Margaret Cho has a big, filthy mouth, and she’s not afraid to use it.
If this doesn’t strike you as courageous, then you haven’t heard the joke she tells about Laura and Barbara Bush in her stand-up comedy film, “Assassin.” The joke is crude and outrageously impious, and it makes the audience scream with laughter. When the choking dies down, the comedian smiles sweetly and shrugs, “I’m probably going to get shot. So enjoy it while you can.”
The joke–which can’t be repeated here–is hardly anomalous to Cho’s work.
The daughter of Korean immigrants, she was born and raised in San Francisco, where she was involved in the gay-rights movement from the time she was a teenager. She’s also struggled with her weight–and its attendant body issues–her whole life, and her material is full of appalling and hilarious stories about what dieting can do to a girl.
Cho has always freely mixed her sex-and-potty jokes with her most heartfelt and sincere expressions of political outrage, often leading from one to the other in surprisingly few and logical steps. There is a method to her coarseness. Growing up, Cho interpreted the scarcity of images of people like her in the mainstream as a message that she was considered inappropriate.
So now she’s returning the favor by acting the part. When asked at social gatherings, “not to go there,” she deadpanned in her last show, “I live there. I bought a house there. I’m going to take you there!”
The threat is visceral and real. Cho has a vested interest in taboo-breaking–considering how many taboos are in place to protect us from the likes of her.
She’s doing it again this month through several media. Her second book, “I Have Chosen to Stay and Fight,” reaches stores Thursday, when fans can also pick up the CD of “Assassin,” followed by the DVD on Nov. 8.
Her first feature film, which she wrote and stars in, recently premiered at the Toronto Film Festival. The film is called “Bam Bam and Celeste,” and it’s a love story about a woman and her gay best friend who travel from the Midwest to New York to appear on a reality makeover show.
In the book, Cho uses the same personal approach to political topics she hits on in her live shows–Republicans, homosexuality, race, sex and war. The book’s cover is a Patty Hearst/SLA cover sendup.
Cho’s exploration of her identity as a woman, an Asian-American and a member of the gay community has always made up a big part of her work. But she has always come at these subjects kaleidoscopically, from all kinds of sometimes-conflicting angles that shift depending on the context, the intention and the timing.
“Racism and sexism are not as obvious as before, but they have become very subtle,” she said in a recent interview. “It’s not about big things like not being able to vote. It’s about small things, which are harder to fight, because they’re not perceived. But they are still damaging. We’re not giving people equal rights or acknowledging that there’s a disparity.”
By poking fun at everybody equally, she puts everyone on equal footing. She makes everyone visible. She humanizes everybody. Even the Bush ladies, whether they like it or not.
Cho stop
Margaret Cho will discuss and sign copies of her book at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Michigan Avenue Borders.
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Edited by Curt Wagner (cwwagner@tribune.com) and Kris Karnopp (kkarnopp@tribune.com)
