And then you gotta play into that and double down on it and then twist it and be mentally crazy to make a bunch of money because that elicits laughter, right? Because a lot of laughter is like leading the audience on two steps and on the third step you pull the rug underneath them. So it's kind of like, yeah, I'm small. Yeah, I'm dweeby. What? But I'm crazy and the audience all of a sudden is like, ah, I can't understand why I'm laughing so much. Here's a million dollars or 10 of them. Would you? All right, so I guess let's just say this. Ken Jong, right? Short Asian doctor has a small peepee. We all saw that that was his probably biggest strike against him. That's the cardinal sin he committed against Asian men in Hangover. Although that scene stole the show. But I guess you're kind of saying that if he is this person, he is a short Asian guy and he's gonna be that short Asian guy no matter where he goes in the globe. If he wanted to go back to Korea, South Korea to have a career, he would have played a short doctor as well. Yeah, they always have that guy on the variety shows in Asia that's either small or fat and they gotta play themselves out for laughter too. Yeah, in Hong Kong they had that Eric, I think. Yeah, so he's kind of like the short, like goofy guy, right? So he's gonna play a short Asian dude anywhere he goes in the world and that's him as a personality and he just ended up getting famous for it. People were drawn to him, he's super charismatic, he is funny, but he does part of him physically just falls into that stereotype. So how much do you blame him for being born or becoming the stereotype, I guess, personality wise or do you blame the game Hollywood for just giving him the opportunity and him rising to the occasion, right? How much do you wanna blame the short guy from Two Broke Girls? And you know, obviously a friend of ours I got a lot of love for him but shout out to some people of Q's Jimmy O Yang of the same thing too, you know what I mean? Like playing like little fobby, dweeby characters but then with an edge and that's what made them rich, right? And that's what flips the character, right? Very interesting. But I guess we're gonna go into the comment section then we'll give you our own takeaways at the end because I have my own ranking for positive representation and we will see where Ken Jong falls in it. Basically this was a bunch of comments, FKJ, that POS sell out, he's been a walking cliche caricature, toxic stereotype his whole life, et cetera, et cetera. This was mostly from guys. Yeah, probably straight Asian dudes. Yeah, and then other guys were like, man, I just liked that he de-gaff, he got that dog in him, blah, blah, blah. Some people said you guys need a lighten up, not everybody gotta be serious, y'all. So this also came from a lot of straight guys. How come there's these two opposing perspectives? All right, so I feel like the two perspectives are really interesting because on one side, I think, to be honest, a lot of East Asian men, Chinese and Korean guys, and we come from a very shameful culture, like a shame culture, we feel shame a lot. That's part of the Confucian culture, whatever you wanna say, right? No, it's almost holding yourself to these ultra serious standards, right? And they connect to Ken Jong as a proxy representation of who they are, right? Because they're like, no, he's a Korean doctor and he's making all the Asians look bad by acting like this weird character and hangover who's like a pervert and has a small pee pee and it's just goofy and I hate that character. That was a bad representation for Asian men. And then on the flip side, you got other Asians whom I'm not gonna say that they're all like, more like Southeast Asian guys, but I feel like they're more so, that they're just like, shit, that's an Asian guy who just like doesn't care. He's acting wild because like, let's say I was born into that body, I might act like that because Ken Jong is charismatic, he's not scared and to be himself and he's not scared to like run naked around in a movie. Now, him running naked, you can say again, hurt Asian guys, right? It kind of like, oh, you gotta have a small pee pee. But I guess what you'd expect from a five, four doctor. Honestly, I could see it from both sides, but I almost wanna say I more agree with the second opinion where it's like, man, if you're gonna get born like that, which it is what it is when you're born into that archetype, that game character, you don't get to control what game character in this like League of Legends game we're born into, right? So I'm almost like, man, you gotta just maximize and double down as that. Although I could see the flip side of being like, just hide in the shadows, you're not representing us. I think the X factor and how you feel about it between the two opinions is gonna depend on how you see celebrity representation. Now, I have a lot of friends who don't really care about Asian representation as much, like they're not as tuned. Especially our Southeast Asian friends growing up, back in their hometown, they do not be tapped into it at all. But if you're super tapped in, you feel like every strike against Asians is a strike against you. So now if you disconnect yourself, it's not gonna hurt as bad, but if you do wanna ride the wave and be like, yo, I'm with Asian representation, it affects my life, then yes. Yeah, you're right. The personal position depends a lot because there's a lot of Chinese actors that were older around Ken Jong's age that I know were really mad at him because he was playing Chinese, Vietnamese characters. But that's like a whole different concern that would only be, you would only relate to if you were almost like in the same industry. Yeah, and