I have some wonderful new tattoos on my ass by the incredible Cris Cleen, who I love, and I posted a picture of them on twitter, which got many favorable comments but there were two negative ones, and I blew a fucking gasket. I screamed out loud and tracked the perps down and blocked them, but not before really ramming it to them in the strongest language I could use. It was over the top and really kind of ridiculous, but I cannot help myself.
Some outside facebook observer said that my “language” was too much and told me that I had “lost a fan” because she couldn’t condone my “language”. I am sorry for that, as I love my fans, and it sucks to lose one, but obviously she doesn’t understand that when you grow up the way that I did, with kids at school throwing rocks at my face because they hated it because it was so ugly to them and they wanted the blood from my wounds to cover it so it wouldn’t have to be seen and at summer camps stuffed dog shit in my sleeping bag because I was told time and again that I looked like shit – and that I had to empty myself in the dark forest and still sleep in smelling that shit all that night and for weeks after because my family was too poor to afford a new one, my “language” is on the strong side. I apologize for offending the former fan, but I am only myself. That is all I can be, and if I must apologize for that, I don’t mind. All I am trying to say is that no young girl should be told she is ugly. If she is, you kill her spirit, and she may grow up like me, and lose a fan.
I grew up hard and am still hard and I don’t care. I did not choose this face or this body and I have learned to live with it and love it and celebrate it and adorn it with tremendous drawings from the greatest artists in the world and I feel good and powerful like a nation that has never been free and now after many hard won victories is finally fucking free. I am beautiful and I am finally fucking free.
I fly my flag of self esteem for all those who have been told they were ugly and fat and hurt and shamed and violated and abused for the way they look and told time and time again that they were ‘different’ and therefore unlovable. Come to me and I will tell you and show you how beautiful and loved you are and you will see it and feel it and know it and then look in the mirror and truly believe it. If you are offended by my anger and my might at defending my borders and my people you do not deserve entry into my beloved and magnificent country.
If you were raised lovingly and told you were perfect and beautiful and loved and the best at all things, I am just jealous. You had it much better, and so you really should spread that love around as opposed to judging those like me who never had that, never knew what it was like and never could even imagine it. I could learn from you instead of feeling judged by you. Give the less loved and less cared for and less treasured a chance. If I had that opportunity, then my language and attitude might not be so offensive. If I had been told once when I was a little girl that I was pretty (other than when I was being sexually molested – that doesn’t count) it might have made me nicer. It just didn’t happen. So I had to make do and make up for it myself. And that made me a bit on the edgy side. It made me a bit of a bitch.
When someone says something negative about my face or body I will always and forever just completely lose my shit, because I have so much hatred in me, a violence that lies just beneath the surface of my delightfully illustrated skin. Being called ugly and fat and disgusting to look at from the time I could barely understand what the words meant has scarred me so deep inside that I have learned to hunt, stalk, claim, own and defend my own loveliness and my image of myself as stunningly gorgeous with a ruthlessness and a defensiveness that I fear for anyone who casually or jokingly questions it, as my anger and rage combined with my intense and fearsome command of words create insults meant to maim, kill and destroy.
Things I could say should be left unheard and unsaid because I am not willing to be the bigger person. I do not take the high road. I take the low road and blows below the belt are my absolute favorite. The best revenge is not living well. The best revenge is revenge. My mouth and mind and typing fingers are weapons of mass destruction and I pity those ignorant idiots who would leave insults about mine or any women’s bodies in comment boxes because there’s ways of hunting people down. Lots and lots of ways. It’s not as anonymous as they think, as stupid as they are.
I’d like to say things that would haunt them for the rest of their days, because their hideous words stay with me eternally. Their insipid spouts of “no fat chicks” are branded onto my soul, so they must reap what they sow. If I am in my worst way and I talk to you, you will know you have been talked to. I want to punish you with the unforgettable shit you will take to your grave and hurt you long after you are dead in the ground. may my poison bore holes in your dry, decaying bones. I am not proud of this, but it’s just the way this life has made me.
I want to defend the children that we still are inside, the fragile sensitive souls who no matter how much we tried were still told we were not good enough. I want to make the world safe and better and happy for us. We deserve beauty, love, respect, admiration, kindness and compassion. If we don’t get it, there will be hell to pay. I am no saint, but I am here for you and me. I am here for us, and I am doing the best I can.
