Ever-trailblazing comedian Margaret Cho has a lot to sound off about in her Live and LIVID! Tour
Appearing at Just for Laughs Vancouver, the standup star talks racism, Asian role models, and the joys of becoming a “crass old lady”
Margaret Cho is proud to be a role model for up-and-coming Asian comedians—and actively fights anti-Asian hate.
Just for Laughs Vancouver presents Margaret Cho’s Live and LIVID! at the Vogue Theatre on February 18.
AT 54 YEARS OLD, Margaret Cho now has almost 40 years of standup comedy under her belt—first performing professionally at the age of 16.
She’s still so cuttingly topical that it’s easy to forget what a trailblazer she was, making it big onscreen and on stages in the early 1990s, when there was no Bowen Yang, Ken Jeong, or Ali Wong—and next to no queer advocacy on the male-dominated comedy circuit.
But as comedy fans will find out at her show at Just for Laughs Vancouver, Cho is just hitting her stride. She’s called her first big tour since the pandemic Live and LIVID!, and she’s found a lot to rage about in an America where drag bars are the targets of gun violence and Asians are still being blamed for COVID.
Cho has been just as busy onscreen, whether it’s with the Hulu film Fire Island with Saturday Night Live’s Bowen Yang, with Awkwafina’s Nora From Queens, with a stint on The Masked Singer, or with Ken Jeong and Sandra Oh on Netflix’s Stand Out Comedy Special and Over The Moon.
As for her ongoing advocacy work, she’s more fired up than ever, whether that’s fighting racism or standing up loud and proud for LGBTQ2SIA+ rights.
Stir caught up with comedy’s reigning provocateur over the phone from her home in L.A., with her loyal Chihuahua-mix rescue dog Lucia at her side, to talk about what she’s livid about, Joan Rivers’s advice, and the joys of being a “crass old lady”.
STIR: Live and LIVID! is the name of your new show: is there more to be pissed off about now versus 40 years ago, when you started?
MC: Well, it's different. We’ve achieved so much in terms of equality and we have more visibility for the queer community and for Asian Americans, certainly. But we're also going backwards with Roe versus Wade not being a thing anymore, and with equality really diminishing with this sort of onslaught of hatred coming from Christian evangelicals. What is this? Why does His love look like hate so much? It's so weird how they look at it like, ‘This is Christian love.’ So there's a lot to combat.
But also, there's a lot to celebrate: finally we get to be together after this difficult time of COVID and, you know, all this crazy violence. We can actually come together and celebrate being alive. I think this is a good thing and I love performing live. I love being out there and doing shows again.
STIR: You’ve talked about having this period of introspection, and kind of reevaluating your comedy during the pandemic. How has your act changed, or did it just kind of reaffirm what you were doing?
MC: I think I'm just so much more appreciative. I have a lot more gratitude for this art form and also the machinations of it, like just going on tour. I think I took so much for granted before—the idea of being able to go see shows or go out to perform shows. And now I realize that all of that is really something that I need to appreciate.
STIR: Activism has been a huge part of what you do, and a lot of articles talk about you being “unapologetic” about it. It’s a word that comes up a lot. I find that interesting—that you you don't apologize for the things you talk about. What's your take on that?
MC: I think that it's important to be accountable for things, to learn about how we can change this culture, to understand that language itself is unfair, that language itself tends to minimize the problems that we need to face, such as racism, sexism, homophobia... And so, I want to be able to apologize for the mistakes that I may have made. But also I don't want to apologize about talking about things that affect me, which are all those things: racism, sexism, homophobia. All those things I think need to be discussed, even though they're not the most pleasant things to experience. I think that we do need to talk about them.
STIR: Are there things that are really off-limits for you to talk about on stage?
MC: I think it's not really about the topic. It's more about the intention, about if it's to be derisive of something that I don't understand—like, the lifestyles that I don't understand. I think I always try to understand things. Like, I don't understand why we're so devoted to guns. I think it's okay to be derisive of that! [Laughs.] And I think it's okay to be derisive of people who are like, attacking drag queens and drag shows. That I don't understand, but I think it's okay to be derisive about it. I don't think it's okay to be derisive about other types of marginalized communities who are not forward with their hatred—you know, people who are just existing. So there are a lot of things I don't understand that I want to learn more about before I discuss them. All things are able to be dealt with [in standup], as long as you're sort of aware of your own intentions behind it.
STIR: So you're really rigorous about that when you're creating material.
MC: I try to be, yeah. It's hard to know everything about stuff, but I do try to kind of maintain at least a learning mind and an awake mind, so that I can be accepting of what's happening.
STIR: I read somewhere that somebody called you the ‘elder stateswoman for Asian Americans in the entertainment industry’. You are so much of a role model. Is that a bit of a burden or responsibility as well?
MC: Oh, I love it! That’s job security to me. It’s a great place to be because then I can, you know, really also go in and support younger Asian-American performers, and to me it's really a vote of confidence for them—and also they can hire me when they do stuff! Like I'm very, very open in my need to work to get a job. [Laughs.]
STIR: So many people like [comedian] Ken Jeong point to you and say you're the reason they're doing this.
MC: Yeah, I love it. And I love him. And I love that. I get to keep doing this and they're working so they can keep me working.
STIR: There wasn't anybody really like that for you to look to, though, was there, when you started out?
MC: No. But I guess I got a lot from people like Rosie O'Donnell or, especially, Joan Rivers. I had a lot of support from women for sure. That to me is really meaningful. So that's really nice. But I think, yeah, there were no Asian Americans out there doing standup comedy when I started.
STIR: You mentioned Joan Rivers, and I was really struck by something I read, where she ingrained in you the fact that you were going to hit your stride later in life, when you were an older comedian. Has that turned out to be true?
MC: Yes, she always said that I will be better when I get older, and that I will be wanting to do more when I get older. And that's really been true—she was really right about that. It was mostly like a message to not fear aging. And a lot of people in Hollywood think that aging is something that should be staved off and feared and all that.
STIR: Maybe more onscreen than on the comedy stage, was performing something that you didn't think you’d necessarily be doing in your 50s?
MC: Yeah, I didn't know; there was this kind of lifespan of actresses. At least in my mind at that time, like in the ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s, it was just so limited. You only saw women for a short period of time and then you sort of didn't see them ever again. So for me, that fear was very real, but I feel grateful that I had her in my life to tell me otherwise.
STIR: What is it about being older that’s getting better with your comedy—is it that you have the confidence kind of to just put yourself even more out there? What is it about being older where people are more welcoming to what you're saying?
MC: It’s for me just being like a crass old lady. Everybody loves a dirty old lady! So to me it's, like, really appealing. I think it's that Golden Girls effect. We love crass humour from maternal figures; there’s something about it that’s just really inviting and safe. So that's, to me, a great place to be and I'm just getting started with it!
STIR: Hey, you're not that old yet! And your screen work seems as busy as ever—especially since the pandemic. Do you feel you very much bring Margaret the Comedian into that TV studio or into your screen roles?
MC: Oh, it's always from a standup-comedy perspective. It’s all just that one job. I mean, to me, it's all the same, right? So I love it all.
STIR: Back to Live and LIVID!: What else will you be tackling in the show here at Just for Laughs Vancouver?
MC: Well, it's all about menopause and about how really it's the best thing that's ever happened to me! I really enjoy this time of life. And so I want to celebrate that. And then it’s just trying to figure out what's happening with our rights as women and as the queer community. I need to protect the trans community. I need to protect drag queens. So there's a lot out there that we have to talk about, but I'm really excited to do it.
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