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Sean Brayton

Race Comedy and the “Misembodied” Voice

abstract

This essay unpacks the ways in which our “knowledge” of race and ethnicity is tied to ocularcentrism. It explores the political possibilities of ethnolinguistic imitation or “style-shifting” as part of an antiracist pedagogy embedded within popular culture. If identity is performed across different contexts, we may find an interesting dialogue of race and ethnicity within stand-up comedy, a realm of popular culture sometimes dismissed as “light entertainment.” The comedy of Russell Peters and Margaret Cho offer a site of imitation and ambivalence enabled by delinquent ethnic voices that play with the boundaries between self and Other. résumé

Cet article dévoile les manières par lesquelles notre « connaissance » de la race et de l’ethnicité relève du visio-centrisme. Il explore les possibilités politiques de l’imitation ethnolinguistique ou « alternance de style linguistique » en tant que partie intégrante d’une pédagogie antiraciste inscrite dans la culture populaire. Si l’identité se performe dans différents contextes, il nous est possible de découvrir un intéressant dialogue sur la race et l’ethnicité dans la comédie stand-up (ou (1967), Frantz Fanon Fanon Frantz (1967), ¤ Black Skin, White White Masks Black Skin, sounds. Racial identities are not only socially constructed but also variety performed of Thecontexts. across performance a of race is oftenmade explicit in stand-up of racial As and many a ethnic sociolinguists result, identity. have codified racial culturaldifference studies rather and however, than challenged Untilrecently, it. racial and sights racial between discord the understated have alike sociolinguistics the ideological import of racialized speech. In the field of sociolinguistics, however, however, sociolinguistics, of field the In speech. racialized of import ideological the this To dialect. to sensitivity particular a with studied been have ethnicity and race end, language is understood broadly but not exclusively to be a cogent signifier American imaginary and popular culture. Against this phenomenon, scholars have have scholars phenomenon, this Against culture. popular and imaginary American offered awealth of insightful critiques.And yet film and television studies, for typicallyhave racist approached images and dialogue without exploringinstance, Martin Jay calls the “empire of the gaze” (1986: 175). Supported by the rhetoric of rhetoric the by Supported 175). (1986: gaze” the of “empire the calls Jay Martin emerged genitals and eyes noses, bones, hair, skin, of differences science, Western Euro- the in circulate to continue that fictions “race,” of fictions visual the within conflating speech and speechacts, his commentary points to a distinct tension that is not easily one resolved. and hearing seeing between race, what in rooted also is it modernity, historyof the in found is race historyof the If present, of present, black and of white, primitive “[T]he and words, civilized. In Fanon’s whole structure crumbles [when] … a black man says ‘I … am in no sense your (33). Monsieur’” Although boy, Fanon often essentializes language and race by On one hand, the acquisition of the French culture and French worldview language that identifies is “blackness” with an evil and and acceptance past of sin. a rupture exemplifies also On colonizedFrancophone the hand, of other the a Senegalese soldier) (Fanon 1967: 21). And yet the French will continue to address address to continue will French the yet And 21). 1967: (Fanon soldier) Senegalese him” decivilizing him, primitivizing him, “imprisoning pidgin, in Martiniquan the whiteness. of Frenchness, of adoption this of ambivalent is EvidentlyFanon (32). colonialist colonialist mythology but speak in the language of the fromhimself distancing thereby He colonizer. them, eat will than rather Rs his roll and “talk book” a like language the “guttural” of (epitomized, for his “jungleby instance, the brethren” describes at some length the arrival of Fascinated the at colonized the sight Martiniquan of in a learned France. Black, the French have to a an curious unfolding reaction Thecontradiction. Martiniquan will look like the primitive of In the classic anti-colonial treatise délinquantes qui se jouent des frontières qui se jouent des délinquantes le soi et l’autre. entre monologue comique), domaine de la culture populaire parfois qualifié avec dédain dédain avec qualifié parfois populaire culture la de domaine comique), monologue de « spectacle ». léger Les monologues de ethniques voix des Russel s’expriment d’ambivalencesd’imitationoù et lieu un procurent Peters et de Margaret Cho

TOPIA 22 98 TOPIA 22 99 for appearance difference that inspired the formation of modern racial logic. the formation of modern logic. that inspired racial difference “grain” of the character’s voice (1971). voice of the character’s “grain” an inventory of media theory and racism is beyond is important the to note scope that an of overwhelming this number of it essay, studies have approached racist images and dialogues without addressing what Roland Barthes calls the class and sexuality. Studies by such critics have situated visual narratives of popular of narratives visual situated have critics such by Studies sexuality. and class includingmedia, the film and televisiongenres of drama science horror, fiction, and within comedy, the cultural politics of the post-civil rights era. Although Guerrero Guerrero (1993), Robyn Wiegman (1995), Michele Wallace (1990), Sut Jhally and Justin Lewis (1992), for instance, operate from different theoreticalarticulatedrace gender, of through consistentlybut unpack representations visual bases (mis)inform racial thinking by stretching across the sets of popular film,reports news and television a programs, phenomenon sharply criticized in media and cultural studies. The historically important work of Herman Gray (1995), Ed visible The visual currencies of racein contemporary and ethnicity culture are (Wiegman in 1995). some Visible differences ways a palimpsest continue to dimensions dimensions of humanity (Goldberg 1993). Such scopic regimes “produced the of truth modernityof and ‘race’ repeatedly discovered it lodged in and on the body” (Gilroy 2000: 35). While race was expressed in a variety of ways, it was taxonomy taxonomy (The red Jay herrings1986: 176). of craniometry andphysiognomy— token disciplines of Enlightenment science—were used to screen certain groups from the privileged space of political the subjectivityontological moreover, and, been mythologized in Western philosophy, science, aesthetics and metaphysics as metaphysics and aesthetics science, philosophy, Western mythologizedbeen in discriminating “most and the trustworthy of the sensual mediators between man and world,” a truism with far-reaching implications for the formation of racial From From the it outset, is important to note that societies Western have historically long has Sight sound. fromthan derivedrather sight claims” “truth the privileged an important but often site of antiracist pedagogy. understated Race Seeing and Hearing that highlight some of the key contradictions of multicultural representations in they canAs stand-up offerNorth comics, America. scathing social critiques that humour making media, mass of genres “serious” more in otherwise are prohibited tidy commonsense of racial identity used to fasten the Other to “an “an to Other the fasten to used identity racial of commonsense tidy and Cho Both tap Peters into 35). 1967: (Fanon which [s/he] is not responsible” a historical discourse of mimicry and in minstrelsy strategic but ambivalent ways comic routines of Russell Peters and Margaret Cho, for example, racial and ethnic and racial example, for Cho, Margaret and Peters Russell of routines comic stereotypes are performed and impersonated through shifting dialects. As such, the visual of “truth” the body is beset by a delinquent voice, which scrambles a comedy, a realm comedy, of popular culture sometimes between dismissed exchange slipperyas the light entertainment contemplates essay this response, In 2004). (Gilbert race comedy, and the voice as a point of critical multicultural dialogue. In the Grammar of Dissent of Grammar (1993) and (1993) a Black contestant was required ), the loss of a postvocalic /r/ and the absence the and /r/ postvocalic a of loss the ), Sounding Differences Sounding America’s Next Top Model Top Next America’s She ain’t never ain’t She contextualize your work. (1992: 37) (1992: work. contextualize your a large degree, restrict your audience to those familiar enough with it; enough with it; audience to those familiar restrict your degree, a large of that audience and … lose much English you to standard move if you history which and culture of the traditions, an understanding of many If you work entirely in … the Caribbean demotic of English you do, to do, the Caribbean demotic of English you entirely in … work If you

