Longtime Angry Black Readers know I am fond of Alan Rickman*. What you may or may not also know is that Margaret Cho is one of my role models – I want to be her if and when I grow up. When Zandar (@ZandarVTS on the Twitter Machine) tweeted to me that she had been on the Melissa Harris-Perry show…this morning? Yesterday morning? I don’t know. I run on asiangrrlMN time. OK, fine. Sunday morning for those of you not running on asiangrrlMN time.
Anyway, when Zandar tweeted me saying I would be sad I missed it, I immediately scrambled to MSNBC and found the clip. It started with Melissa, who, in and of herself is pretty damn amazing, talking about a YouTube thing of kids (I’m assuming mostly girls) posting vids asking if they are pretty or not. Margaret responded as to why this is not a good idea and how women are still being judged on looks alone. In a bit, Melissa brought on Jennifer Pozner, the founder of Women in Media and News. The three women started talking about, yes, women in media, news, and how women are constricted in general, whittled away into nothing, while men are allowed to expand.
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Melissa’s show is a political talk show, so of course, they talked a great deal about the realm of politics. What struck me as I listened was how little interruption occurred as these three women talk. If you’ve ever seen a political talk show, there is plenty of shouting and interrupting and side-tracking. Very little of that occurred during the segment I watched, and it was really refreshing to be able to hear each woman present her idea in full without having someone jump in and talk over her.
I did a study for my gender and psychology class in college in which I sat in on different classes and tallied who interrupted whom. I will admit it was a limited study in many ways, but the one constant was that a woman never interrupted a man. It didn’t matter the gender ratio of the class or if the class was supposedly more male-centric or female-centric. A woman never interrupted a man.
Now, I went to college back in the stone ages, but from what I’ve observed of the talk shows – and granted, it isn’t much because I find most talk shows to be insufferable – the dynamic of talking over someone in order to make a point is pretty prevalent, and it’s generally a man doing the interrupting.
Of course, this is in part because a predominance of people on these shows are men, even when the topic is something related to women *cough, women’s reproductive rights, cough cough* so it’s not surprising that it’s mostly men interrupting. However, in watching the Margaret Cho segment on Melissa Harris-Perry’s show, I was struck by how refreshing it was to have three women talking about women’s issues in a lighthearted, dare I say it, girlfriend-like manner. This is not to say that they didn’t share important ideas or talk about weighty issues – they did. They just did it in a way that made me think, “That could be me and my best friend talking about politics in her backyard.”
Margaret has said that she used to have a hard time imagining that she could be an actor because there was no one like her to emulate. In this clip, Melissa talked a bit about how she wanted to remain true to herself and still be able to get her point across. Margaret replied that by doing what she’s doing, Melissa is being herself just as Margaret is being herself in all she does. One of the upsides to not having anyone else break a trail for you is that you get to define success in your own fashion.
The other thing I loved about this segment? Margaret is Korean American, Melissa is African American, and Jennifer is Jewish American. The three of them, sitting there as if this is an ordinary thing, and it should be!, well, that warmed the cockles of my black, shriveled heart. I can’t imagine another liberal talk show that would have three women of varying ethnicities on it at the same time, and that’s a crying shame in the year 2012. For this reason alone, Melissa’s show is a success to me. She makes the impossible possible.
*By fond, I mean make sweet love to him 24/7 for the rest of my waning years.
That was a nice segment. I clearly need to watch MHP more. Espeically with the #nerdland tag coming up constantly in my timeline.
Margaret Cho is AWESOME. MHP is AWESOME.
I may have to lift my self-imposed ban of MSNBC & talk shows in general to catch MHP’s show (and her show only). One of the reasons I refuse to watch them anymore is exactly what asiangrrlMN was talking about- the constant interruption, shouting over, and talking down to.
I adore Margaret Cho, she is amazing and hilarious, and such a great role model for girls.
i’m so happy mhp has a platform to speak from every single week. i used to look forward to her subbing on trms and the last word, but now we get to hear her every week!!! and margaret cho was fantastic on sunday. i’m glad ya’ll watched too.
I will make sure to go back to MHP’s site to catch this show. Margaret Cho is a powerhouse and I really do like to see TV or conservations offline where people don’t interupt each other. I can be really combative and pugnacious at times, but even I can’t interrupt another person (man or woman) when they are making their point.
However, there was another show she did which really caught my attention. She, like so many black intellectuals, had a problem with the movie “The Help.” And I can understand why. This movie reinforced one of the major 4 prevailing stereotypes about black women in America.
However, on this particular show; MHP got on to the organizing tip.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/46523374#46523913
She invited a woman who is leader of an alliance of domestic workers, Barbara Young. Her alliance got passed a “Domestic Workers Bill of Rights” in both New York and California.
While, MHP and her other two guests, bashed the depiction of domestic workers in “The Help,” Young stressed that despite the movie’s flaws, it still humanized those in her profession. I just finished reading “Rules for Radicals” on my Kindle today and Alinsky had some very interesting points.
At the end of this segment, MHP said, “If you love the movie, ‘The Help,’ do something to actually pass workers’ right legislation for domestic workers in your community.”
Barbara Young reminded MHP and the other two intellectuals in this segment (who I completely understand and relate to in every single way) that being practical isn’t such a bad thing. I consider myself an intellectual as well (at least to a certain extent) and even it’s clear that an intellectual can have their heads in the clouds and not on the ground. For me, this is the critical problem with the “professional left.”
Despite the fact that domestic workers were a backbone of the civil rights movement in Alabama and throughout the South; these workers are still not fully respected today.
If there are no rights for the least of us; how could there be true rights for the most influential and powerful of us?
Or as Casey Kasem use to say on “American Top 40;” ‘Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars.’ Honestly, if you’re going to reach for the stars; your feet are still on the ground despite yourself! Deal with it!