I mean, you know, I feel like our opinion on this to be at, Don is does matter a little bit because we are Asian guys in the media field. Right, right, right. Like I've been, we've lived in LA. We know, like we've met Ken Jong before, you've, you know, like- Yeah, we are one foot in, one foot out, which gives our perspective. To be honest, it's pretty balanced, right? Yeah, I feel like our opinion does matter because trust me, like if it benefited or hurt us, like I would say it. This person said, Asian men hate when Asian women are promoted who give them a bad image. So let's call out this Asian man for the same reasons for intentionally making his own race look like a stepping mat. I mean, it's tough, man. People from his generation, one of the best ways to come up was to kind of like sell out or play the submissive role. Every race went through it, Andrew. A lot of militant African-Americans, they're not happy with the way Sammy Davis Jr. rep being black either. Right. You know what I mean? But it was a process to get to more people who are like obviously RIP, like Chadwick Boseman or like Denzel and things like that. Yeah, I just feel like if he never did the hangover series, this wouldn't be as much of a debate. But then he did Senor Chang too and then like- Senor Chang, yeah, he kind of got beat up a little bit in that, but it wasn't as racial as hangover. I think hangover is the biggest sin that he did. You know what I mean? Yeah, cause he- And like now that- The character is hilarious, by the way. It is a hilarious- But it did make- I'm not gonna lie. I'm not gonna say like, oh, one of those interviews is not effective, but the character made me cringe a little bit. But I wanna turn back the clocks of time because David, we've actually seen Ken Jong's stand up comedy clips from so many years ago. From Comic View. From Comic View. We're talking about 10, 12 plus years ago. Guys, I've seen Ken Jong perform, or at least on TV. We met Ken Jong like for the first time 12 years ago. Yeah, 12 years ago, right? And this was right after Comic View. I'm gonna play this clip and you tell me if seeing this 15 years ago, how you might've felt. Play the clip, three, two, one. So I think in this clip, Ken Jong seemed kind of like a cool representation cause he's like acting like a crazy doctor. You could say- Got the tumor on the west side! You could say it's cringey now, but trust me, at the time this comedy was hilarious. This was gut-busting laughter. And you would say he's trying to break stereotypes by being this loudmouth, crazy, small Asian doctor, right? Now, this clip, you would overall, a lot of people were like, oh, positive. And then you fast forward to hangover and you're like, oh, no, that hurts me. And then now his character- Do you think it has to do with the style of humor? And maybe when he was on Comic View, it was almost like, yeah, look at this little Asian guy repping us like in a crazy way to the black crowd. But then it was almost like when he did the white movie, damn, he just played himself like a little dick. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Submissive person. It is place and context. Context and time does matter. Even though to me, his character hasn't, him as a person and character and performer hasn't changed that much. Yeah, yeah, I will say this. And I heard the times that I met Ken Jong, he was really, really nice to me, way nicer than some other people that were way snobbier to me. But I will say this. He does play into the white gaze a lot, to be honest. Yeah. Somebody said he's like, Will Ferrell, they both try too hard to be funny. It comes across as insincere. So that's sort of like somebody saying, man, yeah, he gets laughs, but it's unsophisticated laughs. Okay. I think that's, there's different levels of comedy. There's so many different types of humor. And what's funny to you is funny to me. There's hipster humor. There's Harvard humor. There's like just baseline stereotype humor, which to be honest, I'm not gonna lie, Ken Jong plays off of a lot, which is very primal and you don't necessarily need to be educated, but that's a whole nother video. Somebody said there's a process for everything. These, this generation served as a step stool so other Asians could get into the industry. How much is this true? Like he's 50, he's from North Carolina. Back in the day, Andrew, America was all white, all black, especially North Carolina like that. The heritage Americans, he set it up for people to have more of these Russell Peters or more, well, I don't know who knows if we'll have an Asian mat rife, but like did more multifaceted things. Yeah, I don't know. I think it's interesting to think like once Ken Jong retires or steps away from the limelight, is that short Asian character ever gonna exist again? Is someone else gonna take his place? Is it gonna be evolved probably though? It's maybe not have the same like, they're not gonna play the exact same character, but I mean, there's a lot of short Asian guys out there. Let's be honest. And a lot of them wanna get put on and make millions of dollars, right? And make it in entertainment. And some of them are funny and some of them will end up playing some character like this. Yeah, I mean, I think that the gap in entertainment in society to confirm a stereotype, but play with it in an edgy way, with an edgy twist will always be there. But I just hope that other archetypes can be more monetizable as well. I think ultimately, man, my takeaway is that like some people gonna be not happy with this answer. I'm gonna give him on a scale of negative five to positive five on the representation scale. I'm gonna give him a spectrum of negative one to positive 1.5. That is my spectrum that I'm giving