An Interview with Margaret Cho
by Erin Broadley for SuicideGirls (http://suicidegirls.com/)

The first time I sat down to chat with comedian and actress-turned-burlesque dancer Margaret Cho, I asked her to share some pointers on what it takes to be a sensuous woman. Without hesitation she replied, "Well, you need to have some kind of penis. That's really important. There's all sorts of different strap-ons to get…there are cute ones, like you could get a chin harness." She then went on to detail the importance of good pasty-twirling technique and the pain-free merits of shaving over waxing. While I'm all about keeping things tidy down under, and can easily imagine myself experimenting with pasties in the near-drunken future, I don't think I'm experimental enough to dabble with a chin harness anytime soon. In fact, I'm pretty sure I would end up looking more like a retarded unicorn and less like a sensuous woman.

Margaret Cho, on the other hand, can pull it off with grace, a seductive wink and nothing less than absolute confidence. From her beginnings as a teenage stand-up comic in San Francisco to her new burlesque-style variety show titled "The Sensuous Woman," Cho has been turning social and sexual norms head over heels over pasties, and in the process become a truly unique voice in the comedic world.

Cho took some time to chat with SuicideGirls shortly after returning home from tour…


Erin Broadley: So let’s talk about the True Colors tour that was organized by Cyndi Lauper, which you just wrapped up. How was it?

Margaret Cho: It was so fun. I loved it. I love all the people. It’s really exciting to go and watch Cyndi every night. I’m so in love with her.

EB: What was it like being on the road with her?

MC: She’s so awesome and she’s a fun person. She’s really loving and supportive and it’s just exciting. She’s such an icon and I’ve been a fan for a really, really long time. So it’s an exciting thing to be able to talk to her and just hang out. She’s totally a friend, which is awesome, you know. I really had a great time and it was almost hard to transition back into --

EB: -- Day to day life?

MC: Yeah, because when you’re on tour it’s like rock and roll fantasy camp. All of your needs are taken care of and everybody caters to every whim and you get whatever you want. You don’t have to go to the drugstore, you don’t have to buy anything. You’re just kind of driven or flown or they put you in bed and they give you food. It’s totally hard to transition back into regular life because it is so abnormal, like not life.

EB: I think most musicians and touring performers suffer a little post-partum depression when they get off the road.

MC: Yeah, because we don’t know how to go back to living. It’s a rush and it’s fun and it’s really an exciting life. I love it. I really love touring and I love doing Cyndi’s show because it was also so meaningful because it was a show that she was putting together to ban hatred. So working with her on this was really powerful.

EB: Any particular memory of the tour that really stands out?

MC: Well, she taught me to sing, which was really funny because I can’t sing and she wanted me to sing in the finale. So she was teaching me, which was just sweet of her because I’m not a singer. I felt like I was on “American Idol.” She was like, [in Cyndi Lauper’s voice] “You’ve got to do it like a lullaby, you gotta sing it like a lullaby, just sing it real soft.” It’s so funny because that’s her real voice. It’s not a put-on, it’s her. She’s just funny and she’s a lot of fun.

EB: [Laughs] Any plans to do something again with her in the future? Or was the tour a one-off thing?

MC: She wants to do it next year, which I love. She wants to do it every year and to go to a lot more cities and countries.

EB: So how is your burlesque show “The Sensuous Woman” going? You started it in LA but you’re taking it to New York, right?

MC: Yes. I’m going to move it to New York. I love the show. It’s burlesque, comedy, music and dance and it’s very wild. It’s a show that I think is really amazing. I love burlesque and I love the whole experience of bringing this whole art form back. And bringing it to a new audience -- a comedy audience -- is kind of fun. I think it’s a really beautiful and important thing and it’s a very important art form. It’s very political too, you know. It’s exciting to perform and it’s something that I think is just important for women, for feminism, for a feeling of body empowerment. I mean it’s really powerful to do this kind of work.

EB: Right. And you organized the whole thing?

MC: Yes. It’s a show that I put together. It’s my favorite dancers. I’ve been dancing for a couple years now so I have friends who are just amazing. People who are pretty familiar in the burlesque scene -- like Dirty Martini and Bobbi Pin -- those are some of the people in my show. It also includes a lot of comedy and a lot of music.

EB: It seems like a very different kind of performance compared to the comedy you’ve been doing until now.

MC: It is different but in a lot of ways it’s kind of the same. It is different. It’s new. It’s me. It’s what I’m doing but at the same time, people who are fans of my work are going to like it, you know. They see me in it, I’m never removed from my own identity. I’m completely still myself in it.

EB: Sex has always been a big theme in your work. Where do the similarities or differences lie between sex and performing or sex and comedy?

MC: Well, it’s not that different. In terms of sexuality, at least in burlesque you can be more overtly sexual. In comedy you can be overtly sexual but there’s a little bit more of a masculine way about it. There’s a masculinization that takes over, especially when you’re doing stand-up comedy. But with burlesque you can kind of tease and have fun around it. It’s just a different expression but it’s kind of getting to the same place.

EB: I recently read an article where you talked about your interest in female machismo and feminine strength resembling brute force and things like that, which was interesting to me when I think about what “The Sensuous Woman” performance entails. It seems more understated than brute force but just as strong.

