Margaret Cho

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Image:Margaret-cho001.jpg Margaret Cho (born Moran Cho on December 5, 1968 in San Francisco, California) is a Korean-American comedian and actress.

1 Biography
2 Quotations
3 Bibliography
4 Filmography
5 Discography
6 Tours
7 External links

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Biography

Cho won the American Comedy Award for Best Female Comedian in 1994. She made television history that year by being the first female Asian American to have a television series based around her. (The first Asian American of either gender to have his own television show was the late Pat Morita who starred in the 1976 Mr. T and Tina on ABC. The second Asian American to be top-billed in a TV show was Gedde Watanabe in ABC's Gung Ho in 1986, based on the film of the same name.) Cho's sitcom called All American Girl, was quickly canceled after suffering major content changes over the course of one season. Cho's desperation to make the show a success led to decisions that affected her health negatively. Her rapid weight loss in order to complete the pilot episode caused serious kidney failure. The program was also problematic because much of the humor was based on broad Asian stereotypical portrayals of her relatives.

Since then, Cho has had several successful one-woman shows. The first, called I'm the One That I Want, dealt with her difficulties breaking into show business due to her ethnicity and weight. The 2000 film version became the highest-grossing film in history in proportion to the number of prints ($1.4 million with only 9 prints). The second, 2002's Notorious C.H.O. (the title a spoof on rap artist Lil' Kim's album The Notorious K.I.M., and that in turn being a tribute to Lil' Kim's late boyfriend's nickname "The Notorious B.I.G.") dealt with her having been raised in 1970s San Francisco and her own bisexuality. Both tours spawned live movie versions, albums, and books.

Much of her comedy is quite sexually explicit; some of her favorite subjects include her fondness for gay men and proud identity as a "fag hag," sharp political commentary, descriptions of her problems with prejudice, substance abuse, and eating disorders, and her relationship with her mother, which she loves to satirize. She has comedically mentioned her plans to "cover her vagina with leaves" because of her belief that falling in to such a trap was the only way that someone would enter it. In the same vein, she has also opined that if one doesn't have sex for a long time, say two years, then one's virginity is automatically earned back. ("I have a vagina I'm not using. Would any of you like to have it?") The poster for her first one-woman show (and film), I'm the One That I Want, featured her holding her arms out as if gripping a steering wheel but with her index finger extended, an allusion to a long joke she tells involving the rides home after using digital rectal stimulation as a means to expeditiously complete oral favors for men.

In 2003, she filmed another stand-up film, Revolution, released in 2004. She also began an internet presence with the advent of http://www.margaretcho.com and her daily weblog. She began to draw intense fire from conservatives over her fiercely anti-Bush commentary; a live performance in Houston, Texas, was threatened with picketing. Although protesters never showed up, she held a counter protest outside the club until security told her she had to go inside.

One of Cho's core base of fans has always been the gay and lesbian community, and she is always a supportive and sympathetic advocate of that group. After SF Mayor Gavin Newsom initiated same-sex marriages in San Francisco in 2004, Cho started Love is Love is Love, a website promoting the legalization of gay marriage in the United States.

In 2004, Cho was performing at a corporate gig in a hotel when, after 10 minutes, her microphone was cut off and a band was instructed to begin playing. Cho claims this was because the manager of the hotel was offended by anti-Bush-administration comments. Cho's payment, which was issued by way of check directly to a non-profit organization, West Memphis 3, initially bounced but was eventually honored.[1][2] In July 2004 during the Democratic National Convention, Cho was un-invited to speak at a Human Rights Campaign/National Stonewall Democrats fundraiser because of fear that her comments might cause controversy.

In late 2004, Cho began work on her first self-written and starring film role. The movie is called Bam Bam and Celeste and is a low-budget comedy about a fag hag and her gay best friend. The film co-stars Cho's friend and co-touring act Bruce Daniels. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2005.

In 2005, Cho started promoting and touring with her new show Assassin. The show became her fourth live concert film, and premiered on the gay and lesbian premium cable network Here! TV in September of 2005. This is the first time in Cho's DVD's in which she includes herself in when talking about gays, saying "we" and "our community." Posters for Assassin feature Cho in paratrooper gear holding a microphone in the style of an automatic rifle, a reference to the infamous 1974 photo of heiress Patty Hearst.

Also in 2005, Cho released her second book I Have Chosen to Stay and Fight, a compilation of essays and prose about global politics, human rights, and other topical issues. Cho launched a national book tour in support of the collection. An audio reading of the book was also released. A DVD of a live taping of the Assassin tour was released in conjunction with the book.

Cho has dated Quentin Tarantino (who appeared on an episode of her sitcom as a favor), Chris Isaak, and Garrett Wang. In 2003, she married Al Ridenour, an artist involved in the creation Cacophony Society, basis for Chuck Palahniuk's book Fight Club.

Cho has three dogs, all adopted. They are Ralph (as in Ralph Fiennes); Bronwyn, named for a car; and Gudrun, named after 1970s German terrorist Gudrun Ensslin of the Baader-Meinhof Gang, and the Norse Valkyrie Gudrun [3][4][5].

In 2006 Cho took up bellydancing and started her own custom line of bellydancing accessories which are sold through her website. She also had extensive tattooing done to cover the majority of her back. She co-wrote and starred in a sitcom pilot based around the "Mommy" character of her stand-up, but it was not picked up. She began releasing comedic rap animated videos on her website under the moniker "M.C. M.C." (Master of Ceremonies Margaret Cho,) including the tracks "Finger" and "Roofies".

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Quotations

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I just don't get it. People come up to me and ask me where I'm from and it's such a loaded question. And I'll say 'I'm from San Francisco,' and they lean in and whisper 'No, I mean where are you REALLY from?' And then I have to say 'Well, my parents are originally from Korea.' And then I have to listen to stories about all of the Korean people they know, or some Korean food they ate once, or how they're not sure they're pronouncing a Korean word right. And it's like...I don't care. I don't get it! I never walk up to white people and say, like, 'Oh my God, are you from France? No, not recently, I mean like a couple thousand years ago? Oh my God I totally knew it! I love your fries!

I grew up in San Francisco... in the midst of Polk Street, hanky codes, poppers, San Francisco. ... My parents owned a book store on Polk Street, and my mother was in charge of the gay porn. Which is like crazy. She would pull out these books and show me to talk about them. 'Dese book? Dass call' Ass Mastuh. Wha is Ass Mastuh? ... Dis is a gay, a book for gay, because Mommy know about de gay. De gay... dey like-uh ass. They like-uh ass soooooo much. ... But dey like-uh ass too much. You have to have-uh ass in moderation. You canno' have-uh ass all da time. Because-uh if you have ass all da time, den it not special. ... Dere is a boy, and his name is Paul. And Mommy like Paul. He's a nice, nice boy but he's-uh gay, and he only like two sings. He like-uh ass...and Judy Garland, and dass all. What kind of-uh life is it like dat? Dere's-uh ass, and ass-over-the-rainbow, and dass all.

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