double-negatives (i.e., (i.e., double-negatives reclaim the (multicultural) nation through sociolinguists whiteness, have drawn attention including to differences, phonetic alternative of series vernaculars, a by most defined purportedly is notably AfricanEnglish” “Black American English. to undergo speech her Southernto undergo tutorials to remove accent.) Whereas standard language movements and institutional supports sought to ‘Standard English’” (1961) now ‘Standardserve English’” an entire industry of whitening speech for potential political executives, candidates, actors and even aspiring super models. of (During“Cycle Six” Along Along related lines, we may find that“The of Growth in Williams ago forty-eightRaymond years by describedexperts the speech coaches pronunciation and was echoed in the anthologies the in echoed was Philip describes and dialect: an artistic using standard between tension (1994). 1990s, for 1990s, the instance, use of dialect in literature became a polemical Of issue. particular interest was the work of Black contention whose Philip, Nourbese Canadian M. and (1990) ElliottClarke George (1995), writers like Claire Harris Such events illustrate some of the institutional supports of language standardization standardization language of supports institutional the of some illustrate events Such that continue to inform the politics of multiculturalism. In Canada during the “the decoy of language standardization” “the promised decoy the of ethnic language immigrant standardization” equality and opportunity in exchange for assimilation and erasure of linguistic difference (134). government and a sweeping campaign of moral edification, the standard language language standard the edification, moral of campaign sweeping a and government movement targeted ethnic groups in hopes of stamping out the heterodoxy English “impure” of vernaculars (Bonfiglio 2002). Like the melting-pot paradigm, with them distinct ways of speaking that were bitterly received by xenophobic Americans. Indeed, the rise of Standard American English gained momentum from heightened anxieties of racial Otherness. With the support of the U.S. colonialist colonialist agenda that relied on the Canadian often-violent disciplinary residential regimes to purge its students school of indigenous languages. system bringing and masse, en U.S. the entered groups ethnic of plethora a time, same the At is “informed by an ideological system of (Irvine representation” North America, this 2001: can 24). be vividly In illustrated in a number of ways. During the late 1800s (and continuing until 1996), aboriginal youth encountered a Euro- In the field of sociolinguistics, however, race as and ethnicity seen. Dialect is understood are to heard be well as a symbol of and political cultural power membership, (Fox origins2004). Speech is recognized as a “social one act,” that

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use ) (Wolfram and Torbert 2006). Although African Although 2006). Torbert and (Wolfram ) you fast you ) it is important to realize that “racial voices” do not always ) it voices” is important“racial to realize that a priori several critics have pointed out, however, comedy is a double-edged phenomenon phenomenon double-edged a is comedy however, out, pointed have criticsseveral Charlie Chaplin and the Marx brothers to Eddie Murphy and the Wayans family, family, Wayans the and Murphy Eddie to brothers Marx the and Chaplin Charlie comics have played “on the very situation As 131). 1999: (Chion of voice” and burlesquebody a of assemblage the puppet, a human body, being as a dislocated heterogeneity” of sight and sound (Doane 1980). heterogeneity” From pioneers. comedy by exploited been sometimes has relationship uneasy This given to believe, implicitly or explicitly, that the body and voice cohere in some self- some in cohere voice and body the that explicitly, or implicitly believe, to given successful The 126). 1999: (Chion theynot do fact in when natural way,” evident, synchronization of body and voice in motion pictures conceals the “material assumptions of identity by the sound and accent of its voice. The voice, in other words, words, other in voice, The voice. its body is of situated in a particular accent relationship of power and subjected to and normative sound the by identity of assumptions “we “can function as are oftenan In index cinema, of (Smith the 3). 2008: body” to eschew causality and Sound presence. in general has the potential to mislead an audience by betraying the image of its source. Because sight and sound intrinsically are different modes knowledgeof production, they one another (Doane quarreltheoristFilm may 1985). Kaja Silverman (1988) with claims that the The “Misembodied” Voice misrepresent, to ability uncanny its is voice the about striking most perhaps is What foreign foreign accent bodies.” “racial align with street, neglecting street, the simultaneous presence in African-American communities of many other registers” (Hill 1999: 548). diversity Although of speech one patterns cannotor linguistic dismiss elements of the discrimination a (“seeing” in practice” (1999: 461). Indeed, dialect can be a “patently misleading” signifier of signifier misleading” “patently a can be dialect Indeed, 461). (1999: practice” in cultural identity (Le Page 1985: In and 234). Tabouret-Keller the case of Black researchers English, have historically limited their focus “to the language of the colour-coding of linguistic it hierarchies; instead, is to recognize the provisional and ideological status of all speech types. As Adrienne Lo “No contends, social is internally linguistically homogeneous not even household, the domestic group, comparison, a dialect is “not a mere deviation or deformation, but a particulara but deviation deformation, or mere a “not is dialect a comparison, 72). 1994: (North itself ” with conflict in … standard the puts … [that] language of This is notto deny thereal political forces behind thephantom standard or the Some critics now insist, however, that Standard English is a simulacrum (Bonfiglio (Bonfiglio simulacrum a is English Standard that however, insist, now critics Some By dialect. a within reference ghostly a as exists only It 1997). Lippi-Green 2002; (Hewitt 1986; Rickford The1997). use of certain dialects against the standard buryto demand the by identities own their “refuse speakers suchthat is language 18). and Kambere 2002: (Creese trying to perform else” as someone of connecting verbs (i.e., (i.e., verbs connecting of American English may be it denigrated is as also jive, celebrated as a signifier of cultural resistance to Standard American English and compulsory assimilation Outsourced , for which he received four Gemini four received he which for , Comedy Now! Comedy as well as his jokes as host of the Juno Awards in and and Although Peters uses style-shifting to imitate various inflections inflections variousstyle-shifting imitate uses to Peters Although

