The One We Want Margaret Cho on Fame and Feminism

by Nicole Seymour
 

Margaret Cho has been to hell and back. Emphasis on the back. In 1996, after making herself a household name with numerous television specials and popular stand-up appearances, Cho was given her own sitcom, “All-American Girl,” on ABC. It was the first (and so far, the only) American television program to feature a predominately Asian cast. But soon, critics were lambasting the program, viewers were accusing Cho both of not being Asian enough and of being too ethnic, and the producers were telling Cho she was too fat. During “All-American Girl”’s downward spiral (it was canceled after only seven months), Cho initiated a tabloid-worthy plan of self-destruction.  It included drug and alcohol abuse, promiscuous sex and severe dieting. The results were devastating. As she explains in her show and on her E! “Celebrity Profile,” she went through kidney failure after losing 30 pounds in two weeks. She also confesses that, during some of her live comedy acts, she had to grab the microphone stand because she was too drunk to actually stand up. She had hit the proverbial rock bottom. But then Cho started climbing back up. She radically changed her lifestyle, cutting out everything from booze to dairy products, and started writing new material. This past summer, she hit the comedy circuit with a one-woman show called “I’m The One That I Want.” The critically acclaimed production tackles this painful period of her life with brutal honesty and humor. On February 26, 2000, the outspoken, pro-feminist, self-described “shit-starter,” now 30 years old, will bring her show to Los Angeles’ Wiltern Theater. (Tickets are available through Ticketmaster.) On a rare break from her busy schedule, Cho talked to FEM about her new show, her re-directed life, and her views on feminism. You’ve been getting some of the best reviews of your career for “I’m the One that I Want. Is this critical response really validating, or are you at the point in your life where it really doesn’t matter to you what other people think? To me, the success of the show, the critical response, is wonderful, only because it allows me to perform for more people and to get my message out there, in the media more. It’s so important. I think what I’m doing is so much about self-love and self-reliance and those are messages that we don’t see very much in our society. Especially in women’s culture, it’s like there’s all these things directed at self-loathing and self-hatred, and trying to find a way to fix yourself-buy the right makeup or the right skin care products or get the right man. And for me it’s just be and love and enjoy who you are, and I think those messages are really threatening to the status quo. But that’s what I’m all about. I used to really associate fame with self-worth. And that kind of applause and all the acclaim really fed my ego, and that was really dangerous because when it’s gone, then you feel like you’re nothing as person, your self-worth is really determined by the actions and opinions of other people. And I found out that’s just not the way to live. I almost destroyed myself because I was that way for so long. Did you found it difficult to create humor out of something that was so painful for you? It was really painful but it was also deeply darkly funny. The whole thing was so absurd and grotesque that it was like, hilarious. That’s why I survived, because I was able to laugh at it, throughout the whole thing. Do you ever feel as if you’re sacrificing too much of your privacy in order to make people laugh, that your life is too much of an open book? Oh, no. I don’t think so. Other people do! That’s the unfortunate part of my work sometimes-I really delve into truth and I deal with truth, and sometimes my truth includes other people who do not want their lives used as art and they just can’t deal. And that’s another part of my life, that I have the ability to share with an audience. And it doesn’t make [my life experiences] any less profound because I use them, I think it amplifies them somehow. Do you ever worry that publicly criticizing people (such as the ABC brass) will have negative repercussions on your career? Well, it’s true. I don’t think it matters. I don’t think there’s such a thing as blacklisting yourself. It’s not like I’m indicting them. Ultimately, all the things that happened to me were my fault because I knew what the system was like and I entered into it fully knowing what would happen, and really just playing along. My crime, too, was that I tried to be what I wasn’t and that’s where I was destroying myself. I put myself in the hospital, I did all these things. It’s not really like I’m blaming the network or anything, I’m just talking about what happened. Plus, you know, there’s such a high turnover rate-all those people are gone now. In network television, the turnover is faster than McDonald’s. I know you’re considered to be an icon in the gay community, because you are very vocal about gay issues. Do you feel that you have gotten the same kind of recognition from feminists because you speak out about women’s issues? Yeah, I hope so. I think that that really is such an important thing and I really am such a feminist, in my heart of hearts, I’m