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Abstract
This essay analyzes the performances of Margaret Cho, a queer Asian American stand-up comic. Cho not only performs being swallowed up whole by the performing vagina, but she also details the pain and rage of being “eaten by the other.” Through her performances, Cho makes obvious that bodily boundaries are metaphoric for any boundary the nation feels is threatened or susceptible to invasion. Further, the way she is frequently perceived and/or attacked illustrates that her performances, as well as national responses to such performances, are shaped by and depend upon ideological constructions of the “excessively” raced and sexed body. Yet it is Cho's playful juxtaposition of pride and shame, agency and fear, and pleasure and pain that makes for effective queer performances. As she negotiates and troubles how she is read, Cho urges an intersectional approach to gender, sexuality, race, and nation and an attention to how opposing affects inform the transformations one continually experiences.
Acknowledgements
Much gratitude to Dr. Heidi Rose and the anonymous reviewers from Text and Performance Quarterly for their thoughtful and energizing revision suggestions. My gratitude also extends to Stefanie Dunning, Madelyn Detloff, and Katie Johnson for their dedication to and engagement with this piece. Thank you to all WMS201 students for the critical conversations about Cho. And finally, thank you to Catherine Fox who offered generous feedback and Melissa Spencer who is willing to travel any distance with me to “experience” Cho's stand-up performances. All errors and flaws are, of course, my own.
Notes
1. I am defining Cho as “queer” not only because of her public discursive performances of queer sex acts and her resistance to heteronormativity, but also because “queer” is how she self identifies (CitationBeautiful).
2. The grotesque has intimate ties to Bakhtin's theorization of carnival and the carnivalesque. Look to Peter Stallybrass and Allon White's “The Politics and Poetics of Transgression” (247).
3. From Cho's “My Puss” video.
4. It is imperative to point out that Cho's feelings about her racial identity are not always shame based. In fact, some Korean Americans embrace Cho's performances and desire that she stand in as a Korean American political spokesperson. For example, not only has Cho been invited to speak in the media on the politics of Koreans in America as well as Korea–USA relations (Assassin), but she also serves as an editor with 8Asians, a collaborative online blog by Asian Americans and Asian Canadians, was the recipient of the “2007 Best Comedy Performance” award at the Asian Excellence Awards, and was honored by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (Cho, “CitationBiography”).
5. See Kang and CitationKoshy for a detailed history and analysis of US–Korean relations.
6. For gendered analyses of stand-up comedy look to Heddon, Gilbert, Rowe, CitationRussell, CitationMock, CitationMerrill (272), and CitationAuslander (316). Russell asserts, “In ‘doing’ comedian the woman ceases to ‘do’ female” (3).
7. Cho began performing in 1989 in San Francisco (Fraiberg 324) and neared mainstream in the mid-1990s. In 1999, Cho's first national tour I'm the One that I Want opened with glowing reviews. And today, 10 years later, Cho continues to perform her stand-up comedy and live burlesque shows in front of sold-out audiences (“CitationBeautiful Reviews”).
8. “The Immigration Act of 1924 was the most comprehensive in restricting Asian presence in the USA, barring the immigration of all ‘aliens ineligible for citizenship’” (CitationKang 130).
9. Sedgwick too discusses the apology as performative.
10. To get a sense of the varying tones of the apologies see “Attacks from the Right” on MargaretCho.com.
11. Other performance theorists who have informed my analysis would be Rebecca CitationSchneider's The Explicit Body in Performance, Fabio CitationCleto in Camp: Queer Aesthetics and the Performing Subject, and Holly Hughes and David Román's “O Solo Homo: An Introductory Conversation.”
12. Not only is laughter one form of communication (Dvorak 59), but it also “establishes a community based on a shared experience of alienation” (Gilbert 34).
13. Cho's own site, MargaretCho.com, consists of political resources, a touring schedule, merchandise for sale, and Cho's blog. In other words, the site serves as a supplement to her stand-up routines and often confirms what we think we already know about Cho. To read through Cho's blog is to step into her daily life, which can be moving, hysterical, informative, and even mundane, and experience feelings of validation and belonging.
