With Gratitude

—-Original Message—–
From: Sara Benincasa
Sent: Sunday, May 14, 2006
To: margaretcho
Subject: Thank you for inspiring me to become a stand-up comic

Dear Margaret,

I have been listening to your CDs/watching your performances (via DVD and TV) for a number of years now, but only in the past 3 years have I truly come to understand the magnitude of your impact on American popular culture, stand-up comedy, and me.

I am 25, and first encountered your work when I was 14. Over the past eleven years, your work slowly helped heal the ethnic, religious, sexual and gender-related prejudices I brought from my childhood. You helped me to heal my ignorance, and you continue to do so. Your work, as well as the work of outspoken artists and writers like Michael Moore, the Dalai Lama, Sandra Bernhard, Bruce Bawer, SARK and Chris Rock, played a large role in ensuring that I grew up to become a socially conscious adult willing to sit with the questions and to be comfortable with the fact that no one has the ultimate answer.

In my childhood, I did not understand the immense importance of your presence on the American pop culture scene. I did not comprehend the enormity of the impact that you made as a groundbreaking, Asian-American, female, feminist, queer comic. I did not know the burden and the blessings that any and all of these labels bestow.

I understood your comedy on a superficial level, and enjoyed it, but it would be a long time past eighth grade when I finally appreciated the badass revolutionary qualities you embody.

As I have grown, I have watched your work evolve and change. Your unhinged rants showed me that rage can be funny. Your unabashed political opinions showed me that it was okay to talk about real stuff, important stuff, serious stuff, onstage. Your bravery in speaking about your sexuality helped me to finally, at the age of 24, be able to admit to myself and to others that I was attracted to women as well as men. Your honesty about food troubles and triumphs informs and validates my own periodic struggle with eating.

A boyfriend once told me, “I’m afraid that if you continue to gain weight, I won’t be physically attracted to you anymore.” I was 5’3″ and 130 pounds. I know you have heard things like this, all kinds of things from all kinds of people–intimate relations to total strangers. I know because you have told the world about it and have refused to stay silent and compliant. When that guy finally dumped me, I looked in the mirror and said, “I’m never going to allow someone to speak to me that way again.” Then I took out my copy of “The Notorious C.H.O.” and gave it a good listen.

Today I am a high school teacher by day and a stand-up comic by night. I doubt I would have thought I had anything worthy of being heard in a comedy club or a theatre if I hadn’t encountered your work as a kid. I get on the mic in large part because you got on the mic.

Thank you for continuing to affirm that you are beautiful and that everyone has the ability to be beautiful.

Thank you for also sharing your shitty selfishness and acknowledging that we all can be shitty and selfish and still unbelievably lovable.

Thank you for posting the blog entry “No Time for Suicide” (an early one, I believe). I just read your blog for the first time today and spent about three hours pondering the things I discovered.

Thank you for sharing your ups and downs. It is draining sometimes, I know, but you keep on keepin’ on.

Someday, when you are 85 and selling out Carnegie Hall and they make an award-winning and popular documentary about it, I hope to be one of the wrinkled gray talking heads making comments like, “Ah, yes, I remember back in my young days, when I first saw Margaret Cho. We watched what we called ‘television’ back then and we didn’t have much to do, as this was before hoverboards were invented. I have to say, I wouldn’t have been such a ginormous earth-shattering blindingly fabulous success as a comic if it hadn’t been for Margaret’s example.”

I hope to see your show in Englewood (always up ta no good!) in August.

Thank you for being imperfect and not afraid to show it. You are aware of your power as a public person and, like all superhero/ines, you use your power for good rather than evil.

With gratitude,
Sara Benincasa
www.myspace.com/sarabenincasa