Lord Have Mercy Have Lord Red, Red, White and Brown

of whiteness, he is renowned for heterogeneity of ethnic identity. performing Asianness and illustrating the 2008 and 2009). His shtick, in other words, is the ethnolinguistic imitation of himself and his viewers, which doubles as a politics. identity rich commentary on racism and Award nominations. Unlike Award nominations. many Peters relies comics, almost entirely on style- mimicryshifting, and audience participation (captured in the DVDs and touring. He was the first South Asian performer to sell out the Apollo Theater in Theater Apollo the performer out first sell Asian to the South was He touring. New City York and has appeared in a variety of Canadian television programs, including Peters The Stand-up Comedy of Russell Syndrome”: “Indian Tourette Russell Peters is an Indo-Canadian comic whose popularity is largely the result of stand-up comedy festivals, active downloading and ambitious international relevant to the investigation of power in contemporary [North] American culture” culture” American [North] contemporary in power of investigation the to relevant xvii). (Gilbert 2004: Peters and Margaret Cho employ the linguistic stereotypes within a multicultural multicultural a within stereotypes linguistic the employ Cho Margaret and Peters Here stand-up comedy framework, which is dramatized a by migrant minstrelsy. represents a “unique example of performedmaking it marginality,” “particularly to study dialect as a mode of Whilerepresentation. comics like Richard Pryor, EllenDick Cleghorn Gregory, and Dave Chappelle have to used map “accents” American racial politics in largely polarized terms (black and white), Russell voice to mark narrative shifts and verbal exchanges; different characters appear in appear characters different exchanges; verbal shiftsand narrative mark to voice the As a style-shiftingthrough routine result, the comic’s and linguistic crossing. stylized speech patterns of certain stand-up comics present a rich opportunity to “champion individualism and at least potentially radical (Horton ideologies” 1991: 4). It is an exceptional genre of popular Without monologues. culture a supporting the cast, that stand-up comic consists must count on largelythe of Unlike situational which comedy, operates within a political economy of box- office network returns, ratings and advertising stand-upagendas, comedy is said unfinalized [and] dependent on context” (Horton 1991: 9). As such, comedy is a As such, unfinalized (Horton [and] 9). dependent 1991: on context” site of both political potential and especially limitation, in relation to racial and ethnic stereotypes 2002). (King nature nature undermines its own political Theefficacy. rhetorical spirit comedyof is such that both radical and conservative viewpoints are endorsed within a single Because of “the the utterance. comic liminal is space plural, in which s/he works, (Gilbert 2004; Horton 1991; King 2002; Palmer 1987). On one hand, the safe and unthreatening reputation frivolous its hand, other the of On 2002). (King culture of areas comedy sensitive in circulate allows its political perspectives to

TOPIA 22 102 TOPIA 22 103 stereo- that.” The before self-directed In Canada during the 1 (2000)). He repeatedly shifts repeatedly He (2000)). Bamboozled Peters’ impersonation of them Peters’ foregrounds the before the comic carnivalizes ethnic differenceby distorting the speech Outsourced minstrel tradition (much like Spike Lee’s Lee’s Spike like (much tradition minstrel While Peters impersonates various ethnicities, it is perhaps the perhaps is it ethnicities, various impersonates Peters While the to relationship his complicates that truism a attention, most the earns that type because of an obvious audiovisual rupture (Lott his 1995: Indeed, 24). audience has grown to expect a carnivalizing of race through that vocal is, impersonation, performance and artifice. which neither Catherine nor Vincent readily present in English. Unlike blackface Unlike English. in present Vincentreadily nor Catherine neither which minstrels, who were often mistaken by their white question in viewers already always is for race of “actual verisimilitude Negroes” Peters’ dialect,” “darky speaking “unmarked” pronunciation “unmarked” body ethnic and voice ethnic between Gaps signifiers. ethnolinguistic of duplicity appear when the Indo-Canadian comic adopts the Chinese linguistic stereotype, essentialisms, which allow for a vocal minstrelsy of the migrant. The comic shifts to shifts comic The migrant. the of minstrelsy vocal a for allow which essentialisms, but within Asian-Americancouple the stylizedsituate a to dialect English Asian Vincent’sCatherine and of learn we that stereotypes; ethnolinguistic against also Peters Peters then asks the couple where they are from, a benign but to place racial classic difference When elsewhere. attempt Vincentresponds with“the Bay area [of San Francisco],” Peters rolls his eyes and audience bursts with adds: laughter as “I Peters becomes momentarily trapped mean in ethnic Chinese names, Chinese which names, are returned to them in the heavilycomic’s accented and exaggerated Here speech. the linguistic utterance is double-coded with not only358). 1981: (Bakhtin transmission” “ironic comic’s the also but stereotype cited the which Peters participates, but in markedly but in ways. different participates, which Peters In one sketch, audience members Catherine and Vincent offer Peters their 1990s, 1990s, a similar series of minstrel recordings were made in which white actors used narrative and linguistic stereotypes to impersonate aboriginal DJs eponymous radio “Brocket of station, It 99.” is the this dubious discursive tradition in them into even sharper This(226). focus” custom ofvocal minstrelsy continued well an into ostensibly the 1970s with the tape-recorded antics Tate,” “Luciusof Black prankster voiced by a white actor (Smith 2008). made made from 1910-1930) prank on and, heard identity of “The fluidity later, out: points Smith Jacob telephone As 2008). (Smith pranks and cassette recordings calls [was] not used to eliminate social or racial but hierarchies, instead to bring they supposed was black dialect, music and dance” (Lott 1995: the 16, decline 17). of With the blackface racial however, stage, impersonation jumped to the records “Cohen” the (like entertainment radio vaudeville airwavesof disembodied was central to blackface endorsement minstrelsy of slavery and “one in of America’s first culture industries” blackface the late minstrelsy included “northern 1800s white men [who] ‘blacked and (Lott up’ imitated what 1995). As an In of his guests in an embellished ethnic dialect, demarcating the identity viewer of from the that of the minstrel performance. The racialized voice, of course,

