Asian comedy troupe tickles Bovard crowd

By Derick Dahilig
Staff Writer

The "18 Mighty Mountain Warriors," an Asian American comedy troupe, performed Wednesday night at Bovard Auditorium as part of the Asian Pacific American Heritage Festival.
"They're like the Asian version of In Living Color," said Richard Kan, program chairman of the Asian American Student Assembly. "They do a couple skits throughout the evening that are pretty hilarious."
The troupe, which has toured worldwide, lampooned typical Asian stereotypes in front of approximately 150 people.
Dubbed "The World's Most Suicidal Asian American Skit Comedy group," 18MMW was invited to campus for the second time in conjunction with APA Heritage festival's programs "to have USC community be more aware of Asian culture and heritage," said Sandy Johal, director of the Asian American Student Assembly. "It's one of the events to showcase Asian-American artists."
By bringing the troupe to USC, AASA hoped to help break down stereotypes about Asian Americans.
"There are a lot of stereotypes of Asian Americans, such as Asian females being submissive or Asians being too concerned with academics," said Kan, a sophomore majoring in business. "Tonight's performance was supposed to break a lot of stereotypes regarding Asian Americans."
The group performed skits based on activities such being in church and having sex. Some crowd favorites were performances that satirized martial artist Bruce Lee's attempts at cooking and a sex therapist showing a man how to help his wife reach an orgasm.
Other skits satirized the alleged use of steroids by Chinese swimmers at the 1992 Olympic games.
The audience was interested in seeing how the comedy troupe portrayed Asian Americans.
"I want to see Asian Americans in ways most popular genres, such as movies and television, usually don't portray (them)," said Mark Balfantz, a freshman majoring in computer engineering. "Besides entertainment, it's probably to show the versatility of Asian Americans."
"It's something different," said Amit Bahaumik, an undeclared freshman. "Usually you see European or African performances. There aren't really any Asian-American comedy acts."
"I hope to expand my cultural horizons by seeing something other than American entertainment," said Charles Leaver, a freshman majoring in business. "This will probably show that other cultures can be just as funny as American culture."
Troupe performer Michael Chih Ming Hornbuckle said he hopes the group's performances will make people see Asian Americans in a different light.
"We hope not only to be seen as an Asian American comedy group," Hornbuckle said. "Regardless of our color, we'll be seen as comedic innovators.
"We want to show that Asian Americans can be funny. What we want to do on stage is show people things they've never seen Asians do on film or television before, such as simulating sex on stage."
Hornbuckle said the show does in fact portray stereotypes of Asian Americans. "However, we plan to control the stereotypes, not be the stereotypes," he said.