Lately, I see this guy everywhere. He’s in a movie called HANGOVER, he’s on a new sitcom with Chevy Chase called COMMUNITY on NBC. I guess he’s kind of funny, but he does the same thing a lot of other Asian comedians do: they ONLY make fun of Asian people! This has got to stop. It’s making us look bad. If you watch this video, he makes a little fun of his own kind, Koreans, but he goes way over the top with Vietnamese. He’s antagonizing Vietnamese with his humor, further creating rifts between the different Asian groups. His humor is a little too mean, and lacks subtlety IMO. He’s also repetitive and lacks a deep repertoire. I saw three videos of him at different periods, and he says the same jokes every time. And the ones he repeats are average. I think he is getting the attention because of his over the top energy, and his facial expressions, and the fact that he will gladly take any role even if it is demeaning to the Asian image. He’s the go to guy when the white movie producers need to make fun of an Asian guy. For that reason, I don’t like him.
When you make fun of your fellow Asians within an only Asian crowd it might be funny. But, once you have other races watching, it becomes a situation where they are not laughing with you, but at you. This is the dilemma that David Chapelle had: he got so popular with the whites, and then he realized that they were laughing at him just as much as ‘with him’. But, the great thing about black humor is that they will make fun of themselves, but they will also make fun of white people, too. They have the confidence to go there. I think Asian American comedians that are out there are still afraid to go there. But, unless they do this, we will continue to be the butt end of the jokes.
September 23rd, 2009 at 1:57 pm
One of the first rules of comedy is to make fun of the things you know well rather than make stuff up. That’s why rednecks make fun of rednecks, Dave Chapelle and Eddie Murphy make fun of black culture, George Lopez makes fun of his mexican family and Ken Jeong makes fun of Asians. It seems from his role on the NBC show is that hes portraying an Asian that is angry about getting sterotyped. IDK, I think he has some funny roles in movies and to knock him for a two minute clip of his standup is unfair.
September 23rd, 2009 at 3:18 pm
El Erouyn, that’s true about what you said of comedians. So I don’t personally get offended. It’s not good in the long run for how asians are portrayed in the media and by the masses in general though. but comedy is comedy. but i wish he would make more fun of whites rather than focusing solely on asians. blacks make fun of whites all the time and tehre’s nothing white men can do about it.
September 23rd, 2009 at 3:18 pm
at least this guy is not as annoying as Margaret Cho – dude, i can’t stand her!!!!
September 24th, 2009 at 10:15 pm
last time i checked, jokes don’t hurt anyone. relax
September 24th, 2009 at 10:43 pm
anon, I fucked your sister and your chinky mom.
September 24th, 2009 at 11:33 pm
@soondooboo,
That’s racist man. In this site for SAMs we won’t stand for that. You can speak your mind and have an intelligent rebuttal without being racist.
A lesser man always resort to name calling.
September 25th, 2009 at 12:12 am
it was just joke. see! jokes can hurt people. i wanted to make point is all. anon is wrong. i don’t like Ken Jeong’s humor because it is racist and mean against asean people.
September 25th, 2009 at 1:45 am
@soondooboo,
That’s a very good point and you’ve just answered the question “do jokes hurt people whether it was meant only as a joke?” by setting a good trap for someone like me to be made an example of lol and it worked because I was quite offended by it even when it wasn’t directed toward me. Imagine how I would have felt if it was. I would have been irate about it.
I like your style man. Good job.
September 25th, 2009 at 10:40 am
Eh, what soondooboo said does not qualify as a joke in any shape or form. A joke has to be funny.
September 25th, 2009 at 10:54 am
Ha, nice one Soondooboo. I think that Ken Jeong says a lot of stuff that he thinks is funny, but isn’t a joke really. His premise in this video is that “Vietnamese act gay”. Is that funny?
I was thinking that all these Asian comedians focus too much on culture and race. A guy like Seinfeld makes humor out of anything, his subject matter is broad. People like Ken Jeong are one dimensional and just obnoxious. And, I refuse to call this guy a doctor. I bet his license is expired by now anyway.
January 27th, 2010 at 9:17 pm
Very good post – I have similar thoughts about Jeong being a one-trick pony and a go-to guy for white producers who want to poke fun at Asians. If there were some semblance of balance with respect to other Asian American actors in non-stereotypical roles, then a little bit of Jeong here and there is fine. But as things are now, Jeong’s act is irresponsible, lame and self-debasing.
He ought to learn a few things from actors like Tony Leung and Takeshi Kaneshiro, both of whom are exponentially more talented than he is and who both have rejected stereotypical Hollywood roles due to concerns related to negative portrayals of Asians onscreen.
January 28th, 2010 at 12:47 pm
Is that right? Leung and Kaneshiro have actually rejected roles due to this? I think that’s great, plus they have too much COOL to be playing silly roles.
February 8th, 2010 at 6:45 am
I personally don’t find Jeong’s humour paticularly offensive, at least no more than any other comic out there. Sure he’s on the crass side, but ive seen comics push PC much further – even if they weren’t specifically speaking of asians.
What is dissapointing however, is this man’s lack of talent. I’ve watched some of his other videos, and its quite clear that he’s just repeting his old jokes. For me, the fact that such a man can become the go-to guy for asian comedy speaks volumes about the lack of depth in asian comics and celebrities. If we are to raise the diversity and standard of asian comedy, it must first and formost stem from the cultivation of talent.