are are expected to objectify themselves in accordance familiar with imagings the … Rey Chow describes or as “coercive mimeticism,” the self-imitation of ethnicity. verythe “replicate called to are subjects ethnic on purviewthe Under diversity, of banal preconceptions that have been appended to a them, process in which they colonial colonial mimic—who was encouraged to adopt European tastes, languages and cultures as her own—the ethnic subject of a multicultural society“is expected to come to resemble what is recognizably ethnic” (Chow 2002: This104). is what servings of Despite diversity. its benevolent intentions, the practice of defining, preserving and promoting ethnic difference marks in many ways the colonialist heritage of contemporary multiculturalism. Unlike Homi Bhabha’s classic Under the conditions of official multiculturalism in Canada, however, ethnicities Under the conditions however, of official multiculturalism in Canada, are frequently purged of political value and fetishized as immutable signs “heterogeneous” of nation, a signs that are also consumed as spicy but innocuous which is largely defined against a model of American assimilation imagined to be to imagined assimilation American of model a against defined largely is which ubiquitous and fundamentally (Mackey un-Canadian 2002). reported by the Commission, Bouchard-Taylor in Quebec, recent outbursts of intolerance have been explained and contained as embarrassing anomalies in an otherwise multicultural nation (Marotte 2007; Séguin 2007). Ethnic Canada, erasure in multiculturalism is liberal with incompatible and antithetical as shunned nativist backlash against immigration and English-only campaigns that continue English-onlycampaignsand continue immigration that backlash against nativist sporadic the From politics. cultural American and Canadian (Anglo-) in thrive to tensions ethnic sharpened the to events sporting in hijabs and patkas of prohibition Evidently, Evidently, the sketch illustrates reciprocating social Canadian forces “multicultural” landscape, at those work of within a a disavowed lauded assimilation ethnic and pluralism. The a rhetoric adopted by Peters’s father speaks to a also questions an imagined incommensurability between Indian ethnicity Canadianness. and politics and physical appearance are codetermined. Peters explores the multiplicity the explores Peters codetermined. are appearance physical and politics of Canadian identity and the extent to which the nation is defined notby ethnic “belonging” so much as intolerance and Themonolingualism. jokerests on but politics within a foreign dialect as a way of exposing the paradox of xenophobia While the skit raises critical of questions race, a practised white by settler colony. origins and ownerships, it also undercuts the popular assumption that identity ends the phone call and turns to Russell Thein irony is “Immigrants!” disbelief: that father Peters’s is himself an immigrant (who actually studied English at an The plants comic an anti-immigrant commentary and nativist Indian university). “brown voice” of his Indo-Canadian father, who is attempting to purchase a sofa. a sofa. purchase is attempting to who Peters’s father, of his Indo-Canadian frustrates “brown which voice” English, speak not does told, are we father The retailer, European language.” The duh speak can’(t) you if country my to come doan “You father: from a central Canadian dialect to stylized South Asian English, a speech pattern speech a English, Asian stylizedSouth to dialect Canadian central froma marked by “the stressing of every syllable, with no apparent (Rampton nucleus” rhetoricIn situates Peters one what 1995: within 68). skit, he the calls “redneck”