so much of one. And I guess that I take it for granted that everybody would know that. But yeah, I do get a lot of wonderful support from feminists, from women, and that’s really such a great thing. Has feminism always been an integral part of your work and your life in general? Oh yes, absolutely. It’s so important. And especially for women in comedy, it’s so hard because it’s such a male dominated industry, and even though we may achieve success professionally-all the women in comedy that I know are very successful-we will never get the respect from the guys. We cannot buy it, we cannot get it. And there’s a closed door we will never enter because comedy is like the last bastion of male supremacy; there’s this male-dominant attitude that even though we can achieve success in the world, we will never really get the boys to give it up. And that is one of the most frustrating aspects of comedy. It’s totally infuriating and that’s why all the women I know in comedy are warriors. We’re all warriors and we all band together and are very very connected. And is that [sexism] mostly on the part of male comedians themselves, or is it also an audience thing? It’s just the comics. Plus, I think if you’re in comedy, you’re kind of fucked up anyway, and so many male comics have so many women issues and just can’t deal with women in any way. You work so hard in your career and get really far and you get the money and the acclaim…and you still don’t get the respect from the guys. It’s heartbreaking, but it’s just more fuel for the fire. There’s a tendency among female celebrities to not speak in overtly feminist terms, to kind of want to blend in with everyone else and not make a fuss about sexism—and the same goes for race. Have you ever felt the pressure to do the same? Yeah. I think that when you don’t acknowledge sexism and you don’t acknowledge that you’re a feminist and you don’t acknowledge that you’re a person of color, it’s a way of saying, ‘I’m just like a white man. Just treat me like a white man because I don’t think race and sex is important.’ And I think that’s wrong because that in a way is separating yourself from the feminist cause and from the culture that you’re from because you’re saying, ‘I’m not like THEM.’ Even though you’re trying to convey this message that you’re above that, what you’re saying is that I’m excluding myself from that, so that there’s no unity there. I think that the “system” would rather have us separated so that you don’t have a common voice. And that is one of the subtle ways where we ourselves separate and dissipate our power. That’s wrong. You said in your show that you’ll be around until “the next Korean-American, fag-hag, shit-starter” comedian comes along. Do you ever feel as if you are treated as a novelty because you are always thought of in those terms? Yes, but it’s almost like because I’m so many of those terms—it’s like a big bag of labels—that to me it’s just fun. I think that word has been used against me a lot, like, ‘she’s a novelty.’ With male comics-it’s almost like they’re a voice in my head that tries to keep me down, they’re my glass ceiling-they’ve said things like, ‘oh the only reason she’s made it is that she’s Korean, or that she’s a Korean woman.’ And it’s like, oh, if that’s the only reason, how come all Korean women aren’t famous? You talk a lot in your new show about how you’ve really come to love yourself, and the title seems to be a reflection on that. Has it been a greater struggle to accept yourself than to have your family or the public accept you? Oh yeah, certainly. It’s been a struggle but once you do that, it’s like life becomes so much easier. You know, I’m just so glad to get to this point in my life. And that’s why I’m doing this show, so I can help other people get there too. Because once we have that, we don’t need anything else. Having gone through the experience of severe weight loss and ending up in the hospital, how has your body image changed-and do you still feel as if your weight is made an issue? It’s really not an issue, although because I’ve talked about it and shared my experience, that has made a lot of people look at me as a weight spokesperson. That’s neither here nor there, it’s fine. I just think it’s really unfortunate what Hollywood does to women. It’s seen now as an epidemic, where it has always been something that has existed. It’s been a systematic oppression of women that has happened since the beginning of time, it’s something that we have dealt with for so long. To me, weight issues are so profoundly painful for me to discuss. It wouldn’t affect us anymore if we just cared for ourselves and loved ourselves the way we are. Do you have any plans for after the tour or are you just concentrating on that for right now? I have to do a lot of things during the tour. Next week I’m going to go shoot the film version of the show in San Francisco, and that’s going to be in production the entire time I’m on tour [until June of 2000], so I’ll be returning to edit and mix the film. And during that period I’m also writing a book, my memoir, which is going to span my entire career, my whole life. And that will hopefully be out in spring of 2001, and in conjunction with that I’m writing another show. So there’s a lot of activity.