Heejun Han had one of the more interesting runs in American Idol history. He started out acting kind of drunk in his initial audition, but he also sang well. Then, he became the star of the Hollywood Rounds for his comedic comments. He also sang well if not brilliantly.
Heejun was eliminated in the Top 9 on Thursday, March 29, 2012. He had avoided the bottom 3 until the Top 10 week. After finishing the bottom 2 during the Top 10, he was eliminated.
What happened between before the Top 10 and then suddenly being in the bottom. Perhaps it was his singing, which was bad for two weeks. But then he suddenly recovered and had a good week during the Top 9, only to be eliminated.
It seems Heejun got a lot of initial attention and fans due to his funny personality. But few of those commenters I saw online were focusing on his singing. While Idol is certainly about personality and popularity, winners all have people who actually like their voice in addition to that.
I think it’s possible for a comedy contestant to do well on Idol, but they need to have a separate musical identity that allows the music lovers to vote for them.
As far as his being Asian, it is true that Asian men have not done that well on the show. But there haven’t been that many contestants that fit this image, and particularly the Korean guys like John Park have not stood out yet. For whatever reason, voting seems to be fairly consistent with the real world when it comes to race. You are more likely to be successful if you are white or black. I don’t know the reason for that, but that’s just the way it is so far. it is also not so wise to draw any conclusions on this because the majority of contestants have also been either black or white. After 100 years of Idol, then we may be able to draw sme conclusions. Statistically, 11 years means virtually nothing.
Heejun was likely eliminated this early simply because he was inconsistent with his vocals. But he also said he was more interested in having a good time than winning at one point. It’s hard to keep voting hard for someone that is not taking the contest seriously, so that may have lost him some power votes, as well.