TOPIA 22 104 TOPIA 22 105 . . Outsourced pluralism, however, that Peters Peters that however, pluralism, qua more broadly conceived terms of education through popular culture. broadly terms popular culture. more of education through conceived Like the students of Southto uses English he Asian times At Rampton’s often playswith. Peters that Indianness study, however, it is the myth of intrinsic production and consumption that is not only mass-mediated but also increasingly also but mass-mediated only not is that consumption and production global (with sold-out the performancesin race of pedagogyin critical a provides India, Dubai Peters and result, a As Australia as release). DVD well second as a of Anglo-Asian domination as a relevant interpretive performances of incompetence are not framework” unlike those found in (84). Peters’s Such The difference, ishowever, that Peters’s duplicity operates within a circuitry of substitute instructors was While(1995: 52). at “crossing” times “highly illiberal” in the classroom, it was also apparently “designed to disrupt smooth transition ... partially obscure the speaker’s personal identity [and] evoke a wider relation relations relations within and beyond the stage. In his study of multicultural “put oftenstudents SouthAsian that found Rampton dialects Ben schools, Britishpublic in as of a way toying with white a persona” comic and projected accent ‘Asian’ an on identities,” identities,” it is made increasingly complex through self-impersonation Although South Asian English 327). is often2005: (Davé mistaken for a sign of verbal inadequacy it can also be adopted as a means of negotiating postcolonial power of “diversity” rather than ethnic heritage per se. In other words, “author A quotes “author In other words, rather than ethnic heritage per se. “diversity” of 7). 2005: (Doniger author B quoting author A” If the “performance of brown voice participates in the simplificationof racial to his advantage, complicating the racial assumption that Indo-Canadians have a have Indo-Canadians that assumption racial complicatingthe advantage, his to limited grasp Theof Indo-CanadianEnglish. mocks dominant white cultureby discourse a myopic to him by an ethnic dialect that was appended impersonating inversion inversion and Socratic irony to present a cunning Indo-Canadian in a dialect of the of reminiscent (vaguely customer white a fool to used is which incompetence, slave trickster of earlytwists Peters the blackface). terms of coercive mimeticism That will be $ 5.95. Seeing you, bye-bye!” He thenThat shifts will bebye-bye!” to $Seeing you, Standard 5.95. English to express the clerk’s disbelief: once “And you it’s leave, ‘Whatlike, a loser! I can’t rhetorical a on relies skit The gum’.” of pack a for 5.95 $ paid just guy that believe forgery, a performance used to accommodate white people. In one skit, Peters uses Peters skit, one In people. white accommodate to used performance a forgery, convenience- Indo-Canadian an between exchange an dramatize to voice” “brown my friend. How you store are? clerk...Okay, and sir. an Anglo “Hello, customer: Peters Peters uses stylized South actually Asian mocks the mockers” (Doniger English 2005: Typically 12). mistaken for as a sign a of form linguistic the inadequacy, East of Indian accent is “self-mockery presented by the that comic as a this underlying logic of fixed ethnic difference difference ethnic fixed of underlyinglogic this playsethnolinguistic self-mimicry. against in of them as ethnics” (107). In other words, Chow updates Bhabha’s concept to account for the contemporary social expected forces to resemble Western fantasies under of ethnicity rather which than whiteness. It is ethnic subjects are All- ” (Chen 2005: 2005: (Chen ” rejects virtuosityrejects (2004), she offers(2004), cogent and Cho Revolution on VH1. While she is perhaps best known for her stand- her for known best perhaps is she While VH1. on (2000) and . Since . the Cho show’s demise, has released four DVD recordings The Cho Show Cho The

parodies ethnic authenticity and identity politics through vocal impersonation. In impersonation. vocal through politics identity and authenticity ethnic parodies Want I’m the ThatOne I comic hosts comic and gender racial, campaigningagainst politicalactivist, a also is Cho comedy, up Most sexual importantdiscrimination. for our Cho purposesperforms here, and American Girl the and Award AmericanComedy an her earned which routines, stand-up her of Intrepid Award given by the National the Organization Currently, for Women. The Stand-up Comedy of Margaret Cho Enough? Not “Asian” Margaret Cho is a Korean American comic who mid-1990s when rose she to received her stardom own short-lived during television sitcom the called ethnic essentialism from 10). which and Kambere 2002: it is born (Creese impersonator impersonator “pretends to a certain that repetition of act sort an upon depends effectiveness of speaker” mastery“embodied an of images over racial on draws ‘the performance vocal the While real’ 63). [but his] the linguistic stereotype becomes the site of its own mocking transgression, the “rests on their ability to manipulate stereotypes, thus further miring their audience their miring further thus stereotypes, manipulate to ability their on “rests in essentialist racial and ethnic categories” (2000: 10). self-imitation Evidently, of ethnolinguistic stereotypes is a rather thorny subject. The Indo-Canadian from his immigrant father and the nation’s linguistic periphery. The foreigner, in Thefrom foreigner, his immigrantlinguistic periphery. father and the nation’s minstrelsy vocal a through disavowal of absent-subject an as appears words, other of the migrant. As Laura Browder claims, the success of ethnic impersonators Although distinctions between self and trademark other skit Peters’s relies on mimicry, the brown voice erode of someone In else. it in the moment of self- he one that performsdistances the Canadian-born a comic generational rupture, a negotiation between a “fixed symbolic 78). (Lowe 1996: difference” heterogeneous cultural identity and context the of synchronicity. synchronicity. Peters performs a dialogue between “authentic” and assimilated “dark white Indian (his guy” words) through linguistic which variation, subject It is inserves manyways to discomfit racial assumptions of language proficiency. of pluralism and diversity festivals own within Peters’s (and, As routines). evidently, such, the performative the space nation-state, especially cultural and indeterminacy ambivalence, of one is self-impersonator duringethnic the of ethnic sardonically excuses the comic for his own unassimilable framingethnicity, the ethnic dialect as an abnormality in the If West. the trace of ethnicity found in one’s English is to be it exorcised, however, is occasionally celebrated as a sign mark mark proximity and ataffiliation, other For times example, distance and parody. Indian of symptom a as English stylizedAsian Southof outbursts his explains he Tourette Syndrome (a suspect commentary on disability). The self-diagnosis

