Hate Her or Love Her, Margaret Cho Just Wants You to Belly Dance

Comedian Margaret Cho has been performing professionally since she was 16 years old. She's probably been offending people far longer than that. Known for her outspokenness on everything from weight loss to ethnic slurs to anal fisting to her highly lampoonable mother, Cho has become one of the most popular comedians in the country?her live 2003 show Revolution sold out across the country and grossed $4.4 million. Censored at a 2004 hotelier convention due to political remarks, she's developed a new philosophy: "If you don't like me," she says, "I'm going to make you hate me."

Hence the name of her post-2004-election Assassin, selected, she has said, "to make the right wing go crazy." Her new book, I Have Chosen to Stay and Fight, should help. Decked out on the cover in full Patty Hearst Symbionese Liberation Army regalia, Cho tackles controversy after controversy in the form of letters to Richard Pryor and Jesse Jackson, and riffs on Ann Coulter's miniskirt and Bill O'Reilly's loofah. Story, followed by Q&A with Margaret Cho, continues below ?

But the San Francisco?born comedian is more than a reactionary or provocateur. She's been honored by the ACLU of Southern California, for having the "courage to speak out about the dangerous policies of the Bush administration and [her] commitment to organizing others to do the same." And she's received accolades from The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, American Women in Radio and Television, the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, Parents, Families & Friends of Lesbians & Gays and the National Organization for Women.

She married artist/writer Al Ridenour in 2003 and recently wrapped Bam Bam and Celeste, a film she wrote and stars in. In a recent telephone chat with The Book Standard, Cho talked about gay marriage, her new film and her newfound love of belly-dancing.

The Book Standard: How long have you been writing?

Margaret Cho: I've done it forever. I had a teacher when I was in high school who gave us these diaries to write in and he would take them back over the weekend and read all the journal entries. And he wrote in one of my journals, "Never stop writing." I was really moved by that, especially because soon after that he was killed in this tragic way. That really moved me to make his words important. He was gay, and he was killed in this terrible hate crime. It just made me feel like, well, I've got to do something to change this and help people understand that prejudice can really kill. That's one of the things that made me really devoted to writing about my life and writing in order to move toward equality.

TBS: How is the process of writing a book different from preparing material for stand-up or writing screenplays?

MC: It's certainly much more of a disciplined affair. Writing for films and writing for standup are also different from one another, too. Writing the book, I took a lot of things that I do on my blog and different writing that I do for myself, too. So there're a lot of different kinds of writing that went into the book.

TBS: I Have Chosen to Stay and Fight also draws from your Assassin tour, right?

MC: A little bit. It's some of the topics that I cover in the show, yet it's not a transcript of the show. It's just some of the same observations that I made in the show.

TBS: Why did you choose the name "Assassin" for the tour?

MC: Because after the [2004] election, I think that's what a lot of people had on their minds.

TBS: How do you feel about political events of the past couple of weeks? The Tom DeLay indictment, for example.

MC: Well, to me, it's been a long time coming. Justice works slowly, but it does work. And especially when they've got as stacked of a deck as you can get. I think it's just a nightmare, but I am encouraged by the indictments. But it has taken quite a long time to get there.

TBS: A lot of recent articles on you say something like, "Margaret Cho gets political," but it seems to me that you've always been political. You've just gotten much more current-events-based with I Have Chosen to Stay and Fight. What happened?

MC: I think that I just became more interested in what was going on, and more aware of things. I think that I have always been political, but it's now taken on more specificity. And when you entitle yourself to these opinions, you're bestowing yourself with a right to a voice. But a lot of people aren't able to do that. That's what it's all about.

TBS: You went on one book tour with your first book, I'm the One that I Want. What's your experience with book tours? How are they different from comedy tours?

MC: They're actually very similar in a lot of ways, although I'm not performing in the same way. It's a little bit different but the experience of meeting people is the same.

TBS: Do you enjoy the readings as much as you enjoy doing the standup acts?

MC: Well, it's different because the writing is different. It's sort of meant to be read, so it's a different feeling. I haven't started this current tour yet. But I remember that [the previous one] was fun.

TBS: You have a new movie coming out as well. Can you tell me about Bam Bam and Celeste?

MC: It's a film about two kids, a young girl and her gay boyfriend, who are kind of outcast in their little town in suburban Illinois. They leave their town to go on a reality television show, and they have a great road trip, and they meet a lot of interesting characters. And it's a great comedy, it's a really interesting coming-of-age story, and I'm really proud of it. It stars myself and Bruce Daniels and Alan Cumming and Kathy Najimy and a lot of other great people. I don't know when it will be out. Next year sometime.

TBS: In your new book, you talk about taking up belly-dancing. How long have you been doing that?

MC: I've been doing it for a couple of years now. And I love it. It's my favorite thing. And I think it's such an important thing. It really gets me into thinking about the body, and it really gets me into the body, when I'm usually just in my head. It really helps me to feel whole.

TBS: What got you into it?

MC: I found it to be a culture that really honors women, and we don't have a lot of that in our world today. This is a culture that really thinks that all women are beautiful. It's only better if you're older. And if you have a little bit of weight on you, that's great. We can be beautiful and vital and sexual and artists and use our bodies in our art. And we can also use our bodies into our late 70s or 80s, 90s or beyond. It's a really great place for women to feel good about themselves, and that's what I needed.

TBS: You've been very public about your struggle with accepting your body, but it seems strange that a lot of people still comment on your body and especially on the fact that you've lost weight. Why do you think this keeps coming up?

MC: I don't know. I think it's just that it's a weird thing that I didn't think that people would focus on. But I attribute all of that?weight loss, everything?to belly-dancing. Because it's really become such an important thing in my life and has given me such a new view on the body and a new take on everything physical.

TBS: Because you were so vocal about your bisexuality, a lot of people were really disappointed when they found out you had taken a husband. Are you still getting shit for getting married?

MC: I don't really pay attention to it, because it's really weird. I'm just really happy and I'm really glad that I found somebody that I really love. It made me realize that marriage is really important, and it made me want to become more involved in working for gay marriage and making sure that people have the same right. Because marriage is so important in my life, and I think it's something that should be available to everyone.

TBS: One of the things that I've always really admired about your work is that it is intensely personal, but do you ever feel like that makes you more vulnerable to personal attacks than other performers?

MC: It doesn't really matter if it does, because to me attacks are kind of unimportant. I don't really care. It's much more valuable to be able to use my own experiences in my work.