Notorius C.H.O.

Year: 2002

Grade: C

Country: USA

Director: Machado

Review

i’ve heard a bit of cho’s comedy in the past, but i never remembered it being like this. it’s actually not that much of a film. the original kings of comedy, which is also a stand-up feature, is much more of a film because the camera moves more, and is more heavily edited. so really the only thing to comment on is the content of the comedy. first, i wonder what brand of comedy the marx brothers would have worked in if they were raised in nigeria or mexico. i wonder if their comedy would revolve around being jewish and white amongst blacks or mexicans. it’s an interesting phenomenon that straight white guys almost always make jokes about more general things (seinfeld makes comedy about noticed everyday oddities, bill hicks jokes about politics, drug-use and philosophy, george carlin jokes about cursing, politics and religion, etc.) while anyone who is not straight, white or male will more often joke about their period or white oppression or whatever their specific experience may be as a non-white non-male person in society. i don’t have a problem with it…i’ve seen most of the original latin kings of comedy and enjoyed much of it, i’ve seen all of the original kings of comedy (all black comedians) and enjoyed that, but it’s interesting to note nonetheless. so that leaves us with margaret cho who, apparently, is asian, female and bisexual so you can infer what most of her jokes revolve around. some of the comedy is decent, but most of it didn’t really rouse me. i didn’t have a problem with her making generalizations about straight guys being single-minded idiots, it’s just that the jokes she made weren’t all that funny and her delivery lacked the right comic timing. that said, her impressions are good. when it comes to making fun of a single type of person, though, dave chappelle is still the champ. his impressions of white guys are fucking hilarious and cho can’t hold a candle to it (whatever that means). her impressions of her mother are mostly funny and her mother seems to take it all in stride so that’s good. i guess what it comes down to is this: i didn’t mind the content, but the jokes, and her delivery thereof, needed work. she should take a page out of bill hicks’ book because he was great at intertwining serious messages into his comedy. when cho got started on heavier topics like her gay friends dying of aids or respecting oneself, it took her a little long to interject the comedy and that disrupted the comic flow. i’d like to check out her earlier film because i have a feeling that it’s a bit tighter and more funny. no matter what you think of her comedy you have to respect her for unabashedly being herself.