TOPIA 22 106 TOPIA 22 107 I’m I’m , she , !” The !” Mulan I’m Want I’m the ThatOne I illustrates the centrality of orientalism in American Mulan , , Cho adopts a Korean English accent to impersonate her or Korean fan Shedance. slips into stylized Asian English to boost ). She evokes “a spectacle of the exotic artefact” used to construct ethnic construct to used artefact” exotic the of spectacle “a evokes She ). When I was a litta girl [Cho puckers in short her lips and dances steps] But even dough we no food. have-uh de riceand we up on paddy I grow a tendency [Cho frowns]. I have-uh weight on to put no food, have-uh malariayou have or dysentery when [Cho The pound fall so quickly, away her mouth]. giggles and covers Mulan only generational difference but also (unlikePeters) “divergent interpretations” which produces a precarious gap between landed Asian immigrant and native- born Asian(-)American. Through style-shifting, Cho (likethe hyphen Peters)as a site of articulates connection division, and Shecontestation. vocalizes not mother: mother: “Ah you gay? Peek up da phone. If you doan mean peek you As gay!” up Cho mimics da her phone, mother dat with altered prosodic features, she squints Theand purses racial her caricaturelips. is channelled by a foreignvoice, The comic alsorelies on style-shifting to mark intra-ethnic differences. In the One ThatWant I 12). The act of ethnic12). self-impersonation emphasizes the preconceived identities attached to the ethnic subject under the conditions of multiculturalism and the citation. ironic possibilities of interrupting through such roles muddling the lines between theft, ownership and fabrication. Cho is “neither the “neither Cho is and fabrication. ownership muddling the lines theft, between who has an easy or magical identification with culture, dominant ‘Good Subject,’ nor the ‘Bad who Subject,’ imagines herself outside of ideology” (Muñoz 1996: popular culture, popular evoking images culture, of dragon the iconography and Forbidden City, “simplistic visions of the exotic other” (Ma 2000: To criticize127). a discourse of market multiculturalism, Cho disidentifies with primitive cultural traditions, speech patterns and foreign signifiers (rice paddy, dysentery, malaria, fan dancing malaria, dysentery, speech patterns and signifiersforeign (rice paddy, and The cultures ironic “perpetuating as the (Gunewpast 6). 1993: in petrified form” reference to Disney’s Cho performs a Western fantasy of Asian authenticity by drawing on stylized buchaechum the authenticity moment: of the “‘when “‘when I was young I was raised on rice back and to that fish. So, natural when way of get I eating’ [end heavy of recitation]. That I go comic pretends isto play a mandolin and so continues the skit with an imitation of a way way of negotiating fictions In of Asian authenticity. uses the narrative logic of market multiculturalism to parody an infomercial for a fad diet (apparently In Asian). her Californian dialect she pretends to confess: Like Peters, Cho relies on style-shifting for a variety of political purposes. She often She purposes. political of variety a for style-shifting on relies Cho Peters, Like defies ethnolinguistic absolutismby shifting from a Californian dialect toward Girl, AfricanValley American and Korean style-shiftingFor English. Cho, is a comical negotiations of the contradictory conditions of multiculturalism in North in multiculturalism of conditions contradictory the of negotiations comical America the entertainment practised by the ethnic entrapment and industry. (1984) and the Hollywood tradition of Sixteen Sixteen Candles Her “mimicry is of double-coded Asian however, (Leeobedience,” 2 from Koh-rea [slow bow again]. America is numba one. Sank you, meestuh Sank you, America one. is numba from again]. bow [slow Koh-rea fada. Eddie’s [Cho bows slowly] Dis is, uh, my host famiry [slow bow again]. I come I come my host famiry again]. bow [slow uh, slowly][Cho bows Dis is,

Asian Americans (Ervin-Tripp 2001: 55). Cho’s shift to Asian English reproduces reproduces English Asian to shift Cho’s 55). 2001: (Ervin-Tripp Americans Asian about the message (Urciuoli 1996: 26). In Cho’s routine we find a“deft use of identity features at to criticalmark not junctures” only racial fantasies in a white mainstream but also the ways in which such stereotypes are decoded by some migrant minstrelsy reiterates how many people of colour “remain immigrants in a in immigrants “remain colour of people many how reiterates minstrelsy migrant profoundly(Philip no 1992: matter psychic how sense old … [their] citizenship” 29). To this end, dialect is in “metacommunicative” that it provides a message reproduce reproduce it While(Palmer 1987: 181). comedy can operate along conservative, even racist, lines (ethnic stupidity jokes told by white performers, for instance) Cho uses style-shifting to render Asian stereotypes a simulacrum. And yet her Such ambivalence is consistent with the comedy; subvertmay comic a discourse evenof xenophobia as she appears to the “intrinsically paradoxical” status of “American born and raised” (Chin, Chan, Inada and Wong 1974: xi). Like Russell Like xi). 1974: Wong and Inada Chan, (Chin, raised” and born “American clichéssoundscapeAsian a of waysthat against in and within speaks Cho Peters, highlyare but no less insightful. ambivalent to critique American racism, it ironically privileges the Americanized ethnic at the at ethnic Americanized the privileges ironically it racism, American critique to vicissitudes the articulate may politics sexual Cho’s while So expense. immigrant’s of Asian American identity, her disidentification one that potentiallyechoes a privilegesmore traditional cultural the nationalism, with the Asian immigrant 2004: 109). While 109). the 2004: racial caricature interrogates the ways in which the Asian American body is often positioned as abject, immigrant and temporary it essentializes immigrant If also culture the in self-directed the stereotype U.S. is used Cho calls the trip “the most Long Duk to Dong experience,” John a direct reference Hughes’s typecasting. overwhelming and alienating, which she quips about in the stylized English of an of stylizedEnglish the in about quips she which alienating, overwhelmingand student: Asian exchange As a site of performative tension, however, the hyphen is complicated often articulated and in complicit ways. In her one fiancé’s white skit, parents Cho in Florida. recalls She describes vacationing the family’s with generosity as performing and “publicizing” performing sexual and politics “publicizing” in and through a prism of ethnicity 78). (Lowe 1996: politics (Eng 1997; Lowe 1996). And while the articulation of sexual uncertaintysexual of articulation the while And Lowe1996). 1997; (Eng politics through generational conflict in some ways confines diasporic complexitiesthe to “’feminized’ domestic sphere of family relations,” Cho is quite skilled at of gendered boundaries (Lowe 1996: 79). Cho’s ambiguous sexual positioning is a defiantgesture against AsianAmerican cultural nationalism of thewhich idealized a 1970s, militant heteromasculinity as the essential site of oppositional

