Notorious C.H.O.

By Gary Moskowitz, Pop and Politics. Posted April 7, 2006.

For years, comedian Margaret Cho has been cracking up audiences with her fiercely political, completely unapologetic, and hilariously funny stand up. Her troubled experiences in the first Asian American sitcom, "All-American Girl," provided material for her first one-woman show in 1999, called "I'm the One That I Want."

She followed up with "Notorious C.H.O," "Revolution" (which was nominated for a Grammy in 2003), and "Assassin," using those shows to bring her outspoken brand of comedy to audiences nationwide. Cho, a strong advocate of gay rights, talks about being Asian in America, body image, queer politics, and sex.

Pop and Politics spoke with this recent recipient of a First Amendment Award from the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California about edgy political comedy, why there's humor in feeling left out, how audiences perceive racial jokes, and what the role of the stand-up comic is.

Pop and Politics: What do you think the role of a comic is?

Margaret Cho: I think comics are social commentators. And they're very important. They're kind of the barometer of where we are, like a moral compass for society. Whoever is politically important or whoever is addressing things at the time or is very popular at the time, you can sort of see where politics are. You know, people like Dave Chapelle, coming into this stardom and celebrity because they really are tapping into something that needs to be said and needs to be thought about. And it's really important, in terms of society.

PP: Where do you typically get inspiration for your material?

MC: I think it's everywhere. It's never one place, but it's always somewhere, something, always happening, in the news, in daily life, through just living.

PP: You make the conscious choice to go onstage to do what you do. What responsibilities or expectations come with you making that choice? Do you feel that you do have responsibilities or expectations?

MC: I suppose that there are. I don't know. I can't think too much about it. I'm sure it exists, but I can't fulfill them all [laughs]. I can't picture them all or imagine what they would be. Everybody's going to have a different expectation… I can only just do my best and try to enjoy it.

PP: So the impetus [for this interview] was comments Dave Chappelle made recently, [about] having an experience when he looked out and realized that a lot of white folks in the audience were laughing maybe a little too hard at some of the jokes that were, in his case, about the black community. What's your first reaction to that? Have you experienced [anything similar], and how do you respond to it?

MC: Well, what I laugh at when I look at Dave is that comedy that comes from "otherness." And to me, otherness can encompass a lot of things, and still be perceived and understood. It's not that you can say that your own experience is similar to a person of a different culture or different ethnic background, but there is always going to be that otherness, there's always going to be that kind of left-out feeling, there's always going to exist somewhere an isolation, and that is something you can use to translate a lot of things. I think that's a good way to translate a lot of language -- I think the language of isolation is very universal.

Laughter is such a personal experience, who knows what exactly makes somebody laugh about something? I'm a big fan of Dave, and when I watch him, what I laugh about is that he brings to light this feeling of otherness that I understand so well. So whether you're White or Black or Asian or whatever, I think everyone's going to have that experience of being the other and can relate to that.

PP: So, this feeling of otherness, at least in comedy, can be a unifying sort of thing?

MC: That's what laughter is generally about. It's kind of an agreement that otherness brings about. And then, of course, it gets very specific if you're talking about different racial archetypes and ideas about these archetypes, and they bring forth a lot of different archetypes about the African American community…

Who knows what anybody is laughing at? What is it exactly that makes every different person laugh? It could be for the right reasons, it could be for the wrong reasons, who knows what the right reasons are? It's your own investment to "are they laughing at the right things?" that sets your own comfort level as a comedian.

Gary Moskowitz is working on his Master's in Education at San Francisco State University. He thanks the Bush Administration for giving him something to complain about every day.

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