Wow! Thank you for posting this. I can relate to some of this pain, not quite in the same degree that you suffered, but I was someone who as a kid was made fun of for *everything* – braces, glasses, my name, the fact that I participated in class, you name it. I can relate to the feelings of hatred and rage and wanting to lose your shit. I’ve often thought that those feelings of rage meant there was something wrong with me; after all, that meanness I experienced happened in grade school. I’m in my 40s now so I should get over it, right? But sometimes it still creeps up on me, and I swallow it because I’m afraid if I lose it I will just scare others away since they have no clue where it really comes from. I guess what I’m trying to say is that its good to know I’m not alone in having these feelings. So thanks again for sharing your thoughts in your blog. I appreciate your bravery in sharing your experiences for others.
You’re awesome and amazing and I love every single word of this.
“I want to make the world safe and better and happy for us. We deserve beauty, love, respect, admiration, kindness and compassion. If we don’t get it, there will be hell to pay. I am no saint, but I am here for you and me. I am here for us, and I am doing the best I can.” – love this. You are an amazing, beautiful woman, and I love your new tattoos!
I didn’t think that it was possible to love you more. I have the same streak, a mile wide, when revisiting my youth growing up in horrid Montgomery Alabama. Italian, catholic, and weird…I can still feel every word, every laugh at my expense, and the rage that simply will not go away. And I don’t give a fuck.
If you’re my friend, I will lay down on the tracks for you. If you cross me or mock me, no amount of shoving will dislodge the death wish I’ll harbor in my heart for you. It’s easy to say “let it go” when you haven’t been crushed systematically for years.
Keep doing the best you can.
You’re gorgeous. xo
–gina in atlanta
Love you and just got to know you today when reading this (someone cool shared it on Facebook!!) May this life bless you and help you heal all the pain caused by stupid and ignorant people. Have a good weekend!
Margaret…love your shows and cd’s….bullies and sociopaths that you have survived are encouraged by the silence of the masses, even admired in a perverse way…check out ‘The Sociopath’…
Keep fighting girl!
You have also gained fans. What a beautiful and important message. People are sensitive and fragile, even when they don’t seem that way. Especially when they don’t seem that way. We should treat them as such.
I’m sorry you went through what you did, but I have to thank you for sharing this, I also found it on Facebook through a friend. While I have gone through my share of abuse, the hatred that I harbor for certain individuals and the anger that can and most likely erupts from me…. has stemmed because it. And for so long I have tried to forgive, tried to change the evil ways in which I think, and I can’t.
I am a hateful bitch unfortunately. But I am also the most loving and loyal to my family and friends, however it is inevitable that someone will do me wrong and I lose it.
I am not proud of these feelings and thoughts, but they are me. And you are the first person I have found that feels the same way…
Keep marching on and may you be able to develop laser beams to shoot from your eyes.
FUCK YES. I love you. I’m posting this on the Loud in the House of Myself Facebook page and telling every single Strange Girl there to read it and live by it. From one bullied tattooed chick to another, you fucking rock.
This is why you are amazing! And I like many other feel that your rage and your language are more than justified! Thank you for being brave in the face of Hollywood fallacy and bullshit to remind everyone that they are fucking gorgeous!
Margaret, I have been your fan since the days when you were figuring out what to do about idiots who thought you were too fat to be a celebrity. It hurt me then and this idiot so-called fan hurts me now in his/her attempt to hurt you some more.
I just have one question:since your language doesn’t seem to me to have changed much since those bad old days, how did you ever GET a fan who gives a fuck about your language?
I love you, Margaret Cho; I have loved you since the day I first laid eyes on your BEAUTIFUL SELF. Keep on truckin’, girl; you fucking rock!
Dear Margaret,
Your tattoo is brilliant, and so is your rage. I am always horrified at the capacity for cruelty in human beings. If their meanness wasn’t so damaging, it would be laughable to think that a few low characters could have any effect on a bright and shiny child. Bullies all, and good on you for broadcasting their sins.
Margaret ;
You have gained a fan ~ I admire your strength, however I am sorry for your journey to that point. ” I want to make the world safe and better and happy for us. We deserve beauty, love, respect, admiration, kindness and compassion…” and also learn ways to protect our children (our inner child as well) from hate and judgement.
Peace to your spirit ~
Hi Margaret,
For that one fan you lost, I do believe you’ve gained a thousand more. You’re are beautiful…..you’re butt looked lovely!
Love,
Liz ——@
still a fan!!! love your strength!!! be the voice for those who can’t…xo
Damn girl! Super cute “draws” with the bows!! I need to step up my game! lol Beautiful tatts too!!
Never let them see you sweat. Some of the most strikingly beautiful adult women I know were *tortured* growing up because they were such gangly weird-looking kids. Hateful kids grow up to be miserable empty adults with nothing better to do than troll a successful and confident person’s pics and try to slap them down a few notches – because confidence and self assurance really burns their ass.
