In the age of reality television, success isn’t the
only way to the public eye. Failure can also create fame, just like William
Hung, 21, a native of Hong Kong.
Hung recently has made an agreement with US-based
entertainment firms Koch Records and Fuse Music Network. They will publish a
full-length record, titled “The True Idol” on April 6.
The idol is a civil engineering student at the
University of California at Berkeley. He did a version of Ricky Martin’s “She
Bangs” on the television show “American Idol 3”, on January 27. The Fox TV
singing contest searches for pop stars among ordinary people. In the case of
Hung, however, his act was so bad that the judges cut him off in mid-act.
Hung’s response? “I already gave my best, so I have no
regrets at all.” That’s good, because any common person would have found plenty
to regret: The off-key singing. The blue Hawaiian shirt worn with pants pulled
up too high. The terrible dancing. The hips jerking (摇摆) to a beat that did not belong to the song, maybe not
even to this planet. It was, by all accounts, bad.
But, it was this very bad act that sold well.
Marc Juries, president of Fuse, explained it this way:
“Every one of us is happily guilty of singing our favorite song at the top of
our lungs with complete freedom, completely off-key and completely unworried.
That’s what William did and immediately won the hearts of America.”
Whatever it is, for the moment it’s big. Three
websites devoted to Hung have gone up on the Internet in the past few weeks.
Versions of his performance have been remixed with hip hop and techno-music and
have made it to the top 10 request list at a Chicago radio station.
So, what does Hung think of this?
“There were all these people saying things about me. A
lot were saying I was very courageous and that I was great on the show, but
some didn’t have much respect for me and some were kind of mean.”
Now he says he’s not so sure whether to distance
himself from the glamour (魅力) or to accept it.
Returning to normal hasn’t been easy.
1.What is the main idea of this passage?
A．Sometimes an
idol behaves quite foolishly.
B．Hung’s performance attracted the public eye.
C．How an
unsuccessful person became famous.
D．Success
sometimes does not require hard work.
2.What does the underlined word “it” in Paragraph 7
refer to?
A．William Hung. B．Hung’s bad act. C．Hung’s website. D．The public’s
opinion.
3.Which of the following shows the correct order of
what happened to Hung?
a. The entertainment firms made an agreement with
Hung.
b. The judges cut Hung off in mid-act in the singing
contest.
c. Hung became popular among Americans.
d. Hung gave a terrible performance though he tried
his best.
e. Three websites put Hung’s funny performance on the
Internet.
A．d, b, e, c, a B．a, c, d, b, e C．a, d, b, c, e D．d, b, a, e, c
