Margaret Cho is a Korean American comedian and actress.

Cho won the American Comedy Award for Best Female Comedian in 1994. She made television history by being the first Asian American (male or female) to have a television series based around her and her culture. The series, called All American Girl, was quickly cancelled after suffering major content changes over the course of one season. Cho has discussed the fact that she was forced to lose a very large amount of weight in order to play what was essentially herself. She was also told she was "not Asian enough," and then later, "too Asian". Since, she 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. Its filmed version became the highest-grossing film in history in proportion to the number of prints ($1.4 million with only 9 prints).

The second, The 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 favourite 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, whom she adores to satirize.

Table of contents
1 Quotations
2 Bibliography
3 Filmography
4 Discography
5 Related Links

Quotations

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.

Bibliography

  • I'm the One That I Want (2000)

Filmography

  • Sweethearts (1996)

Discography

  • Drunk With Power (1997)
  • I'm the One That I Want (2000)
  • The Notorious C.H.O. (2001)
  • Revolution (2003)

Related Links