Speaking of burning ass, at my sleep away camp we had a “perfect” girl with an entourage of body glittered pre-pubescent boot-lickers who were all bent on making my friend and me miserable. I became very good friends with one of the girls at camp who was a total tomboy just like me. We rode horses, went boating, played soccer and had a blast every day until this girl started tearing us down for being ugly (no make-up or plucked eyebrows for us at 12.) She had been calling us gay and had the entire camp making fun of us. (I already had a pretty good idea my friend was gay and she knew I wasn’t, but I certainly wasn’t going to call her out.) To make a long story shorter, the bullying escalated until they had my friend unconsolably crying and she wouldn’t leave her bed in our bunk for dinner. Late that night I quietly got out of bed, grabbed every pair of that mean bitch’s totally-inappropriate-for-a-12-yr-old underwear out of her cubby on my side of the room, walked out of our cabin and drug every last pair through a patch of poison ivy, walked back in and stuffed them back in her cubby. When her rash finally kicked in one afternoon and I saw her trying to scratch discreetly, I waited until we were changing into our swimsuits and when she was standing there in a corner bare-assed I loudly announced to everyone that she had a vicious looking STD. She had to pack her bags and go home that week. I had awful poison ivy on my fingers and wrists by then and tried to cover it. One of her friends saw it when we were alone at the sink washing our hands, so I tried to be a hard ass. I just stared at her in the mirror without saying a word – she didn’t tell and no one f**ked with us after that.
In other words, we would have burned down their LIVES and pissed on the ashes for messing with your sleeping bag if you went to our camp. Don’t take any literal or figurative shit from haters, Margaret Cho; you’re too cool for that. We’ve got your back!
you are my newest heroin(e). namaste
I don’t know what to say…ever since I saw you on TV, you’ve been my HERO…I don’t want to say \heroine\ these female versions of Heroes…but you are THE ULTIMATE ASIAN HERO. You’re funny, cracking jokes faster than lightning and your insights into life as an Asian woman truly made me feel \i am not alone.\ I did not have the same childhood experiences as you but having grown up with a mother who continues to this day tells me that I am fat and no one wants me, I have now gotten married and with children, because i thought \he is the only one willing to marry me, better get on this train.\ i am unhappy with him, i don’t feel better about myself, and with two children, it’s difficult to step out from this situation. I look in the mirror very few times in a week, i don’t sometimes realize what i look like. I don’t take photos of myself very often but after your words, I realize that I’m killing my own spirit. This has been a wonderful therapy for me to have read your article. Thank you for sticking up for those of us having endured emotional abuses and cutting down like that. we were silent before but no longer.i you’re an inspiration and now that i’ve found your site, it’s become an awesome day. I hope one day that I can come to one of your shows to see you live. It would be awesome 🙂 XOXOXOXO and you ROCK!
You kick ass. I need to read more of your stuff.
Amen sister!! For what it’s worth I always thought of you as one of the skinny pretty girls when I was the ugly fat spik.
THANK YOU! I have 2 daughters and your words encourage me to bite my tongue if I EVER even think of saying something bad about the way they look. Thank you for the reminder. I needed to hear what you have to say. Thankfully, I grew up with European parents of a generation who did not think of \fat\ for real women with real flesh, but I still have taken on all sorts of narrow ideas about beauty. Your power is helpful. I need it to remind me. I am the first to defend any woman who is critical of her looks, but I leave myself out.
One of the most common ways people find my blog is by searching for the words \ass tattoo.\ YOU GO, MARGARET CHO!
Margaret,
I think you are beautiful. Period. I am in awe of your strength, your humor, and your ability to cut through shit with words.
I love you. thank you.
Bitch, don’t EVER apologize for who you are! You are fierce! (Obviously.) It’s fine to apologize for things you regret saying but when people deserve what you dish out, say it LOUDER! I am NOT sorry!
You article was amazing. I have lived in fear for so many years because of my body. Worry about what other people think of my size and looks knock me so far down that I just don’t have the desire or energy to get back up. I saw myself in the mirror the other day and have been so depressed. The others around me are so thin and pretty. I am sorry for all you have been through, but so you know your words have helped me a great deal. Thank you.
Thank you for loving yourself so fiercely. It makes me feel that maybe, just maybe, I can love myself.
Fuck the fan you lost. You just gained one to replace them. Your words have been carved into my brain so that next time I feel like shit I will remember them. Thank you.
God – THANK YOU! Fiercest, truest post EVAH!
~from a differently-bodied queer/femme 55-year-old dyke who is so OVER brutal body oppression
That butt is naaaasty, and should not have been posed on the internet.
