Wednesday, December 14, 2005

You know who I don't love as much as some people?

Margaret Cho. In the media and most liberal web sites Cho is quite well-loved; the following quotes come from her website:



Brilliant. One of the funniest comedians in America. - NY Times

Not since Richard Pryor..., has a comedian made me laugh through the tears the way Margaret Cho has. -3blackchicks.com

The most hilarious movie - the most hilarious thing - on planet Earth. - The Bergen Record

Gut-bustingly funny. - Variety

Surely every one of Cho's blow jobs is a blow for freedom. - Toronto Eye


...and I'm sorry, I just don't see it. Almost every time I've seen film of Cho's stand-up, she seems to me to be essentially just telling her audience what they want to hear: Right wing conservatives should be bitch slapped, racism and homophobia is bad, she shouldn't have been made to feel fat. It's not that I don't agree with any or all of that-which I hope is obvious-but I don't remember seeing her doing that many jokes about them.

I've probably said this one or two many times too many. But one of the reasons, I feel, that The Daily Show and Doonesbury have justifiably won so many awards and grabbed so many viewers/readers, is that they don't just tell their audience what they want to hear; they flame-broil sacred cows from the right or left.

It's easy (relatively) to get laughs hitting the other person's gang, can you get laughs hitting your own gang? In the films that I've seen, Margaret Cho's loving audience responds not with laughter, but with applause.

Well, shit, I could get applause going onstage and taking a few cheap shots at the approved targets of a self-selected audience of liberal weenies too. (Jeff Foxworthy says you shouldn't make fun of rednecks unless you are one. About the term "liberal weenies"...I are one.)

To me, truly brilliant comedians don't seek applause. You'll rarely see Jon Stewart more uncomfortable than when the studio audience reacts with applause rather than laughter. And I don't recall Richard Pryor's concerts being interupted by it too many times either.

It's not that nothing Cho has ever said has struck me as funny, it has. And as an actress she was part of the fine ensemble cast of one of my favorite movies, It's My Party. It's just that the hype of her as a social commentator/comedian seems to me way out of proportion to her actual gifts.

If you're wondering what brought this on, tonight I picked up the new issue of Bust magazine because I'd heard there was a profile of Samantha Bee of The Daily Show in it. Quick sidenote: The profile is excellent, and recommended to fans of Bee/TDS. Plus, I don't know about you, but I like a visibly pregnant woman-Bee-who poses for magazine pictures with a cigarette and glass of wine in her hand. (Feet on a stepladder...in heels, yet...can of beer on the top step, other cans strewn on the floor and counters of a sloppy kitchen.)

But anyway, elsewhere in the issue there's a short review of Cho's new book. The reviewer says Cho is "brutally honest" and "absolutely hilarious." And as I say, she's hardly alone in thinking that. But the first example she quotes is:

"Strange, there's so much religion in the world, but only enough to make us fight over who's right, not enough to make us love one another."


Funny, insightful, and clearly the work of one of the foremost satirists in the English language, yes? You're so right. It was even moreso when Jonathan Swift said it in 1711.

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