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3 (2001)). ? your native language native your On Not Speaking Chinese Dis is not de salad of my people [Cho crawls toward audience]. In my audience]. of my people [Cho crawls Dis is not de salad toward dey mandarin use orange squint and crawl ... continues] [eyes homeland is an Asian chicken my friend, Dat, crunchies. wonton slices and crispy salad! Host [Cho in “white voice”]: Hey, Margaret, we’re changing to an over we’re Margaret, Hey, “white voice”]: Host [Cho in you tell our viewers in don’t why so ABC affiliate, to an ABC affiliate. They’re changing [in dry English] Cho: broadcast comic hisses slowlycomic in stylized English: Asian she asks the audience, "What do?" She does he think I'm gonna into then moves she asks the audience, a crouched position with her She head down and slowlyleft raises palm held up. her head to rolled-back reveal eyes a and furrowed a brow, The protruding pout. American society" (1996: 5). Cho explores this phenomenon by describing an awkward encounter with an airline attendant. Although the an in-flight steward meal as Asian presents chicken salad for the white he passengers, drops the "Asian" in the Confused presence of and Cho. slightly annoyed at the omission, U.S. As Lisa Lowe "the writes, project U.S. of imagining the nation as homogeneous Asian which from geographies and cultures of construction orientalist the requires modern the to originalsfundamentallyantipathetic as 'foreign' come immigrants described as a threat, against which the nation is defined. American cultural fictions fictions cultural American defined. is nation the which against threat, a as described have historically situated the Asian subject as a one national that suspect, is said to bring a rolling tide of moral degeneracy and yellow peril to the shores of the negative stereotype calls into play" (Margolis 1998: 215). 215). stereotypenegative calls 1998: (Margolis into play" While the Asian immigrant is mythologized as a model minority s/he is also much much as separates, marking both artisttension the and excess stereotype, between negative the singular undercut identities "to course, Of 2000). Wah 1996; (Feng must hail the audience so that it recognizes the subject/Other relations that the similar confusion arises when Cho mocks the perceived benefits of Asian American Asian of benefits perceived the mocks Cho when arises confusion similar She identity. spend quips, "You half of your day in America and the other half [shift… to Asian English] 'in a foh-ren laaand'." Here the hyphen connects as hails Cho (an experience echoed in Ien Ang’s Cho's skit demonstrates how "an ethnic body without sometimes an perceived as ethnic "an language" imperfect" is copy of ethnicity (Chow 2002: 124). A Here the Here ideological contract between the Asian body and authentic Asian voice interview with the host of a morning television program: This is also apparent when Cho describesthe inability concept of “hyphenated” ethnic In identities. of one she skit, recalls a whitespromotional to grasp the the migrant stereotype with a one difference, thatworks within but also against a dominant assumption that an ethnic body and an ethnic voice are co-determined. somehow

is described as a site of contestation and struggle within another (Cameron 2004: 2004: (Cameron another within struggle and contestation of site a as described is In their own ways, Peters and Cho offer an interesting dialogue with overlapping with dialogue interesting an offer Cho and Peters ways, own their In versions of multiculturalism and identity politics. within dance some and it Whereasversions dinner” of situated multiculturalism, “dress, as ethnic identity is Conclusion they have an ambivalent and complicated In relation. other multicultural words, the and enabler the both colour—is of comics through part in populism—realized routines. and Cho’s of critiquetarget in Peters’s is the burlesquing of ethnic authenticity and coercive mimeticism that fills the enormously and Both theatres popular Cho of Peters performances. are Cho’s in which with multiculturalism market a for spokespersons fork-tongued ways many suggests that multiculturalism is not a “radical break from a racist past” but rather but past” racist froma break “radical a not is multiculturalism that suggests an equally essentializing set the of other conditions that “tolerates” as an artifact of a pre-modernity, static signifier of (Hage“elsewhere” 1998: it 82).Ironically, illustrates the extent to which the American melting pot has morphed into what Asian an (perhaps salad” beautiful and “colourful a calls sardonically Davis Angela chicken salad) (1996: 45). contempt Cho’s for discourses of ethnic authenticity transforming preexisting stereotypes and by manipulating language” the master’s (Ma 2000: In xvi). doing she Cho so, undermines any Moreover, obvious binary representation. opposition Asian authentic of negates she as even U.S., the in race Although she relies on ethnolinguistic essentialisms to of evoke certain nature ethnicities, embellished and constructed the highlighting at adept particularly is Cho “by mimeticism coercive of version ironic an offers she Peters, Like stereotype. the identity as an Asian American emerges onstage only in relation to the Western fantasy of the Oriental. Here the stereotype is central to ethnic as identity, the is never that wholly of a rejection achieved. source that is not necessarily obverse to historical and political understanding” (Lee 2004: 2004: (Lee understanding” political and historical to obverse necessarily not is that 125). And yet parodic Cho’s performance presents what Sheng-Mei Ma calls a “deathly embrace” between orientalism and Asian American subjectivity; Cho’s seems to suggest that “colourblind” civility is a tacit return of the seems “colourblind” racist to politics suggest that it … passion [and] anger of alienation the requires … “civility If claimsabandon. to revenge a sensation, of alienation the against revenge a works or releases laughter contradictory. She summons the orientalist fantasy contradictory. through a samurai caricature, she plays form one of In doing so, which stands in of Asian the void recognition. revealing the racism essentialist against Theunderpinnings another, skit of both. Cho uses the phantasm of the primitive Asian to expose the colourblind politics of the flightattendant—based ironicallyon visual markers—asproblematic and As Cho rises, her microphone becomes an imaginary sword, which she swings in an imaginary becomes her microphone sword, As Cho rises, multiple directions. After pretending to slash the flight attendant the audience eruptslaughter and applause. with

