posted 2006/08/26 at 18:18
Serious question here: What is with all the Margaret Cho hate?
I mention this because Monday night, when I couldn't get to sleep, I happened to catch a repeat of the William Shatner roast on Comedy Central. One of the roasters was Lisa Lampanelli (sp?), whose work on the Jeff Foxworthy roast I admired a lot. Shortly after that, though, I went to Lisa's official Website to learn more about her, only to find out that on her Website she'd set up this huge section for this one single joke. Said joke was, in fact, stolen directly from Margaret Cho, and as if it couldn't be more obvious, Lisa stole the first (chronologically) joke from Cho's Notorious C.H.O. tour set, or at least the first joke that appears on the Notorious C.H.O. DVD. Said joke was even more memorable for being one of the first jokes by a major comedienne/comedian about the September 11 attacks after the attacks, and probably the first joke that actually worked and didn't cause a public outcry.
Now, this pissed me off in the past, but I'd mostly forgotten about it before the roast, and was still willing to hear Lisa at the Shatner roast. Near the end of her routine, though, turning to George Takei, Lisa said, "George Takei is so gay, he thinks Margaret Cho is funny." My reaction upon hearing this was something along the line of, "Oh FUCK YOU, you fucking [insert string of anti-female epithets that I, as a feminist, should never use to refer to any female, except perhaps Ann Coulter]."
It's not that I wasn't aware of a great deal of public sentiment against Margaret Cho's comedy in the past; I know that Maxim recently rated her the second worst comedic of figure of all time behind Sinbad, but then again I think Maxim tends to target the tiny-penis neanderthal alcoholic demographic to start with, so I don't pay their opinions too much heed to start with.
Still, I want to know why there is such a huge backlash towards Margaret's comedy. I will admit that some of her jokes may not be understandable without a basic knowledge of the GLBT community, and I will also admit that her routines from about ten years ago relied too much on her portrayals of her mother. I can understand right-wing backlash to Cho because of her strong left-wing views (and her courage to express them), or her status as a GLBT community icon, or because she is a bisexual herself. Perhaps there is some element of homophobia invovled. Perhaps there's an element of sexism involved too, because Cho tends to talk about the women's body and its unique functions just as male comedians have done about their bodies for a long time, and our society still allows men to have more open discourse about their bodily functions than they allow women. Maybe it's corporate in nature because Margaret is far removed from the mainstream comedy infrastructure and works independently.
I don't know what it is, but I seriously wonder how many of the people who dis Margaret have actually taken the time to watch one of her routines from start to finish, because her comedy is quite hilarious. Certainly a lot better than Lisa whats-her-name.
Her 5 minuet roast filled with racial slurs, blowjob jokes, and general putdowns and you come away with one off-hand comment about Margaret Cho? By the way, it was about Andy Dick, not Takei.
Dude, just let it go. A roast is supposed to be wrong and insulting. As the saying goes, if you can't laugh at yourself...
copyright © 2008 Sean Shannon