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Margaret Cho: "I'm not a motivational speaker, but a comedian who wants to change her focus."
Comedian
continues
‘Revolution’
By Gary C.W. Chun
gchun@starbulletin.com"I think you just might be the funniest, most vulgar and most fabulous person in the world."
Margaret Cho: The Revolution Tour in Hawaii:
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On tour
>> Saturday: 7:30 p.m. at the Waikiki Shell. Tickets are $35 and $45 reserved and $25 general, available at the Blaisdell Arena box office and all TicketPlus outlets. Charge by calling 526-4400.
>> April 13: 7:30 p.m. at the Castle Theatre of the Maui Arts & Cultural Center. Tickets are $29.50 and $45 reserved, available at the center box office. Charge by calling 808-242-7469.
That's typical of the e-mails Margaret Cho receives from her fans. With her new "Revolution Tour" passing through the islands this weekend, you can be sure that she'll continue to champion tolerance for all, regardless of race and sexual persuasion, all while keeping the laughter going.
Following the positive welcome of her two previous tours and concert films "I'm the One That I Want" and the raunchy "Notorious C.H.O.," the comedian has continued to build on a foundation of personal and professional self-empowerment that was reduced to its lowest after the cancellation of her ABC series "All-American Girl" in 1995. Although kidney failure due to a crash diet and subsequent drug and alcohol abuse wreaked havoc on her body and spirit back then, her sense of humor always remained intact.
Ironically, the "All-American Girl" title has since been co-opted by the same network for a reality series full of blond-haired, blue-eyed kewpies by the creators of "American Idol."
But no matter. The Korean-American comedian is a survivor and has done a lot of maturing over that nine-year period without sacrificing one iota of her outrageous observations, especially when it concerns the misadventures in her life. It's always a delight when she channels her mom by scrunching up her pliable face and slipping into her heavily accented voice.
The 34-year-old Cho's life now functions in a comfortable, recurring cycle: putting a show together, touring, promoting the home video version, then returning to her personal life again to rest and begin gathering material for her next show.
Marriage to a longtime German friend and artist is also in the offing, with June 13 set as their wedding date.
"THE REVOLUTION TOUR" kicked off on the mainland early last month, and Cho spoke about the tour by phone from her Burbank, Calif., home.
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"This is a very political show and less overtly sexual than my previous ones. I want to address racial, social and economic issues -- but it's still funny."
She recently received the 2003 "Justice in Action" Award, along with Bhairavi Desai of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, from the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund "for their work to advance the cause of racial and economic justice."
"It's really a beautiful thing to get this award because it's really enduring work being Asian American in the entertainment industry." (One can't help but notice that the personable Cho is 180 degrees apart from her onstage persona, meaning she's a lot quieter.) "It's a very generous award, but I feel modest about it and tend to get very embarrassed about such recognition."
But as you can imagine with a title like "The Revolution Tour," "this is a very political show and less overtly sexual than my previous ones. I want to address racial, social and economic issues, but it's still funny. I don't want to be a politician, but I've changed a lot as a person.
"I don't want to just come off as a blowhard. I'm not a motivational speaker, but a comedian who wants to change her focus, and there's some things I want to address," including, of recent, a certain war in Iraq.
"How others deal with my ethnicity has always been a struggle to me in the way I've grown up," she said, "so it's important in the way I talk about it, and it's a joy to share that with the audience."
That includes addressing "the subtle racism that Asian Americans get, that casual racial discrimination and the frustration behind questions like 'What are you? I can't tell you apart.' I mean, what's the point behind statements like these? It's not like we're doughnuts. Most Americans like to homogenize all people, and they don't consider things like that as racist. It's too much of a loaded thing and very weird.
"Hawaii is very different from the rest of the United States. I think it's the true meaning of Asia-America -- where else can you get dim sum at a 7-Eleven? I feel very happy there. This is what being an Asian American is all about, and it's really thrilling."
EVEN THOUGH television has not been kind to her career, she's willing to give it another shot, but this time "doing something like a news show -- not like Jon Stewart, but more like Bill O'Reilly. Now, he's an amazing example of what entitlement to opinion is, but I wouldn't be as horrible as he is. Sometimes I want to slap all of those kinds of people."
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"I'm not a role model, I don't play violin and have elegant, nice things about me."
Cho realizes she can't kowtow to any idealized notion of what a Korean American should be. "I'm not a role model. I don't play violin and have elegant, nice things about me," she said.
"There's this misunderstanding about Korean culture. The way I understand it, it's a backhanded compliment kind of culture -- that is, when you're openly praised by somebody, that's looked at as a negative thing because things are never good enough. I didn't connect with this till later in my life, but most Korean Americans like me, of the second and third generation, understand this.
"It's not the most egalitarian culture around -- I mean, if you're not a man, that's a bit troubling, and as a girl I didn't learn to play the cello or violin at the age of 3. But instead of a musical prodigy, I consider myself a comedic prodigy."
But it took someone of the same ethnicity to keep her comedy juices flowing: "I remember seeing Johnny Yune on 'The Tonight Show' in the late '70s, and I was inspired by him. It was so thrilling to see a Korean comic on American TV. It's hard for me to express how exciting it was to see this guy set up the audience by saying he wants to tell an old Korean joke, say it in Korean, nobody understands it, and then laugh his ass off! He was marvelous, and I hear he's doing a TV show back in South Korea."
Cho is also happy that other, younger Asian-American comics like Kevin Kataoka, Bobby Lee and Kate Rigg, "that whole crop of people coming up, I find that exciting, and I'm flattered that they think of me as an inspiration."
And she keeps everything on the positive tip. When asked for her reaction to one of the few negative reviews of her act, it's the only time her voice hardens.
"I don't read reviews, only my fan mail," she said. "I do that because I think it's weird to be dependent on how you view your work through reviews. It only distorts performers' vision of themselves -- to make a career, your livelihood, dependent on whether someone with a newspaper likes you.
"I don't f--ing give a s--. Stuff like that will never affect my work." After a short pause, she apologizes by saying, "Now you're probably scared of me," in a smaller, quizzical voice. "I didn't mean to get riled up like that."
But I tell her that's OK, it's nothing personal -- you know, just doing my job. When push comes to shove, Margaret Cho, as she so aptly ended "I'm the One That I Want," will make you want to listen to her in between the gales of laughter.
"I'm gonna stay here and rock the mike until the next Korean-American fag hag, s-- starter, girl comic, trash talker, comes up and takes my place."
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