Labels: celebrity, childhood, comedians, margaret cho
Lorie said...It's been so long since I've seen Margaret Cho in anything that I'm not sure I remember how I feel about her. Which sounds weird, now that I say it. I remember her doing imitations of her mom, and I think that voice used to get on my nerves a bit. Other than that, I have very neutral, non-existent feelings towards the comedy of Margaret Cho. On a side note, someone on my LJ friends list has an icon of her with the line "I'm here to wash your vagina."
said...Well... I think gender plays a certain role, but for I also think some people just have a certain tolerance for standup and certain preferences. E. can watch Margaret Cho, while I can't stand her. I don't know why, but she makes me sick. I think standup in general is a bit repulsive, so it's not just her. I liked Ellen's comedy tour and I saw J. Garafalo when she was on tour a few years back. They're okay. I don't like a lot of sex jokes in my standup (which a lot of the guys do...and Margaret Cho does a lot, so maybe that's what's up there. Maybe it comes down to gender. I can't stand most comedians, but Seifeld doesn't seem to make a lot of sex jokes, so I'm okay there.)
While I'm typing, I just figured out why I can't tolerate standup. I think it comes down to my fear of mimes. As a kid, I was scared of any type show where they could grab a member of the audience or interact with the audience in some way. And still to this day, when I see standup, I cringe because it's slightly scary to be incorporated or called out or something. (Which makes the sex thing all the more repulsive!! UGH!) Even on TV, I feel for those who could be in the audience. WEIRD, I know!
Hope my long-winded response makes sense.
And please, whatever you do, don't ever become a mime!
said...I think I will give her a try again. I know a lot of people who love Margaret Cho, so it could be that I walked in on some of her "crass" material without really hearing the other stuff. After all, I've only seen clips of her standup when I see E. (or my sister, back in the day) watching it.
I agree about Bernie Mac and George Carlin. It's funny because I like to read and hear about sex, but I guess humor attached to it has to be *just* right for me and that's where it gets very subjective. I don't mind people talking about their sex lives (in fact, I find it informative or interesting at the very least--and sometimes it can be enlightening and actually help me out). At the same time, I don't like when women (perhaps those who inspired or were influenced by Sex and the City)and men (stereotypically frat boys) talk about sex just to show off--or worse, to laugh at their partners. Not to work through something, not to mull something over analytically. That's a huge problem for me, and perhaps the line where I have trouble in stand-up. But that's obviously a personal issue and not something that applies to everyone. I like sex jokes not to provide too much of a visual with explicit images (funny situations might be okay, like J. Frakes and a certain cylon professor...hehehe...), but I don't like when it might hurt someone. Does that make sense?
As for blogging about your sex life, here's a question, what part of your shared sex life with B. is communal and what part is yours? I know that's a strange question, but I think you could blog about things like feeling frisky, as my grandmother always called it, without hurting anyone. Then again, it really boils down to how much of your privacy you want out there. I'd say, approach the subject again. And, if you use your blog as a replacement for a traditional journal of sorts, you could always make those entries private so you could write about your sex life without sharing it.
By the way, what do you think of Sarah Silverman? Her "I'm fucking Matt Damon" was awesome.
ish said...Cho, Silverman, Griffin, and Wanda Sykes are my favorite female comedians right now (unordered). I really liked Ellen in the early 90s. Its true she was very much a more safe comedian like Seinfeld, but she did it very well. And that makes it so much more amazing and impressive when she made such a stand for gay rights on network television. The problem, of course, was that it wasn't funny. And she spent about 5 unfunny years there as a social philosopher rather than comedian. And her return to prominence with the show found her coming back to the middle of the road sensibility, which seems like a shame to me. She's still pretty funny, but there seems to be a bit of an extra level of inanity now that's almost a fear of getting caught up in that swarm again, and I wish she could have found a way to make it funny, since really she's got a lot of credit as the one who allowed it to be talked about on a daytime show at all. But she mostly plays the "straight man" on her show (and that's a really funny adaptation of language to apply to her, "Um... none of the above, actually").
I tend to prefer more cerebral absurdist humor, which is fairly uncommon with popular female comedians. Which is to say, they may be out there, but I don't have any way to hear them. Anyway, obviously Carlin and Steven Wright. I was a huge fan of Mitch Hedberg. Dmitry Martin, Emo Phillips, Jake Johannsen. And there's the satirical political comedians, like Lenny Bruce, Bill Hicks, Chris Rock, David Cross, the other George Carlin, and Lewis Black, which also tend to be men, though Wanda Sykes gets into some of this territory now and then.
As for the actual question: I think there may be some element of misogyny attached. Often with Cho and Griffin I get a sense that is my own repressed misogyny telling me I'm not supposed to like it. I also think some degree of misogyny (or its opposite, misandry, which I had to look up since the word is never used as though it didn't exist) is natural just due to the nature of inherent differences in the genders as well as a fear of the other. The problem of course is in the unequal power relationship which causes those unable to hold that feeling in check to be more likely to be men and as such have a larger effect.
In this case, I'm not sure its a bad thing. I think the reason this is attached so strongly to Cho (and definitely Griffin as well) is that their acts are so archetypically feminine. While they can be appreciated by all, they both seem to have a special resonance with women, in ways that Silverman for instance does not, since she seems to be enjoyed as much as if not actually more by men. My initial reaction was that this stemmed from a sense among many men that "I hear this stuff from my wife all day, why would I listen to it for entertainment?" And I had thought that probably it wasn't that big of a deal.
But reflecting back on the treatment Hilary Clinton received in the press, as a candidate I don't support but whose really horrible treatment disgusted me, I think I may have changed my mind while writing this. In the case discussed (whether someone likes a comedian or not) the result seems relatively unimportant. But the feeling itself seems to me it could be quite dangerous. I suspect that unconscious judgment is worse, as it can't really be confronted.
said...I thought you might like this quote from Margaret Cho's interview with Us Magazine. In response to a question regarding why her husband won't be on her new show, she said, "Well, we want to stay married. My marriage is the best thing in my life, and I don't want to use that for commercial purposes. It's a sacred bond we have, and it's not for public viewing."
I think that might touch on some of the same issues regarding writing about one's sex life on one's blog as well. What do you think?
I really liked her interview. Her honesty regarding her rape, her body image and self-esteem made me really relate to her. Now, I really want to see her standup.
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