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same far from unproblematic, comedy has often performed “a complicated inclusion it laughter having which, been bought came too too cheaply, easily” (1992: 31)? In other any words, antiracist pedagogy in the arts and popular culture requires Although the misembodied voice is (36). “to the do audience some as work well” audience is likely to interpret racial irony in disparate ways. As M. Nourbese Philip Nourbese M. As ways. disparate in irony racial interpret to likely is audience the at laughing they “Were arts: multicultural of patrons white of asks I was laughing at, and if their laughter lacked the same admixture of pain, was signification is often the ephemeral, accent socialethnic forces behindan itimagine arefrequently quite In Anglos real. the white “stranger,” ethnic an of company where none is present (Lippi-Green 1998). Along related lines, a multiethnic political and material realities that cannot always be parodied into the “making laugh thedustbin That ‘Master’ is isone of to thing; unseatinghistory. say, him from a position of power is quite (Gilbert another” If 2004: 21). ethnolinguistic undeniably a unique and powerful form of communication” (2004: xii). (2004: communication” of form powerful and unique a undeniably While accent is a slippery signifier it of is ethnic symptomatic identity, of larger is within the ludic space of stand-up comedy—where normal social codes and political audiences correctness inflaming avoid are can it often “Because inverted—that such explains, Gilbert problematic Joanne stereotypes As manipulated. are by framing incisive ... sociocultural critique as mere comedy ‘entertainment,’ is and its fidelity in ethnic signification. As ideas fixed result, a it liberated from is being of the “exposure possibility the comics’ as readers offers that impersonators about the meaning of racial and ethnic (Browder identity” 2000: 11). voiced discourse. Through style-shifting, however, the linguisticThrough stereotype style-shifting, however, voiced often discourse. betrays the body by which it is brought to life. If is purged the of ethnolinguistic its stereotype, ontological status somewhere else, the visual referent is always a single utterance. And a yet the own single prosodic comic’s utterance. identity is often difficult to pinpoint within an array The we/theyof binarycaricatures. that underwrites the double- the in identified easily not is sociolinguists many for style-shifting of logic nature of identity and stereotypes, they reproduce racial mythologies of Standard, Standard, of mythologies racial reproduce they stereotypes, and identity of nature rhetoricalspirit the Indeed, within English. Korean and endorsed Asian South African American, are viewpoints conservative and radical both that such is comedy of Style-shifting, Style-shifting, however, is far from (Rampton a 1998: 299). “runaway Although vocal deconstruction imitations underscore of the performative ethnicity” variety of political ends, but they also rely on impersonation coercive mimeticism to and defy ironic the dominant assumption 104). that 2000: (Ahmed ethnic within” differences lacking any identical ... groups are “self- may may participate in a similar commodification of ethnicity as state and corporate brands of multiculturalism, Peters and Cho use metonyms of larger racial political Theystruggles. aestheticize and race and ethnic ethnicity to a dialects as xxi). This critical variant has emerged in contradistinction to official multicultural official to contradistinction in emerged critical has variant This xxi). categories as themselveswhich, Himani “are the Bannerji constructsexplains, of colonial—orientalist and racist—discourses” (2000: 9). Although style-shifting - - . London and . . London and . , respectively. , . Trans. Caryl and Emerson Trans. . The Simpsons and South Park The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays The Dialogic Imagination: “Long Duk Dong” was an Asian exchange student played by Utah- by student played was an Asian exchange “Long Duk Dong” Strange Encounters: Embodied Others Post-coloniality and Embodied Encounters: Strange On Not Speaking Chinese: Living Between Living West Asia and the Chinese: Speaking On Not Sixteen Candles Sixteen than in English. (2001: 145-46) 145-46) (2001: than in English. At a party, I was introduced to a man who ... immediately started to blurt out some to a man who ... I was introduced a party, At It surprised and frustrated him then Malay.... then Japanese, in Cantonese, words to speak to him other and that I refused that I understood nothing of what he said

Bakhtin, Mikhail. 1981. 1981. Mikhail. Bakhtin, Press. Texas University of TX: Austin, Michael Holquist. New York: Routledge. York: New 2001. Ien. Ang, Routledge. York: New References 2000. Sara. Ahmed, born Gedde Watanabe, an actor who has built a career on impersonating Asian immi impersonating who has built a career on an actor Watanabe, born Gedde English. “broken” grants through ethnicity is often visual (mis)cue: a problematic suggests, As Ien Ang 3. Likewise, Michael Chaney (2004) and Shilpa (2005) criticize Davé ethnolinguistic Likewise, on on white actors by impersonation In 2. Notes able to im are workers Kira Hall female notes how phone-sex similar lines, Along 1. of their clients variouspersonate and ethnic identities to suit the desires racial (1995). and recognition within while contemporaryThat is multicultural tosettings. say, “identity is radically it unstable” is our identifications thatremain imperative to 169). political (Davis 2004: practice of difference within the multiculturalantiracist nation. pedagogy is not The misembodieda will to forget ethnicity but rather voice as an a the vicissitudes of identity and the necessary existential illusion of representation negotiation of audible dimensions of racial identity are often incongruent and suggests ethnicity that are heterogeneous race and resistant to one-dimensional assumptions used to alternately govern and celebrate the foreign body as the originary site enabled by multiple modes of representation that are not always in agreement. Lest we forget, “the visual ... never comes it ‘pure,’ is always ‘contaminated’ by the work of other senses” (Shohat and Stam 1998: 45). That the visible and the power relations involved and certainly raises questions about whose voices we we voices whose about questions certainlyraises and involved relations power the are hearing and who the (Gunew‘we’ are” 2004: What75). the “misembodied” voice offers, then, is an understanding of race and ethnicity as a performance As a misrepresentation of identity, however, ventriloquism may double as a parody parody a as double may ventriloquism however, identity, of misrepresentation a As “accentuates sole the as people white of fantasy Ventriloquism ongoing the to attention drawing pluralism, of stranger. ethnic the by “enriched” nation a of proprietors in a way that neither [North] American multiculturalists nor uniculturalists can 85). 2000: (Limon theorize”

TOPIA 22 112 TOPIA 22 113 . . - Yale Yale . . . Toronto: Toronto: . Vancouver Vancouver Film Sound: Film Sound: King of the , , Journal of Popular . Berlin and New . Aiiieeeee! An London and New . New York: Columbia York: New . Static Shock Static , edited by Shilpa Davé, LeiLani Shilpa edited by Davé, , . London: Routledge. London: . , DVD. Directed by Lionel Coleman. Los Coleman. Lionel by Directed DVD. , . Victoria: Polestar. . . Trans. Steven Heath. New York: Hill and York: New Steven Heath. Trans. . . Trans. Claudia Gorban. New York: Columbia Columbia York: New Claudia Gorban. Trans. . , DVD. Directed by Lorene Machado. Los Angeles, Los Angeles, Lorene by Machado. Directed DVD. , . Washington, DC: Howard University Press. Howard DC: Washington, . 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