Well, i thought the OP made silly and inconsistent observations, and i’ve never even heard Margaret Cho’s comedy.
Not at all.
I’ve made clear many times on this board that i really love P.J. O’Rourke’s earlier material, but that most of his stuff over the past five or ten years has left me decidedly cold.
But you’re dropping straight into the OP’s error here: the idea that, just because you no longer find someone funny, that they are objectively not funny and that the people who continue to find them funny are just deluded sheep.
The “cultural meme that Robin Williams is Funny” is no stronger, as you demonstrate, than the cultural meme that “I’m the only person who really knows what comedy is.”
For someone who was grousing in the “When women say they really mean [y]” pit thread about not liking humor based on stereotypes, don’ you find that’s what a lot of Cho’s jokes are based on? I’m not picking on you; if you find her funny more power to you. I’m not offended by her humor, just don’t find her funny for the most part.
For my own curiosity- were the comments about Martha Stewart and Jim McGreevy jokes or was she just ranting about stuff that pissed her off?
[sub]I’m more forgiving of jokes that fall flat…[/sub]
Yes, it is. I read it the same way, and that’s why I called him on it. If you read Weirddave’s reply to me, however, he claims he wasn’t “responding to Margaret Cho”.
Well, no… not necessarily. I would have to suggest that there is a place for “Here’s something that people don’t tend to talk about – but I’ve noticed it, and I think you have too, and isn’t it funny?”
And I don’t think there’s anything homophobic about Happy not connecting to material that’s directed to a (particular) queer and queer-community audience. We do have culture(s) of our own, and cultural references that are directed to us may well fall flat with people who aren’t a part of it.
And some of us like political humour. YMMV. shrug
As a side note, and pursuant to Happy’s latest post I note that her State of Emergency/Assassin tour contains a much bigger proportion of political material than her earlier tours, perhaps because it was organized in direct response to the 2004 election race and result.
I don’t know about that. My fanatic devotion to Ms. Cho is a matter of public record*, and I still didn’t think her Revolution CD was up to her standards. (I didn’t really like the whole “I - am gonna shit - right now!” thing in the middle, for example.) There were also one or two jokes in her latest tour that fell flat for me.
All in all, it pleases me to suppose that I like her because I find her funny, not the other way around. I think I retain the ability to discern funny from not funny by my own criteria.
[sub]*Literally – I once used a quotation from her as the epigraph to a brief on same-sex marriage I submitted to a House of Commons standing committee.[/sub]
Actually, you didn’t respond to my comments in that thread. If I knew you liked Margaret Cho at the time I probably would have brought it up- I don’t see how a line like “straight men don’t like to go shopping, and if they do, they’re gay” is satirical. Whenever I’ve seen her do standup on TV there’s usually several jokes that are basically “gay men do this, straight men do that”.
I haven’t seen Margaret Cho since she was straight but if she’s getting lots of laughs now there has been a major change in her material and delivery because ten or fifteen years ago Margaret Cho was SPECTACULARLY unfunny.
sigh I can see we are, in fact, going to have this hijack. By saying a stereotype of straight men, she’s satirizing the equivalent stereotypes of gay men. It’s funny because stereotypes of straight people are usually not so blatantly expressed as those of gay people. You are not supposed to laugh at those silly straight men and their non-shopping ways. You’re supposed to laugh at those silly stereotypes of gay people to which she is indirectly referring.
In the other thread, by contrast, it was my opinion that the point was, indeed, to laugh at the silly wimmin/menfolk (depending).
Too many ethnic comedians get their "laffs’ by being blatantly racist. It’s somehow funny if a black dude says racist things about white guys, but it’s just racist if a white guy says racist thinggs about minorities. :dubious: :rolleyes:
Cho gets many of her “laffs” now by being racist & sexist. She can be funny without being racist & sexist, but it’s a lot harder- so…why bother?
For the most part I think stand up comics have a limited lifespan. I used to like Cho but after watching Notorious C.H.O. I just didn’t think she was as funny as she used to be. She still had a few jokes I laughed at but for the most part it just fell flat. I’m glad she’s been able to find her particular niche and I wish her well.
Elvira Kurt uses some of the same type of jokes in her routine. For example she uses a funny accent in imitation of her immigrant mother. She manages to be pretty funny though. I imagine my assessment would change if she just recycled the same material over and over again.
Her standup act’s funny. Have you seen her new show though? Gaah. She still gets the occasional laugh from me, which is more than I can say about the rest of the lot, but at least they didn’t used to be funny.
[QUOTE=JohnBckWLD]
Fill in the Blank: It’s a ______________ thing, you wouldn’t understand.[list=A][li]Jeep[]Female[]Male[]Black[]White[]Jewish[]Christian[]Muslim[]Buddhist[]Latin[]Asian[]European[]Australian[]African[]Straight[]Gay[]Young[]Old[]None of the Above - Keep your labels[/list][/li][/QUOTE]
I’ve seen some of Margaret Cho on television, and some of her stuff was funny as hell - the first few times. But, just like anyone else, how long can you stick with the same basic material, the same schtick? When I first heard the Kermit routine, I spewed soda out my nose. The “assmaster” routine was pretty funny too. But, she tends to get too preachy towards the end of her routines. Many comics do that. George Carlin did that a few times too, but still could be funny. To say she is too topical(?) may be true, but it works for the audience she plays too. It pays the bills. I can’t fault her for that at all.
If she is using stereotypes, then maybe it works for her “demographic target”. Jeff Foxworthy pokes fun at rednecks, Tim Allen built a religious cult around Sears power tools ar ar ar. Who cares, so long as it makes you laugh? It’s all in how it’s done, and who you’re playing to.
Some people hate Monty Python, the Three Stooges, Marx Brothers. I love them, my roomies and S.O can’t stand them. You don’t have to “get it” or anything. Someone else will. Or won’t. No biggy.
Well, I’ll grant you “Remote Control” was damned funny-that was my favorite show when I was 11 and I even had a tiny crush on Colin then. But damn, that was how many years ago?
I got to admit though, if I could make as much money as Margaret Cho just by making faces for half an hour at a time in reponse to my own mediocre jokes, I’d be doing it too.
