Greg Watanabe (left) and Michael Chih Ming Hornbuckle of 18 Mighty Mountain Warriors.
Photo by Michael Palma
The Comedy Might of 18MMW
18 Mighty Mountain Warriors, known for its incisive humor taking on Asian and Asian American topics, celebrates its 20th anniversary year.
by ADA TSENG
An 18 Mighty Mountain Warriors creative brainstorming session may not be what one would expect from such a zany, boisterous Asian American comedy team. As Greg Watanabe and Michael Chih Ming Hornbuckle discuss possible new sketch ideas for their upcoming show in San Diego, topics include the recent affirmative action bill in California; China’s growing influence on Hollywood contrasted with the fear-inspiring headlines about China in American media; Cambodian refugee communities that have come to the U.S. through San Diego’s military bases; and even the Korean “comfort women.”
“I’ve always wanted to do a sketch about Korean ‘comfort women,’ but I have yet to figure out how to make it funny,” says Hornbuckle, referencing the very serious issue of Korean women and girls who were forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. Survivors, and their supporters, have been fighting for an apology and reparations from the Japanese government for decades.
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“Would it be about making fun of the Japanese [denial]?” Watanabe muses, before launching into a discussion about how there were actually some Japanese activists trying to get the issue addressed in the 1970s, and how the challenge would be to contextualize the sketch, as many audience members may not have heard of the “comfort women.”
Though they weren’t able to unlock the “comfort women” comedy angle this time around, Watanabe says that many 18 Mighty Mountain Warrior sketches begin like this, with them imagining what kind of humor can come from complex and often very serious political issues that are relevant to Asian Americans. Their latest YouTube video attempts to explain the difference between the terms “yellow face,” “appropriation” and “white-washing” in just three, rock-and-roll-filled minutes.
The long-running sketch comedy troupe, often referred to as 18MMW, first formed in 1994 as more of an ensemble of several performers, and now in its 20th anniversary year, has evolved into the original founding members Watanabe and Hornbuckle as a comic duo dubbed the Asian American Key & Peele, referring to the popular African American comedians known for their incisive political sketches about black culture.
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18MMW’s upcoming live show in San Diego this month, co-presented by Pacific Arts Movement and Mo’olelo Performing Arts Company, features special guests Jully Lee, a Korean American actress that first collaborated with 18MMW back in 2006 for the sketch comedy show TeleMongol, and Albert Park, a Korean American San Diego-based actor who just completed a run of Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Taleat the Old Globe Theatre this past March.
The performance will be half new material and the other half their “greatest hits” over the years—including “World Cup 2002,” parodying Japan-Korea tensions over who will host the prestigious soccer competition; “Paranoid or Political?” about a man whose aggressive activism comes across as borderline insane; and “Dueling Koreas,” a South versus North Korea rap battle. They will also have their staple broadcast news satire, written the week before the show to incorporate the latest headlines, and they are toying around with the idea of a Korean rebellion sketch, with Lee and Park trying to overthrow the Japanese Watanabe and half-Chinese Hornbuckle to become leaders of 18MMW.
While 18MMW has retained its unique comic sensibility over the last two decades, the ongoing challenge has been figuring out how to adapt their material to new media and finding its place in a world where there is much more material made by and for Asian Americans.
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“Instead of just doing theater and being seen by 600 people in a four-week run, [nowadays] you need to have a video presence,” says Hornbuckle. “And that’s a whole different ballgame. We have to be more visual and less verbal.”
“Also, many millenials, who are more than half our age, have a lot of exposure to media images that are positive and self-generated, and their perception of negative stereotypes that are connected to civil rights issues is different now,” says Watanabe. “So even though Asian Americans are still underrepresented, it used to be more black and white—no representation versus f-cked up representation. Now, [the discussion] requires more nuance.”
That said, as they’ve gotten older, Watanabe believes the wealth of material they can draw from has only opened up. “That’s part of having a community be marginalized for so long,” he says. “There are still so many stories behind us that haven’t been told, but now we have everything that’s unfolded since we started, as well as what young people are experiencing now an how it’ll affect their future.”
Another byproduct of being around long enough to be celebrating their 20th anniversary is that their comedy has spanned two generations of parody-worthy North Korean dictators: the late Kim Jong-il and current leader Kim Jong-un.
Asked to ruminate on the differing comic potentials between father and son, Hornbuckle says, “I think the difference is that we were hoping Kim Jong-un would be different because he has a glossier veneer. But turns out he’s just the same!”
Watanabe jumps in. “Yeah, he’s palling around with Dennis Rodman and seemingly more modern, but then he’ll also have his uncle and ex-girlfriend executed. He’s hip but deadly.” “Now we have to write a Kim Jong-un sketch for the San Diego show!” declares Hornbuckle. “Might as well. He’s hot now. Plus, between now and then, he’ll probably do something crazy.”
18 Mighty Mountain Warriors will perform April 18-20 as part of the Pacific Arts Movement’s annual Spring Showcase. For more information, visit www.18mmw.org.
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This article was published in the April 2014 issue of KoreAm. Subscribe today! To purchase a single issue copy of the April issue, click the “Buy Now” button below. (U.S. customers only. Expect delivery in 5-7 business days).
