Margaret Cho (left) and Bobby Lee (right) - Are two very very funny ANA. As well as being very funny, they both have very interesting stories to tell.
Margaret Cho is best known for her stand up comedy - and let me tell you, some of the stuff that comes out of her mouth are really funny and at other times they are extremely left field and off-side but hey - shes not afraid to touch upon those subjects and thats what makes her so great. Further she is a supporter of gay rights and also identifies herself as queer and talks very openly about her sexuality ( she is definitely rated M for mature). What you may not know about her is that in 1994 she was offered her own television sitcom which would be the very first and last sitcom featuring an ANA family. The show called All American Girl suffered poor ratings and was under tremendous scrutiny as people thought she was either too Asian or not Asian enough etc etc. But the simple fact was there was a show and they gave it a try and once they saw that it did not do well - network executives never tried to make an ANA sitcom again. Shame really..... :( Fortunately if you like Cho, she was recently the star of a new reality//sitcom called The Cho Show - I have not been able to view the show yet - but I think it would be pretty funny.
Bobby Lee is best known for his recurring role on Fox's sketch show MADtv. He was also interviewed in the documentary The Slanted Screen (which I mentioned in an earlier post) - it was only after watching that documentary that I took him more seriously as he is a strong advocate of getting more and more Asians into the industry. Of the many characters that he plays on MADtv - the one he focused on most during the interview for The Slanted Screen was the sketch called "Average Asian" - basically what Lee wanted to show was that there are a lot of 'stereotypes' and that they are basically untrue. He pokes fun at the topic and it really promotes awareness through the medium of comedy. Below are a couple of clips of 'Average Asian' that I found on Youtube. GREAT!
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