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TO MARGARET CHO |
Cho
business The Courier-Journal Photo by Getty Images Not just her comedy act, with its edgy mix of self-deprecation and taboo-busting honesty that most comedians can't hack. Her offstage act is just as strong, with Cho running a thriving production company that affords her complete control over her career. "The way I do business is so outside of the norm," Cho said via telephone from Los Angeles, where she lives when she's not on the road. "I have my own production company. I make my own movies. I don't have to be beholden to any network or studio." Cho's life wasn't always headed that way. After breaking out in the early 1990s, Cho made a series of dubious decisions that ran her career into the ground and almost killed her. Thus the confidence that Cho projects when she takes the stage on her current tour, which brings her to the Louisville Palace next Thursday, is that of someone who has been to the brink and worked her way back. It's not such a funny story, really, although Cho manages to squeeze some humor out of it. "I just thought it was kind of funny. I was very camp about it, like if I died tragically, drag queens would do me," said 34-year-old Cho. "I never really took it very seriously, which was part of the problem. To me, it was a very romanticized thing to do." Working comedians live complicated lives as they slouch from one gig to another, mining their own neuroses for laughs and struggling for acceptance from audiences often more suited for Carrot Top than Jerry Seinfeld. For Cho, it all began to move way too fast when, in 1994, at age 25 and still largely unknown, she was hired to star in an ABC situation comedy based on routines she had written about a hip young Korean-American woman and the culture clashes she faced living with her tradition-bound family in San Francisco. "All-American Girl" was supposed to be a showcase for Cho, but it quickly turned into a debacle. Network suits demanded changes, starting with Cho's weight. Her average, healthy body was considered a liability on television, and Cho naively went along with their demands to slim down. More than that, Cho said she was so determined to succeed in TV that she didn't fight the network's attempts to tone down the humor on "All-American Girl," resulting in a bland mess that lasted only one season and sent Cho into a haze of starvation dieting and substance abuse. "I think it's my own fault. During the pilot, I made myself sick with dieting, and at that point, I really didn't want to do it anymore," she said frankly. "I think I learned about priorities and putting things in perspective and knowing exactly what I wanted from my career. I didn't really know that then. I was so young. I didn't feel confident making waves. I just wanted to be good. Which is why I didn't assert myself the way I should have." The experience proved prophetic for Cho. After digging herself out of that hole, she ditched the notion of becoming a TV star and devoted herself fully to perfecting — and promoting — her standup career. Doing standup comedy was always where Cho wanted to be, anyway, dating to her childhood in her native San Francisco (interrupted by a brief sojourn in South Korea) and hours spent in front of the TV. "I was really young and I just knew. I saw standup comedy on 'The Tonight Show' and just made that connection," she said. "I knew I would do it and be very successful at it. I just knew. So it wasn't like there was a big questioning period. I was never trying to find myself or find out what I wanted. It was a very clear path." Much of Cho's act is derived from her loving but often torturous relationship with her parents, particularly her mother, a native of Korea whose clashes with the more liberal American culture, as well as her struggles with the English language, often proved mortifying to her teenage daughter. In one particularly famous bit, Cho, adopting her mom's thick accent, recounts a bizarre answering machine message: "Oh, I have to tell you something. Grandma and Grandpa gonna die. I don't know when they gonna die, but sometime. So then Mamma just tell you now. So when they die, you no surprised. Don't be surprised when they die, but you don't have to tell them. Don't say, 'Oh, oh, Mommy say you're going to die.' Don't say like this. That's not nice. They know already." That routine was part of "I'm the One That I Want," a cathartic off-Broadway show in which Cho wryly detailed her struggle to escape Hollywood and redefine herself. The show was turned into a book and a self-produced film that actually made money. It has become a successful business model for Cho Taussig Productions, the company Cho runs with her manager, Karen Taussig. Once Cho scripts a new act and goes out on tour — she tries to create an entirely new show every year or so — the show is filmed for release in theaters and on DVD and CD. The strategy ensures that no one who wants to see or hear the latest Cho show gets left out. It is an obvious contrast from Cho's experience at the hands of network executives and sitcom writers, none of whom seemed to truly understand her approach to comedy. "I shot them myself and financed them myself, so I was completely in charge through the whole process," Cho said. "And so I really knew what was happening from beginning to end. There were no surprises. I was never scared." Cho followed "I'm the One That I Want" with last year's "Notorious C.H.O." and is finishing up the editing for "Revolution," the film of her current tour. As with most things in her life these days, she is rather undaunted about the filmmaking process. "It's pretty effortless," she said. "I just know what it is, and I just try what I think is right and work out the order, and then I'm done." From the beginning, Cho's explicit, often searing observations about life as a female member of a minority dealing with sexuality, racism and cultural stereotypes cultivated a faithful audience in the gay and lesbian community, which in turn garnered awards from the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Discrimination, Lambda Legal, the National Organization for Women and the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force.
"People are supportive, and they come from all over the place," Cho said. "The DVDs and the films have been a very big part of what I'm doing. They have gotten the show to places that it wouldn't have been normally. Pretty much wherever I go now, people know who I am and know what my act is all about." Cho still takes on the occasional acting role and is in the process of developing an autobiographical screenplay — she says it's "a cross between 'The Joy Luck Club' and 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas'"— into a film. But she said she has more or less abandoned the notion of a movie or TV career. Too many comics, she said, are using their standup act as a way to break into movies and sitcoms. That rarely works well — "Seinfeld" being the exception — and they ultimately abandon the loyal audiences they have built. And, from a practical standpoint, there is probably no way to adapt Cho's raunchy, raw comedy into something suitable for prime time. Honestly, it would be an insult to Cho's talents to even try it. Still, Cho gets entreaties about taking another shot at an Asian-American-flavored prime-time sitcom. She says it's about time — Asians are one of the fastest-growing minorities in this country, after all — just not with her. Been there, done that. "It's going to take somebody who is very much willing to be adamant about creating a vision that they believe in," she said. "I have kind of resigned myself to the fact that that possibility no longer exists for me. And I really don't care. ... A lot of comics get into comedy in order to be actors or get their own show. I've done that, and I don't want that. I just want comedy for comedy's sake." Still, sooner or later, an Asian-American comic will come along who is willing to follow the trail that she blazed. But Cho won't be tuning in. "Politically, it would be great for somebody to be out there; socially, it would be great for somebody to be out there," Cho said. "But to me, TV is a dysfunctional, boring kind of medium, anyway. Sitcoms are obsolete. I don't know what it would take, but certainly I'm not willing to put it out there, because it's not worth anybody's time." Her willingness to bash a medium that is responsible in large part for her success — early appearances on MTV and "The Arsenio Hall Show" helped Cho get established — is just another element of the unapologetic way she takes on life. In conversation, she mentions such polarizing icons as Roseanne, Eminem and Chris Rock among the folks who entertain her the most. "People like Roseanne, who are very emotional about their work, who always tell the truth, are very compelling," Cho said. "I like Eminem a lot, which is kind of weird. I don't always agree with his politics, but I like his rapping. I find it really sexist and racist, but I enjoy the beat. I think he's just trying to –––– with people. He wants to make sure that he is controversial by being completely aggressive and transgressing all of society's rules. He's being an instigator, which is really cool." |
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