Ken Jeong. Wow. And some people gonna say, that's a little bit positive. I think a lot of people are gonna say, oh, why is any negative three or negative four out of five? Yeah, I mean, I'll say this to be honest for me. I never related to being a really small Asian guy like that. So it really wouldn't, like I was like, oh man, he's gonna be in that lane so far. You didn't feel like he represented you. If anything, I'm more mad at Hollywood for not putting the opposite on rather than just putting it on. It's like I'm more mad at the game than I'm mad at the player because I understand the motivations of a player as a professional performer myself. You wanna have money, you wanna be accepted, you wanna have a place in this game and you wanna have a Hollywood star and all these things. But at the same time, yes, did he, like, did the game almost like prop him up a little bit extra, even though he wasn't fully positive Asian male representation? Yes, but at the end of the day, I could also see why he's like, as a comedian, it's not fully my concern as long as I'm good to Asian people in my personal life. It's tough to say though, that's why I gave it a potential negative one too. Yeah, here's how I look at things. I put people in tiers and categories. There's four different levels of category when it comes to positive representation. At the bottom, there is the villain and the embarrassment, okay? These characters are like Long Duck Dong, Esther Koo, the comedian who kinda got famous for ragging on Asians and Asian guys and William Hung, these are people who unfortunately constantly get used as examples. What about the dude from Two Bro Girls? Two Bro Girls, sure, yeah. I think he's in this tier where it's like, Asians do not wanna see this character again and there's almost nothing positive that you can draw from that. I do not wish I was born into this. Yeah, and then the next tier up is debated but accepted and this is where Ken Jeong sits, Bobby Lee sits, probably Constant Wu and these are people who are accepted in the Asian sphere and did something but ultimately people are always going to debate whether they're good and bad or positive negative, right? Wu plus one minus one, who knows? Yeah, they're positive, they've added something to the game, they're kinda funny, they've had some good performances but they got some strikes against them clearly. Embrace, this is the next level. This is where most positive Asian actors are where they've done something good, maybe nothing incredible, incredible but they're positive people of the community. Steven Yoon, Daniel Day Kim, John Cho, I would put Jackie Chan in there even though Jackie Chan is like a global legend but Margaret Cho, Alley Wong, Henry Golding, the only reason why I put Jackie Chan is there, I think- Did he lose his hero status? Yeah, I feel like some people kinda debate it because they're like, oh, he kinda like, oh, Jackie Chan, that's a stereotype, you know? Oh, cause you're saying he, some people said that he was goofy in his American roles, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But then hero icon level, only a few sit here, Bruce Lee, Jeremy Lin, these are guys who achieve something so globally amazing that it's almost, you cannot debate their status. I would say for a moment, Chloe Kim and Sunisa Lee. Yeah, gold winners, Olympic gold winners, for a moment they get that shine whether it's like- They can do no wrong, you know. It's like a god on earth type. Right, right, right. But yeah, I mean, if you made me say timeless, speaking Bruce Lee. No, it's true. When you go to Sunset Boulevard even in 2023 and you ask people to name Asians, they still be like Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan. That's like what most people say, to be honest, Lucy Liu. But yeah, so yeah, I mean guys, you let us know in the comments down below what you think about Ken Jong. We kind of gave our takes. Like I said, he's accepted, debated in person. He's a really nice and supportive guy, super nice to all different types of people. But yes, I think his biggest, biggest strike is the hangover series. And if he hadn't done that, I think the narrative around Ken Jong is a little bit different. How much is it more just the society that we live in? If a lot of people feel that Asians are small, weak, and quiet, and then obviously you see somebody who looks small, weak, and quiet, but then they flip it on you and they're brash and they're sort of like bombastic and that creates all the laughter. Should we be mad at that person who fills that role? Or should we be mad that society rewards people for being 75% stereotypical and 25% anti-stereotypical? Like that's a heavily rewarded archetype. Let me tell you this. There's other people who are cut against the stereotype from the beginning like Eddie Huang or something like that and that can be rewarded in another way. But it's almost like everybody's got a jujitsu. What pre-exists in the society? So are we mad at the person who did the jujitsu wing or was able to do that? Or are we mad at the society that it only gave like one or two options? David, I don't know the answer to that question but I can feel that a lot of people are just glad that it's over. That that character probably is not gonna happen again. No, it's too woke in 2023. And that we're probably evolving and moving on from that point. So perhaps Ken Jong is a stepping stone for progress, unfortunately, an unfortunate stepping stone. Maybe a reluctant stepping stone. I don't know how you wanna see it but at least we're past that character now. I think so. Yes, yes, yes, yes. So anyways guys, let us know in the comments down below what you think about Dr. Ken Jong. And until next time, we out. Peace.