I saw it and love it, though the NY Times article on her gives away almost every single joke. The plot of the first episode revolves around Margaret’s conflicted feelings of accepting an award for “Korean of the Year” by KoreAmJournal, who apparently trashed her as the worst thing to happen to Koreans since the DMZ Zone. (Ouch.) She talks a lot about not fitting in with Hollywood and the Korean community, too Asian for one and not Asian enough for the other. (Just like junior high school…except not on the supernova level.) And I have a question, is there any Korean American kid who doesn’t feel rejected by the Korean community? I mean, I guess maybe if you’re totally stunning, thin, and an Ivy League-educated banker or lawyer or doctor, this might be a foreign concept. By the way, her folks are on the show and are amazingly good sports. She makes fun of them left and right, and so thoroughly, that I’m impressed they’re still speaking. one of the more innocent jabs is how they always wear vests. But beyond the jokes, dude, she’s a war veteran to survive 20 years in Hollywood as an atypical beauty, etc., and the first episode is. pretty good! A lot of gay and Korean stuff on this one. Oh yeah.
Also, reviewers keep calling her parents “conservative Korean parents.” Um, she asks them about their recreational drug use, she’s naked in front of them, and at one point told them she was going to put them in a home if they were going to ground her, and her parents just laughed. That is not conservative Korean parent behavior. Just saying.
Critics are savaging the show, but sometimes it feels like critics are these cantankerous geriatrics who like lie at home in the fetal position sucking their thumbs, thinking about how much the world sucks, and then they write their review.
And another thing — I just got a spam message from “lesbian grandam grandma.” Nice.
Yay! I’m glad you caught the episode AND you liked it! I love Margaret Cho. AND I love Bobby Lee! Koreans in comedy represent!
i loved his line “and you really opened up the way for me and the other phillipinos.” the whole thing was SO FUNNY, NANCY! i can’t believe the ny times didn’t eat it up. they are retarded. i LOVED when she told them she was going to put them in a home
hahaha, I forgot about the Filipino line! Man, I think I want to be Bobby Lee’s baby mama. Do you think the show has “too much Korean” stuff for mainstream audiences to keep returning?
Yes!!! I do! I mean “mooohhhh” is just funny-sounding, but funnier if you know what it means. Bobby Lee did this MadTV skit my cousin described to me, where he was hired to translate for a movie start in her martial arts training. The trainer could speak korean and all bobby lee kept saying was “bop moh-goh?” over and over again in a baby voice. Now who the HELL is going to find that funny except for the Koreans who can’t really speak it and have been embarrassed by their lack of fluency? It’s like this puny sliver of the population. but OH MY GOD was that funny — and I didn’t even see it