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Ken Jeong Goes After Critic on Twitter

Dr Ken

Comic Ken Jeong who’s new comedy Dr. Ken debuts Friday night at 8:30/7:30c on ABC reacted harshly to a blog written by the co-founder of the Asian American magazine Hyphen for the Center for Asian American Media.

Christopher Fan wrote:

 

If Dr. Ken is going to succeed, it’ll require Jeong to depart from a trademark style grounded in improv, physicality, and over-the-top blackface and yellowface buffoonery—qualities that don’t necessarily jive with the heavily scripted, multi-camera format, much less primetime television.

 

Fan had a chance to visit the set of Dr. Ken along with several other Asian American bloggers. Jeong fired off a couple of tweets directed at Fan focusing on the use of the words “over-the-top blackface and yellowface buffoonery.”

Jeong, whether intentional or not, is taking on the persona of his television character. In the show, Dr. Ken bluntly and rudely gives patients the diagnosis for their illnesses, and doesn’t hold back punches when patients don’t follow his medical advice. In both episodes I had a chance to preview, including the premiere, patients file complaints against the good doctor about his treatment of them.

Ironically, Fan’s blog was meant to promote a premiere screening party of Dr. Ken CAAM is holding Friday night in San Francisco. His points that most upset Jeong came at the end of the article. The focus of the article was Jeong’s thoughts on the importance of his program to the Asian American community.

Fan told The Wrap “I think Ken’s taken me out of context, and I didn’t mean to insult him. But I do understand why he’s angry. He has appeared in blackface on ‘Community,’ and ‘yellowface’ was meant to highlight how his over-the-top performance of Asian stereotypes actually critiques them. The point I was trying to make was that his buffoonish performance of blackface and yellowface ends up making fun of and sending up those stereotypes.”

1 COMMENT

  1. RE: Ken Jeong goes after critic on Twitter: Jeong is absolutely a buffoon, a self-serving one that has exploited Asian American stereotypes for his own personal gain at the expense of the community.

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