Margaret Cho

First let me say that Margaret Cho is the best. I absolutely loved watching her stand up comedy and the faces she made to imitate her mother had me dieing. On the other hand, in relation to theory, she constantly addresses the issues of race gender and sexuality in society. I often found myself thinking, did these things really happen to this woman? And are we laughing at her expense? but it was just too funny for me to refrain.

Foucault would have a celebration at her ability to tell all about sex. She loves to joke about her sexual encounters and call herself a slut as well as discussing the issues surrounding gays and lesbians. She even made the remark that she’s a “heterophobe” and describes many of her male relations ending in destruction, in a funny way of course. I immediately thought of Butler when she was talking about being raised by Drag Queens and how she learned everything she knows from them. Butler’s essay discusses drag queens as being offensive to women where as Margaret Cho sees drag queens as role models. I also found it interesting how she said all her friends were gay men, and she also learned things from them, they gave her advice with men and they were a basis of example for her, hence her being a “fag hag”. According to Butler, shouldn’t her basis of gender come from other women rather than from drag queens and gay men?? These things made it really interesting to consider Butler because the gender performance she discusses in her essay doesn’t really seem to be something Margaret follows very closely.

She raises really relevant points about the medias influence on gender, sexuality, and race when she discusses everything she went through just to have a show about herself. The best part about this was when she says that someone asked her why, if the show is about her, why did she have to conform to what the media viewed as appropriate. She uses many cultural references in her comedy to stress her points and she strongly enforces them in describing her life experiences. She addresses the issue of race when she tells us that she was told she wasn’t Asian enough, as if it’s something she can control or turn on and off. This made me immediately think of the stereotypes places on races and she brings up the point of not playing the violin. Society imposes certain things on people of every race and then expects them to uphold those stereotypes. She loves to address cultural ignorance’s and does a great job at making these things hilarious.

I would really like to know what Butler would say about the issues Cho raises of failing to meet the social norm of the body whether it is a female, a gay or lesbian, or an Asians body? She can really make you laugh and at the same time get you thinking about a distortion of what is portrayed as norms in our society. In addressing things like heterosexuality, homosexuality, drag queens, race and societies ignorance to all of these things she makes it so incredibly funny!