Start doing some pilates, and drop the vegetarian diet, Cho. that’s a butt not even lesbians could love
I am in awe of you Margaret. For being a warrior and a leader. Anger and profanity might offend some. I welcome your truth. For standing up for you and for those of us who couldnt and cant, in the way that makes sense to you. Truth is many people need anger coming at them to shift. You are our avenging angel and I salute you. Letting people know you are not a pushover. Start a movement , we need to stop being polite to our abusers!
Margaret, I have always thought you were pretty. Ever since I was a kid in the 90s watching your standup and thinking how I wanted to be like you when I grew up. I would watch your specials after a boyfriend dumped me or my parents had a bad fight. I grew up to be a woman who doesn’t take shit. I beautiful woman who doesn’t take shit. Like you.
PS: Your ass looks hot.
This is amazing and has me in tears. You are beautiful Margaret and I don’t know to accurately put into words how much I love all you said here.
Dear Margaret,
You are beautiful. Your body is perfect–because it’s yours, and also because it is just perfect. You own it, and it is perfect. The child you were was also beautiful. I wish for you that you have a ton of love in your life, and that your beauty continues to shine through. Thanks for the inspiration today.
You are fucking BEAUTIFUL!!! I pretty much lived your childhood; with the lucky exception that I wasn’t molested. I was told every day, every morning that I was ugly and fat and useless. I’m 50 and I’m just learning to get that shit out of my head.
I would love to be able to communicate like you do. Rant and scream and type and tell all the venomous people in this world to FUCK OFF AND DIE. I will NOT back down, I will NOT take anyone’s shit, and I AM ME. I fucking rock.
Please keep on being yourself. We need you. We need your words. We need your anger. We need your FUCK YOU ASSHOLES. Thankyou.
As others have said, you are beautiful and amazing.
I love that you are a true force of nature and make so many people think about the shit they say to others.
You don’t need my approval, but please keep losing your shit on the haters.
It’s time that the abused started coming back at their attackers, and for witnesses to stand up to the abusers. We’ve stayed a silent community for too long. Abusers have been held up on a pedestal for too long instead of being put in the shit pile where they belong.
And for those on the other end of the spectrum, who were given the blessing of ‘beauty’, etc………..and who still deal with destructive behavior from others, I give you this quote ‘Once again men fail to realize women have a right to their own bodies and their dignity and rights are far above your ‘natural instincts’ as men to ‘be attracted’ to ‘women’s body parts’. It’s not all about you. This is objectification\
Ms. Cho, I read with great surprise that you were beaten and abused so much as you grew up….I know what it feels like. I grew up in a really rough inner city neighborhood and people loved to call me a “fag” and beat me up on a daily basis, as well as tell me everyday that I am ugly.
I have a wonderful, successful life in NYC now, but those wounds are still there, you know? I was really moved by what you said.
Also….for what it’s worth…I have been a big fan of yours since I was a teenager, and when I was in high school I had a big crush on you. I thought you were beautiful and sexy and awesome. I still do! I think you are an amazing, positive person who defies convention.
Thank you!!! I love you!!!
Thank you for standing up for yourself and for all people who differ from what others expect or want.
And, for what it’s worth, I think you are beautiful!
🙂
I’d never heard of you until a friend linked this post on her Facebook, and I read it. Very eloquent, and I’m grateful to have read it. The damage done to children who are put down, physically or in other ways, is so vast, it needs to be pointed out. And not always politely. There are boys and girls out there being bullied to the point of suicide. The scandal is not your words or your anger – it’s the ugliness poured on children and young people’s heads at a time in life when they most need encouragement and love.
BTW, gorgeous tattoo on your ass 🙂
I can’t for the life of me figure out what’s “wrong” with your face or body. It’s so sad you have gone through what you have.
I read this courtesy of Katie Macalister… I now count myself amongst your legion of fans and am grateful for the Border Security you provide. Ms Cho – you sincerely rock
Ah, “ugly”. I was tormented throughout grade school with it and it led to an eating disorder, unhealthy relationships in general, and ridiculously low self esteem for years. I was taunted, ostracized, and assaulted. It taught me not only to hate and be ashamed of myself, but that any girl who wasn’t “pretty” was lacking the most important, most indispensable, most valuable asset a girl could have. Never mind intelligence, kindness, humor- it was pretty that counted. I didn’t find pece until I took a job working with grade school kids and remembered how YOUNG they were. The voices and images and taunts I flashed I were always pictured or presented as being my age- no matter how old I was.
Love you. Love this post. Love your ass.
You are beautiful and you cannot deny that.
Thank you, Margaret.
This means so much to me, and to so many women.
I loved you from the first time I saw your stand up! You are beautiful and your tat looks great, those little punks are over, and not one of them is anywhere near as successful as you are.
Always a fan
Justin