MC: I think it’s a little more understated but very, very strong. There’s some stuff in it that’s just wild. The show is so wild that it is almost like brute force. It really takes people aback. Some of the stuff that I do in the show is way more shocking than anything I’ve done in stand-up.

EB: Really, like what?

MC: Well, I can’t even describe it. You’ll just have to come. There are lots of surprises. I guess a clue would be gender swapping. There’s a lot of gender play and stuff that just doesn’t find its way into comedy because no stand-up comic is that brave.

EB: Has your performance style always been really blunt and raw from the beginning when you started doing stand-up around 16-years-old? Or is it something that you developed overtime based on the challenges you faced?

MC: I think that it developed with age. I mean I think that’s something that happens as you get older and as you come to know yourself. It wasn’t something that was innate in my personality because I’m not really like that. It’s just something that kind of happened as I got older and I came up. It was also because of the way the business is and how I had to alter my personality based on what I was experiencing. All the people that I met were all guys and I had to maneuver in this world of guys so I had to become a lot tougher than I may have been normally or may have really felt.

EB: I always wonder if sometimes women have to develop these really strong or annoying, bitchy voices just to be heard. Like, women have to teach themselves to shout to be heard over the other louder voices.

MC: Well, because sometimes guys don’t hear voices that are at a higher register. In fact it’s not that they don’t recognize female voices, they just don’t hear them. It’s very frustrating so you’ve got to be louder. Or you’ve got to be more abrasive or more powerful because they just don’t hear.

EB: Would you say you’re more comfortable now in your own skin on stage than you were when you started in San Francisco?

MC: Oh yeah, definitely. I’m way more comfortable and way more powerful and aggressive. I can definitely hold my own anywhere. But, it was certainly a challenge when I was a kid coming up and trying to figure out what I was going to do and who I was.

EB: When you told people you were taking up belly dancing, did anyone say, “Wait, you’re the shit talking sweetheart -- what are you doing taking up belly dancing?!”

MC: The belly dancing is kind of badass too so there wasn’t a whole lot of problem there.

EB: A lot of comics must feel pressure to up the ante with each new performance and each new book or DVD. Have you ever gotten to a point where you felt over-exposed? Did you ever worry that sharing your sexual adventures with the public in your performances would risk becoming too personal?

MC: Well, the only thing that [I felt misunderstood about] was really that people thought I was a top.

EB: I have no idea what that is.

MC: Oh, like a dominatrix.

EB: Ah, okay.

MC: Because I’m not. I’m such a submissive person. I’m actually kind of a meek, shy person. That’s something that was so funny for me -- that people assumed that I was a top and they still do. I guess because, you know, comedy is such a dominant kind of thing. Women who experience or display any strength are immediately looked at sexually, like sexualized.

EB: Yeah. Have you ever been misunderstood in personal relationships because of how sexually open you can be on stage?

MC: Yeah, I guess. It’s also weird too if you’re a performer or in the public eye at all when it comes to relationships or sex. It’s different for guys because when they’re in the limelight, it’s like a huge, powerful, erotic charge. They have something about them; they’re like rock stars and it’s totally exciting. But for women who are performers or who are rock stars, we don’t really have that kind of cache. It’s a very different kind of quality. Not that it’s better for guys…it’s just kind of a weird situation no matter what.

EB: What led you to openly discuss so many of your personal demons and battles during your performances with strangers hanging onto your every word? Did that happen by default or did you purposefully just want to put it all on the table?

MC: Well, to me it’s just what’s interesting. To me that’s what’s fun about life.

EB Public discourse?

MC: Yeah, it’s public, it is funny and it is fun. And to me it’s what makes life interesting so I just like it. I just think it’s cool.

EB: I know there’s this whole double-edged sword where performers or artists want to stop drinking or want to stop drugs but they’re afraid to put that stuff to bed because then what are they going to write or perform about, you know? Like, what stories are they going to have to tell if they don’t have these traumatic or shocking things going on about them? Have you ever felt that way?

MC: Not really because I have a lifetime to draw on of those kinds of shocking things. I think that most of my stories and my experience doesn’t come from living crazily. That’s just the experience in it, you just feel it. It’s just the storytelling -- the part of you that tells stories is not activated by the crazy antics. If you’re a storyteller, you’re always going to be able to be a storyteller. I have a lifetime of crazy stuff that I’ve done that I don’t need to do anymore. I’m not worried about it.

EB: How have things changed for you being a female in the comedy circuit in the past ten or so years since "All American Girl" back in ’94?

MC: Yeah it was a long time ago. Things have changed. The challenges now are different. I don’t really look at it as being challenging…it’s just more like, “How is this going to happen? What am I going to do?” Now I’m transitioning more into a music thing where I’m going out with bands and even doing a little bit of music myself. So it’s more like, “How do I keep it interesting? How do I make it fun?” That’s an easy challenge to take on. That’s an easy thing because I’m just expanding into other stuff. To do music or burlesque or comedy and all that is real expansive and I love that. I like to enjoy myself and open up new areas of life that are exciting to share with my audience.

For more information go to margaretcho.com

web address: http://suicidegirls.com/interviews/An+Interview+with+Margaret+Cho/