The Wrong Jeong

As another Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage month ends quietly, let’s not forget that there’s still racism against yellow people.  This is especially true in Hollywood.

Dr Ken Jeong (from The Hangover movies) auditioned for the role made for Asians, the villain “Yellow Jacket” in the Ant Man movie. If you see this audition day pic, you will agree that he should have been the evil, intimidating super villain the movie needed.  But no, they said they were looking for someone “over 5 feet tall”, and can “actually act,” and they didn’t need someone yellow.  Rude!!!  He was rejected, but they still asked him to stay and do the set’s dry cleaning.  It was overall not a good day in yellow history.

Prior to that, he applied for the role of “Mandarin” in Iron Man 2.  He lost that one too on a small technicality, that he was a terrible actor, and the actual role went to Ben Kingsley who has won Academy Awards and Golden Globes, has over 5 decades of experience, and has been knighted by the Queen of England.

Jeong still believed it was unfair and it was clearly racism, adding that “Ben doesn’t even like mandarins and is allergic to them.”

The Producers settled with Jeong by giving him a role in a later show which turned out to be “The Mandalorian.”  The legal team said, “Mandarin and Mandalorian are close enough and I don’t think Jeong knows the difference.”

He concluded by saying, “They were looking for a four-and-a-half-foot tall actor but they didn’t want to hire a minor, and it wasn’t a speaking role anyways, so Jeong was perfect for the role.  It was a special character created to show that even cloning isn’t perfect, and every 1 out of 10,000 will turn out damaged and will be placed into food service, instead of being a soldier.”

To his credit, Jeong took the role and took it like a man.  Eyewitnesses say he was a real trooper, even though he wasn’t.