Dat Phan is not funny, but he is Asian.
Anytime an Asian can get on stage and make fun of his parents' accents, you've got a winner. It's about time that Asians got comically bashed in mainstream society. These are the days of Affirmative Action Backlash Blowback. For the many years that stereotypes about Asians were used to beat up stereotypes of blacks and latinos, Asians must have been saying to themselves, one of these days the jig is going to be up. They certainly knew that they were not superhuman.
It has fallen to comics to break out the topic for public discussion. With AABB gaining momentum, Asians are going to have to brake the fall of their honorary whiteness. Margaret Cho will have to devastate the 'me so horny' idea by doing it her fat-assed self, as a bisexual. Dat Phan will have to deconstruct the 'kung fu nobility' idea by doing it himself and then saying WTF like a loser.
Americans, especially younger ones, are needing to see Asians express the same dysfunctions, social perversions and moral disintegration as the trashiest of their trailer park cousins. We're all headed for leaner times, and if Asians are not coming with us, they'll be in for real bashing at the hands of the positive stereotypes they cosigned at the beginning of the age of the Pacific Rim. So these young Americans who grew up on the porno that is television are needing to see their Asian buds portrayed in the contexts they find themselves in. Blacks and latinos are already there, hiphop has assured that the degenerate profile has institutional infrastructure.
Dat Phan will be the man to watch. He will not be able to be Eddie Murphy for another generation. He will have to be Richard Pryor, or even Redd Foxx for the time being. He cannot become outwardly rich and famous, he will have to air all the dirty laundry of his and his parents generation. America won't let him be Jet Li, he will have to be the anti-hero. His confidence in his delivery, his discipline will all be in service of a wack personna. If he doesn't, America will chew him up, spit him out and ignore him, just as we have done to his parents.
Dat Phan, as a Vietnamese, will have to take down Chinese and Japanese. He will have to combat Philipinos and bring the Hmong out of obscurity. If he is to be truly large, this will be his task. He will have to be as Vietnamese as Paul Rodriguez is Mexican, as John Leguizama is Puerto Rican. But in that, Dat Phan has a very large problem, which is that he doesn't appear nearly as talented. This is the crux of the issue.
I was surprised that he won the competition. I didn't think he was that funny. I was much more impressed with Ralphie May's schtick as well as that of the older professional comics. But it was one of those very comics, Vos, who uttered the key phrase. "I didn't know you could get over just by ragging on your mother for five minutes." That's exactly why, if you're Asian. It's what America needs and wants to hear.
This need may pose as a desire for colorblindness, but we are too much the pattern-making creatures for that lame figleaf. The need stems from the desire to pin other kinds of archtypes, stereotypes and associations on Asians. Other meaning, laugh at yourself kind of associations, rather than compete with the ethnic minority kind of associations. That is all good and I think it is honestly reflective of the desires of the young audiences drawn to such venal reality shows.
Let us see whether or not Dat Phan understands all this and holds up his end of the bargain.
UPDATE: Model Minority on Dat Phan.
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