In his first piece, he lauds the William Hung and Tila Tequila for creating themselves and not waiting around for the legions of white writers that populate Hollywood to create them.

What to make of a bisexual, Vietnamese, ex-gang banger, immigrant looking for love as the main character on TV? Reality is indeed far stranger than tired sitcoms, and it says the future, at least where the writers of Hollywood are concerned, is not bright. Because for so long, TV writers failed to conceive the likes of William Hung and Tila Tequila that these reality’s children invented themselves instead. Their rawness, their openness, sans superficiality, and their complexity are beyond anything imagined. And these New Media personalities are giving old Hollywood a run for its money. They are creating a kind of post-modern horizontal conversation that can often be messy and raunchy, but always full of surprises and fascinating.

In his latest piece, more focused on self-expression on the web, Lam goes back to Tila, saying: “[S]he made herself famous before Hollywood comes calling. (Something about Tila’s polyamorous nature and mixed bag biography seems to lend her so perfectly to the time, and to the new media: I will cross borders.)”

I have to admit, I have to agree with Lam about Tila – I find her to be fascinating and a bit of a one-woman revolution. I have always been fascinated by media darlings who don’t seem to have a lick of talent or substance, and maybe I’m ready for Paris Hilton – with her inheritance and Aryan good looks – to go into retirement and someone like Tila to takeover. (William Hung, I could do without.) I'm not saying I respect these people, or believe that they should be role models for our youth, I just think that they reflect our culture and figured out how to cash in. I think they are savvy.

But not everyone agrees. Phil Chung at AsianWeek says: “Both Hung and Tequila are nothing more than modern-day versions of age-old stereotypes — he, the nerdy and clueless Asian male, and she, the slutty Asian woman. Just because they are “real” people and not fictional creations doesn’t make them any less stereotypical.” He goes on to say, “I’d rather have one Sandra Oh on Grey’s Anatomy, than a hundred Tila Tequila’s.” Personally, I would rather have multiple variations of both characters.

Alec Yoshio MacDonald who chimes in over at Nichi Bei Times also argues that Tila’s isn’t so complex. He says: ”The fact is that TV writers and the entertainment industry at large have not "failed to conceive the likes of William Hung and Tila Tequila" — Hollywood practically invented them.

I’ve only watched “A Shot of Love” once, but it did give me a little thrill that Tila had pulled off such a big scam just by sitting in her room and adding people on her MySpace page. I agree with Andrew, when he says that there are many new opportunities for Asian Americans now to grab the spotlight – and in the new leveled playing field, I stand by the fact that we can all do it anyway we can.

What do people think?