Ambivalence and Acknowledgment in Margaret Cho's Comedy

 

I enjoy comedy specials but the comedians have unfortunately skewed towards a distinctly white heterosexual cisgender male demographic. In the suspicious way the world works, men like Fallon and Kimmel are considered the peak of comedic humor (but I'll defend Mulaney to the grave; he functions on the type of nerves and anxiety that transcend identity sometimes. I'll throw in Schumer and Ellen DeGeneres on the hit-list, though, just for the sake of symmetry, but not above the other two). Because the entertainment industry has constructed it this way, it is always simultaneously refreshing to find celebrities of color publicly stand against the dynamics of representation (or lack thereof) and nerve-wracking to witness them contend with being quasi-cultural ambassadors. Just one cursory search of Margaret Cho's name demonstrates how much she is attached to, or seemingly responsible for articulating, the state of Asian-American comedy. Her background as a standup comedic authenticates that responsibility, along with the fact that she created the first prime-time American sitcom led by an Asian American family, which marks her as an influential figure. I'm just not personally sure if that influence is always a good thing? I don't want to discredit her legacy and work, though. I'll say that I have more critiques of her comedic approach than anything else. Or say she's not funny. I enjoyed her wit and confidence. Her comedy special PysCHO provided the material to poke holes into, though, to question whether her conceptualizations of Asian details do anything more than point towards stereotypes. 

 

I read Sarah Moon Cassinelli's article on All-American Girl before watching the special, so maybe I had some preconceptions about Cho and her guilt regarding the show's misrepresentations. I found myself concentrated on any inkling that reflected the mistakes and misconceptions that Cassinelli felt Cho had a hand in creating. And Cho manages to integrate a flurry of stereotypes within the striking, not to shock with excessive necessarily, but it is impressive how she tackles so many social issues. Cassinelli primarily charges Cho's sitcom with failing to consider cultural accuracy or authenticity in its attempt of representation. I think in the case of Cho's integration, rather than total subversion, she participates in the process that partly gives power to the stereotypes through her acknowledgment. Her insights didn't do enough for me to ignore how some jokes landed flat, particularly the one with her exaggerative over-pronunciation of Korean names. At that moment, Cho denotes Asianness by its proximity to foreignness. The joke boils down to how Asian one can be: cultural tradition and fundamental language become hilarious because of its difference to English. The joke lands with the audience, who laugh at the unfamiliar sound and accept the binary of Asianness v. Americanness. Cho doesn't situate herself as an American as she did in All-American Girl, but there is something off-putting about how she makes that specific detail a spectacle. The joke is painfully apparent because it functions on the same mechanism that erases the pluralities within Asian American identities. The historical framework has marked them as vulnerable to political manipulation and social ridicule.

 

Thinking about racial melancholia, Cho has a keen perspective on specific social dynamics that constitute the ambivalence and negative presence described in Eng and Han's article. At one point, she speaks for the entire Asian-American community and asks, "Are we white?" Cho refers to the hesitancy when it comes to marginalized groups' conflicted interactions with American's white/black binary, but also the perception of obedience interlaced within the model-minority stereotype. Here, Cho exemplifies this oscillation where she can seize cultural authority because of her experience and perspective, but in her impersonation and recounting, she adheres to the feeling of difference. I'm just not sure if Cho can be perceived as this melancholic perpetually searching for the lost object of assimilation. Of course, outside of the week's question, that is undoubtedly a noteworthy and praiseworthy thing about Cho's comedy. 

 

Cho addresses the flack she receives early in the comedic special, detailing how both Asian and white people have told her that her jokes about Asians border on being too offensive. She doesn't do much with this detail, quickly moving on to the next topic in the tradition comedic standup and offering neither recourse nor statement on the charge. It's a fitting analogy for most of the special. The not-so-funny accusation becomes the stage for Cho to demonstrates she— as an individual— can occupy the position to point to the inherent social dynamics that she has noticed towards a group she presents as the same. By acknowledging racist subjectivities and perceptions, Cho seems to believe she is challenging them: "I'm so happy to make racist jokes because I can." In all fairness, there is an inherent power in confrontations of racist subjectivities and perceptions. I'm still unsure if Cho does anything further in some instances beyond just reiterating them. Casselini notes that Cho has more power and agency with the standup comedic format. Still, I don't know if I necessarily agree with the idea that the special ends with any substantial authentic representations from Cho. I kept thinking about Hillenbrand's thoughts during then, where a characteristic of visual activism within Asian American cinema presents the subjective self as subversive to cultural norms. In the end, Cassinelli stresses there is a risk of "over articulation, speaking in a voice… somehow rings hollow" (Cassinelli 55). I don't think it's up to me to decide if that's true in Cho's case. In any case, no one can deny that she definitely articulates and stresses certain stereotypes to a considerable degree.