Parodying the Nation: Cross-Dressing and Vietnamese American Comedy

Abstract

n 30 April 1975 the Vie.t Nam War ended with the Communist takeover of Sai Gon, the capital city in South Vie .t Nam. In the decades following the “fall” of Sai Gon, countless southern Vietnamese, many of whom were former US allies, fled to countries like the United States, France, and Australia and formed the beginnings of the Vietnamese diaspora. In the United States, California became the state where the largest Vietnamese community outside of Vie .t Nam chose to resettle. Fittingly, California is also now the “birthplace” of the cultural phenomenon that is the Vietnamese American variety show. Originating twenty-seven years ago, variety shows like Paris by Night, Asia, and Vân So’n are part of a major cultural industry produced for and by the Vietnamese diaspora. Extravagantly produced and lavishly financed, these shows feature dancing and singing that rival as well as borrow from the kinds of spectacles seen in Bollywood and Hollywood. Catering to their diasporic audience and history, the shows’ producers often pay homage to the politics of southern Vietnamese culture and are censured if these tributes are not performed properly. As these shows and their popularity demonstrate, for the Vietnamese diaspora, the popular is highly political, the confluence of which recently ignited a controversial event within the Vietnamese American community. In 2010, during a summer concert for Vietnamese singer Ðam Vĩnh Hu’ng in San Jose, California, Vietnamese American dissident Lý Tống dressed up as a woman, approached the singer onstage, and sprayed mace in the singer’s face.3 Lý Tống’s act of political theater was aimed at “Mr. Ðam” (as the gay singer is known to his fans) because the pop singer is understood by an anti-Communist Vietnamese American community to be a member of the Communist Party in Vie .t Nam. O Parodying the Nation: