So it's been 2 months. This is what we call a blogger fail, but I call it a life win. So what if I am less obssessed with writing and more enraptured by laughs, life, and rolling on the studio floor? Oh right- this is for marks... and somewhere in that 2 months of interweb absence... there was a lot of heart break and depression.
Woe is me, poor starving student/artist- asked to critically think about my work and growing from beyond my ever expanding gut. It's a race, brain swelling vs. waistline, who will win? Neither, and least of all my ego, self-esteem, oy. OK no more pity party, let's get to this. I need a laugh, so the first artist I'm going to chat about is...
Margaret Cho
She is a celebrity, recovering drug addict, out and proud bi-sexual comedienne who carved and filled a niche for Asian-American, Queer-American, Queer-Asian-American people. Born December 5, 1968 and raised in San Francisco, California. She comes from a Korean background and is challenges the ideals of what that means, she challenges socio-cultural norms. She was my first Americanized-Asian hero, who defied the same expectations that I faced. Up until I first discovered her in the 90's, all I had to go on was Sulu, the King and I, and that kid from Degrassi. Everyone else was a stereotype, a ninja, or an extra that got killed in a 20 to 1 fight with a white dude. 20 trained ninjas vs. 1 untrained hero- and who won? Seriously?
Though she started doing stand up from the age of 16 and has a huge body of work under her belt, one of her most important works would be I'm the One that I want (2000). In this book/stand up comedy/documentary, Cho really showed her early approach to comedy and using her own story (her identity, and experiences, and appearance) as fodder for satirical jokes and exploiting stereotypes for a laugh.
In this piece, she talked about Korean Culture, Queer Culture, and mentioned how her show All American Girl turned her hour long stand up set into a full season of tv, which ultimately tanked because White male writers took over. Where Cho brings a sense of depth and balance to her stereotypical humour, and gave the same sense of depth to the other characters in the show, the writing evolved into a series of flat caricatures that were devoid of honesty and impact.
She also mentioned how her image and persona were too fat for television and talked about the pressures from her producers to conform to a slimmer image and expectation of herself. Cho weaves her audience through tragedy, eating disorders, and bad sex by framing everything in humorous punchlines and grotesque facial expressions that borders on clown.
Methodology- how and why do these artists do what they do?
I've started to mention it, so just to be clear- I'm titling this section- methodology.
So what does Marget Cho do? She tells jokes.
She stands in front of an audience, usually next to stool that has two bottles of water with the labels removed. She moves around this pillar, as she maneuvers around a mic stand. In her hand, she holds a microphone that she has used as a metaphor for a sword, a penis, some form of animal... or a microphone.
No but really- what does she do?
She uses narrative humour to recount personal stories that she sensationalizes by impersonating various, and recognizable stereotypes within North American culture. Wow- what did I just say? She tells stories about her life. She sets up a topic, creates the characters in the story that she's telling, enacts them out, and waits for the punch line.
Example-
Lesbians and Are you gay?
One thing I do want to clear up- I know I said that she impersonates 'recognizable' stereotypes, but recognizable to who?
Margaret Cho is able to bridge the gap between mainstream stereotypes and those of subcultures within American culture. In the example video, she transitions from very specific stereotypes of lesbians on an Olivia Cruise to Alaska, and then to a widely recognized character of an immigrant Korean woman (her mother).
Why do I want to clear this up? Why is this important?
Like many industries in the world, stand up comedy is dominated by men. People train to improvise, and be funny and tell jokes with punchlines- but for minority groups of any kind, it's really hard to be funny without being laughed at.
Margaret Cho disarms (and I used that word quite intentionally) her audience with a slew of jokes that they recognize and may have made themselves at one point. But it's always OK when an Asian person makes fun of Asians... and subsequently OK for you to laugh out loud when you're watching it. This is the same for women, Black jokes, gays, and any other minority. Right?
In January of this year, I was able to attend the Queer Performatorium Breakfast where Montreal based comedienne, DeAnne Smith, spoke about her stand up routines. She is an out and proud lesbian who raises many issues of feminism and women's rights in her performances. In an incredibly inspiring and insightful question period on moderating/establishing/performing feminism- Smith talked about how she sets up the audience.
