Cho-ing It All

This weekend famed comedian, Margaret Cho was performing at the Zipper Factory near Hell’s Kitchen. Margaret’s sketch, which thrived off mimicking her mother’s thick Korean accent has transformed to something along the lines of Burlesque. Mom jokes are out and jumping up and down naked while twirling your nipples is in. Cho’s theme was everyone is beautiful so the audience was presented with a strip tease from a drag queen with balls, an obese lady, a midget, and even Margaret Cho. While some of the performances were funny, like the character of the drunken raunchy drag queen stripper, I found the overall show to fall somewhere between boring and gratuitous. The stand-up comedy portion was lacking for anything more sophisticated than a sex-joke. Furthermore, the intention for sexy Burlesque felt a lot more like Vaudeville, a freak show of nakedness. It’s bold to test taboos and liberate the fear of a naked body, but ultimately I feel it is important to preserve a level of privacy and intrigue, and not to let it all hang out like in the words of my great Uncle, "used spaghetti."