Week 4
This week, we saw Margaret Cho's show: PsyCHO. At first, when I was watching, I couldn't understand what she was talking about. Because the jokes and humor in America are really different from Asia. So that I cannot understand why she was always talking about the topic of sex. But after I saw the whole show and read the materials, I start to understand her.
As I said before, many facts are told through jokes. This is the best way to tell others what you can't or don't want to say. Therefore, as an Asian American, Margaret Cho told some of the things she has experienced, as well as some bad things that others have experienced, such as sexual assault, through this show. This allows the public to pay attention to those victims and speak for them.
Margaret Cho talked about many "taboo" topics in this show. This is something I did not expect. Because Asians may be relatively conservative, these topics will not be discussed in public. Such as sex and drugs. I think this show not only allows American to understand Asian Americans, but also allows Asians to understand Asian Americans better.
I agree that Margaret Cho tells some really important facts through jokes, and she makes the audience so uncomfortable sometimes they forget they are being told mostly real truths instead of just absurd jokes.
回复删除Hi! I had a similar feeling when I saw snippets in her stand up. But at the same time I feel like her stand-up show was such a genius subversive move to defy the stereotypes that have been imposed on the Asian American community.
回复删除-Valeria
I really liked that last line "allows Asians to understand Asian Americans better". I feel like Asian Americans struggle a lot since they have two sides: an Asian side and an American side. It's hard for them to avoid being in one group more than the other. But it's nice to see someone like Margaret Cho speak up about her personal experiences in such an open way helping both Americans and Asians see her point of view.
回复删除I think you make a really important observation that Cho's humor is very, very American and might not translate well across certain cultural and geographic borders and boundaries. This has the effect of reflecting how Asian American culture is a unique and specific culture and not just an amalgamation of an Asian and American culture. So, for example, talking openly about sexuality is extremely taboo in Korean culture yet Cho does this and she does it in a way that is unique to her Asian American context.
回复删除I think this observation is really interesting because it does seem very American to joke about vulgar things like sex and drugs. I've never really seen any comedy shows from any other country other than British comedies that have a somewhat similar style of comedy. So it's interesting to hear how American humor like this doesn't really translate well in other countries in Asia. It makes me wonder what kind of reactions stand-up comedy like Margaret Cho's would get in these places.
回复删除I think it’s interesting that you pointed out how this was different from Asian humor and I would like to hear more about how.
回复删除