cho
zen:
i'm the one that i want
notorious c.h.o. |
director
Lionel Coleman
writer
Margaret
Cho
producer
Lorene Machado
cinematographer
Lionel Coleman
music
Joan Jett and the Blackhearts
editor
Robyn T. Migel
mpaa rating: None
running
time: 96m
u.s.
release: August 4,
2000
video
availability: VHS -
DVD
official
website
director/producer
Lorene Machado
writer
Margaret
Cho
cinematographer
Kirk Miller
music
Jariya
editor
Lorene Machado
mpaa rating: None
running
time: 95m
u.s.
release: June 28, 2002
video
availability: VHS -
DVD
official
website
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If you're going on the Margaret
Cho ride, go for the full immersion -- rent I'm the One That
I Want (2000) and Notorious C.H.O. (2002) and watch
them back-to-back if you can. The two pieces click together organically:
I'm the One is about Cho finding her footing as a comedian
and a person, and Notorious finds her talking about how
amusingly difficult it is to keep her footing. The only stand-up
since Richard Pryor to film and theatrically release two concerts
within as many years, Cho is obviously making up for lost time.
Her short-lived sitcom All-American Girl, bitingly and
sadly referenced at length in I'm the One, made her miserable,
and its failure and cancellation even more so, but in retrospect
that flame-out was the best thing that could've happened to her.
She needed to fail, and burn through the shame and despair,
before collecting herself and presenting the results. (Besides,
I can think of no more dismal fate than Cho still plugging away
on that show eight years later, had it been successful.) Like
a lot of great comedy, I'm the One rises from the ashes
of genuine pain while still being funny as fuck.
Cho, an openly bisexual woman
(after her first same-sex tryst, she agonized over the "gay
or straight" question before arriving at the conclusion
that "I'm just slutty. Where's my parade?"),
enjoys perhaps the largest mixed-whatever group of avid fans
any entertainer has ever claimed. Sure, divas like Cher and Bette
Midler appeal to gay men, and there are the standbys Melissa
Etheridge, k.d. lang and Ani Difranco for the lesbians; but Cho
goes over big with both gay men and women, plus straight
women, straight men, and transgendered of all stripes. Born in
1968, Cho may well be the perfect comedian for a generation of
tentative adults who were toddlers when the sexual revolution
was peaking and who had the spectre of AIDS to contend with once
they finally got old enough to get jiggy. Cho's take on sex can
best be summed up as amiably befuddled inclusiveness. She's done
just about everything, and isn't shy about talking about it to
hundreds of strangers, yet even her rawest material somehow doesn't
come across as sleazy or raunchy -- there's an innocence to it,
a sense of absurdist awe at the scenarios she ("Can you
believe it's me in this situation?" her expression
always says) has found herself in.
In I'm the One, shot
at a San Francisco theater she'd always wanted to play, Cho's
this-is-it comeback aura is palpable; the material has been honed,
every squinchy-faced double-take polished for maximum effect.
She knows her audience: she starts with a wicked riff on fashion
designer Karl Lagerfeld, then wastes no time playing to her loving
queer following. Cynics may say that Cho, who often says that
her trials on her sitcom were based on her desperately wanting
to be accepted, is angling for acceptance among the societally
unaccepted; but Cho has been steeped in gay culture since childhood,
when her parents ran a bookstore on Castro Street and two of
her best friends from school were budding drag queens. If she's
playing to her audience a bit, it's only because she's relieved
to have found one she can truly call her own. Besides, straight
viewers can take comfort in the fact that after the first half
hour or so, Cho moves on to more personal matters. (She satirizes
this in Notorious when she riffs on her troubles with
orgasms and depicts her gay male listeners as being imperiously
uninterested.)
Quentin Tarantino, who once
dated Cho and appeared on her show, makes a cameo of sorts in
I'm the One: Cho does a reasonably accurate impression
of him on the phone to her, bitching her out because she's allowed
the network to take her voice away. Typical: Hollywood hires
you for the sound of your voice, then tries to get you to take
voice lessons. Cho was told she wasn't Asian enough, then that
she was too Asian; she was told she was too fat for TV ("I'm
a giant face taking over America!" she shrieks). It all
led to a self-destructive spiral of drugs, booze, and promiscuity
-- the latter isn't bad, she seems to say, as long as it doesn't
come out of self-hatred. After a particularly sordid night, Cho
is moved to exclaim, "What the fuck kind of Motley Crue
Behind the Music shit is this??" It took her a while,
and months on the road here and abroad fine-tuning her act, but
the result is its own revenge on Hollywood: Lines around the
block, bright-eyed fans speaking of Cho as if she were some sort
of self-actualizing queer guru (something I hope she doesn't
start to believe), and the acceptance she always wanted, on her
terms.
If titles tell us anything,
I'm the One That I Want is Cho learning to love herself,
while Notorious C.H.O. is her learning to love her sluthood.
A hefty portion of Notorious is devoted to Cho giving
herself the Slut Pride parade she wished for in the first film.
No matter what she says, though -- whether talking about why
gay men have great bodies ("You gotta suck cock to get those
abs") or the difficulties of cunnilingus ("Eating pussy
is a mess; you need a Wet-Nap after") -- she has a way of
taking the raunch out of it by cocking her head sweetly and grinning.
Her sex material is more self-confident here, and now and then
she gets herself up into a full roar ("If you don't like
the way I look when you're fucking me," she says, "MAYBE
YOU SHOULDN'T BE FUCKING ME!") that would do Courtney Love
proud. Even her opening bit about Ground Zero (the concert was
filmed in Seattle a couple of months after 9/11) segues into
a riff on fellatio.
Cho is diabolically funny when
she's dirty (she has a fall-down-hilarious one-liner about S&M
people, she discusses her one experience with fisting, and she
comes up with a priceless bit on an overdue porn video), but
many folks (myself included) eagerly look forward to the moments
-- she rations them sparingly, and wisely doesn't overwork them
-- when she works completely clean; that is, when she brings
her mom into the act. Cho's impressions of her mom are legendary
among fans, and for good reason: she becomes her mother,
twisting her face into an expression of stern bemusement, braying
out syllables in halting Korean English. It's done with profound
affection, of course, which is one reason that the subject of
this parody finds it funny and enjoys the "fame" of
being imitated on stage. (Judging from what we see of Cho's parents,
in interview segments at the beginning of Notorious and
in the deleted scenes on the DVD, they're the coolest parents
alive.) Cho's late-inning riff in I'm the One on her mom
looking at gay porn books will go down in comedy history in some
way, and Notorious ends with an account of her mom riding
a camel on vacation in Israel ("since she's such a Jew")
that has the momentum and building details of vintage Richard
Pryor. The Mom parts of Cho's act would appeal to anyone, even
your grandma, yet retain every bit of Cho's wit. By the end of
the two films, you almost feel you know the senior Cho better
than you know the performer. Cho herself is still in the process
of getting to know the performer; let's hope we get many more
films and albums in which to learn along with her.
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