She usually assesses the audience, which is more often than you might think- heterosexual/heteronormative/mildy conservative groups of people... en mass. She pointedly starts off with jokes that create a common vocabulary within the room... her example: Va-Jim-Jam (in reference to her vagina). In her words, she says that this 1) establishes the understanding that there will be 'graphic' material in this stand up 2) prepares her and the audience with a sense of how comfortable either will be with the oncoming jokes 3) creates a point of resistance to the norm and claiming a space and establishing her power within a room (beyond being the person with the microphone).
Jumping back to Margaret Cho, she does the exact same thing. One observation over the past decade of following her work is that it seems (in my observation) that her humour is becoming more and more esoteric. She has created a mainstream persona that conforms and negotiates with mainstream media in various shows as a supporting or guest character. This keeps her present as a celebrity. In her stand up, it seems like there is a denser quality of followers who are more attuned with her politically biased jokes and commentary.
Margaret Cho has an unerring way of knowing how long to hold a silence
or break up the work. Because her jokes are relatively balanced between
the banal and the conceptual, there is an ease (from experience) to her
ability to wait for responses and coach when she needs to. She will hold
a pause for as significant amount of time to allow audiences to react.
That said, she still frames her jokes within personal experience, because as a storyteller, and telling your own story, it's much easier to come across as the expert. By playing up these characters to animate her experiences, and using grotesque faces and various voices, she creates a performance that really leads the audience on a journey where they feel safe to laugh and ultimately opens doors for further discussion.
What this means to me?
I've seen a lot of culturally specific work that makes me want to puke. This may weaken my argument because I haven't listed examples... but I will, or at least I will definitely mention them in upcoming projects.
I find that there is a craft to telling a story, and being good at telling a story. In my practice and training as an actor, the most influential lesson that I ever learned was how permeable our emotions are. Emotions manifest as physical reactions to various stimuli. I learned this while working through clown work, and breathing work including Fitzmaurice and free diaphragmatic breathing. I was led to discover how closely our feelings relate to their opposites- i.e. joy and grief... laughter and tears. Sometimes you can't tell them a part.
What am I getting at? I find that with some autobiographical work and approaches to storytelling forget this. There is a pull/desire/expectation to air out our grievances and traumas as a story- especially if the work we do is related to some idea about being a social minority. I find that some work becomes extremely cathartic, and feeds the 'actors' need to feel something, and thus cuts off the audience from having a deeper connection... ultimately turning the work into something voyeuristic and less engaging. An example was recently we had an artist from Listen to Dis' Voice come to the community based art class. The artist depicted story of feeling unsafe and unwanted at home. Though beautiful and poetic, it left little to no room for the audience to breathe and connect with the work- the discomfort became so great that it was almost Brechtian in it's potential alienation of the witnesses.
I WANT PEOPLE TO LAUGH. In all my works there is an equal weight put on the humorous and the melancholy. I do run the risk of sometimes falling into a formulaic pattern. I was given feedback after my first piece in Regina, Alien Soiled that the performance weaved from happy and then sad, and then happy, and then sad, etc. I want to develop this further so that the work becomes more seamless and relevant to audiences.
I don't want to have to justify wanting people to laugh, I would rather focus my trajectory on learning what I can about making people laugh and figuring out my own creative path to achieve this. I want to slow down, and give more time to allow the audience to experience, soak in, and react to the work. I think I know why I want people to laugh though.
I'm scared of being a victim. I'm scared of being perceived as a victim. I feel like I compartmentalize and would create work that looks akin to pointing to a dead animal in the street if I present victims. I do not want my actors, myself, or my collaborators to relive trauma or to somehow feel inferior (or superior) because of some battle scar from life. Laughter, sincere and genuine laughter can create a communal release that opens the door for that sincerity and understanding of the trials and challenges of our personal lives to come across as a shared experience and not a lecture. We need not guilt and berate from our testimonies.
That said, it's not about making the shows one big circus, and it's not about not crying. I want people to laugh so that they are also able to cry (if they need to). That's perhaps the biggest reason I respect and usually enjoy Margaret Cho's work. At the end of every set, or at the end of a strong punch line, she has the audience in her grasp. They've laughed to tears, and are emotionally available and disarmed, and have developed an understanding of what she is talking about, and have REACTED and entered into a dialogue- her jokes being a call, and their laughter being a response. It is here that she brazenly slips in messages of equality, support, and demands for justice and acceptance, and it's in these moments that there is a sense of affirmation and transformation for everyone in the room. I want to do that.
Margaret Cho: I'm the one that I want Dir. Lionel Coleman. Perf. Margaret Cho. Self Produced DVD. 2000.
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