Vang: This comedy show was a balm for bruised souls after the election

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Healing comedy with a dash of sex, a Tim Walz impersonator, 10 outrageously talented Asian American women, manga’s “boys’ love” with a bit of bondage thrown in, and a Genghis Khan game show. All of this was part of The Extra Quality Super Show by the Funny Asian Women Kollective (FAWK), which descended upon the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul on Friday night like a deranged, much-needed gift.

For some Minnesotans, it’s been post-election chaos. For others, it’s been just another week of banal conversations about the weather, construction and our latest Zoom meetings. In either case, FAWK’s trademark raunchiness was a balm for bruised souls. With glorious irreverence and unapologetic flair, they were on a mission to remind us that sometimes, you just need 10 funny Asian American women and a Tim Walz look-alike dancing to “Seven Nation Army” to make sense of the madness.

For about two hours, FAWK took the stage and dug into their identities as Asian women. They explored values, hopes and fears — usually in relation to men (cis and queer alike) and, inevitably, whiteness (it’s Minnesota so the odds weren’t in their favor). These performers representing various Asian cultural heritages were nobody’s Suzie Wong or Miss Saigon. Each skit, film and solo act picked apart the tired notions of what it means to be an Asian American woman and rebuilt it with a hell of a lot more guts and humor.

Along the way, I picked up some unexpected life lessons. Jamie Kalakaru-Mava, a brilliant South Asian American comic, showed me a radical new approach to difficult conversations with parents: Delay them until the parents are deceased. Her case in point? Coming out to her dad, posthumously. From May Lee-Yang, I discovered “boys’ love” — a manga subgenre full of romantic (and, well, sexual) relationships between male characters crafted for a mostly female readership. As she put it, this can be surprisingly arousing. And judging by how he squirmed in his seat beside me, Brian, my husband, either thought the same or was struggling with his preshow burrito.

Brian’s big revelation, though, came thanks to Lee-Yang’s surreal film on the Asian custom of removing shoes indoors. Brian’s heritages are Irish and German. After 16 years of marriage and me insisting we live in a shoeless household, FAWK finally made him understand why. All it took was a film featuring an anthropomorphic rug licking a pair of sneakers, which summed up well the disgust I felt when Brian walked around our house with his shoes on.

Over 700 people packed the Fitzgerald Theater. The audience, by the way, was a roll call of prominent Asian American woman in the Twin Cities. Professors, philanthropists, community organizers, media figures, artists and students all cheered for these unapologetic performers. The applause was well earned.

The FAWK women deserve to have their names spoken and written down — no more monolithic, faceless “Asian women” nonsense. Alongside Kalakaru-Mava and Lee-Yang were Naomi Ko, Saymoukda Duangphouxay Vongsay (Mooks), Patti Kameya, Tiffany Bui, May Losloso, Brenda Tran, Phasoua Vang and Tsuab Yang. This show also marked FAWK’s 10th year has a comedy group.

Let’s hope in the next 10 years, FAWK goes on tour and lands a Netflix special. America could use a lesson or two from them — and the laughs wouldn’t hurt either.