She’s funny.
Margaret Cho started doing stand-up comedy in San Francisco when she was 16. After winning a contest, which meant opening for Jerry Seinfeld, Cho quickly became a college circuit favorite. Defining her own brand of highly personal and hilarious in-your-face delivery, she went on to produce a critically acclaimed off-Broadway show in 1999 called I’m the One that I Want.

She starred in All American Girl, the first TV sitcom featuring an Asian-American family. It was a show wrought with difficulties, including Cho’s well-publicized battles with the network’s idea of marketable ethnicity. Consequently, the show didn’t last long.

“It’s hard to pin down what ‘ethnic’ is without appearing to be racist,” said Cho on her website. “And then, for fear of being too ‘ethnic,’ it got so watered down for television that by the end, it was completely lacking in the essence of what I am and what I do. I learned a lot, though. It was a good experience as far as finding myself, knowing who I was and what direction I wanted to take with my comedy.”

She’s a feminist and an activist.
In 2003, the National Organization for Women (NOW) awarded Cho for having “pushed the boundaries of comedy for women performers and earned herself a dedicated following of fans across the country.” She’s also been honored by the Gay and 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 and Parents Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays for making a significant difference in promoting equal rights.

She has a big mouth.
“My favorite activist group was from the ’80s, ACT UP,” wrote Cho in “Presidential Cockfight,” an article published in the political magazine In These Times. “They had a great slogan, ‘Silence Equals Death,’ which meant that if we don’t talk about AIDS we will die of AIDS. I’ve got a similar slogan for me: ‘Silence equals nonexistence.’ That makes me a problem dinner guest. At some point during the evening someone will say, ‘Don’t go there.’ Well, I live there. I bought a house there. I’m going to take you there.”

She’s a liberal.
“The thing about conservative politics,” said Cho in an interview with In These Times’ Silja J.A. Talvi, “is that conservatives are so incredibly justified in their bigotry and ignorance. That sense of total justification is often something that people who are liberal and compassionate don’t really have.”

But she’s not deterred by the results of the last election.
“More people turned out to vote than in three decades,” Cho told me recently, “which is impressive. And it’s also impressive that it was so close. There is really a lot of great stuff that we learned about ourselves, politically. The progressives, the Democrats, people who oppose Bush really did win a lot. We know more now than we ever have and I think we’ll really grow politically.”

She is pro-gay marriage.
Just check out her web site: www.loveisloveislove.com.
“If the amendment banning gay marriage is actually passed,” wrote Cho in an essay on the web site, “then it would be the first time that the constitution would be amended specifically to deny the rights of a specific minority, which frankly is downright unconstitutional. The argument is ludicrous. Same sex couples should have the ability to get married by Elvis, just like everyone else.”

She loves Maui. But she’s returning this time for business, not pleasure.
“We’re just kind of coming in and then we have to go back to New York,” Cho told me, “to shoot a couple of exterior shots for my film, Bam Bam and Celeste. So we’re gonna kind of be in and out, which is unfortunate ‘cause I love to spend time there and hang out. It’s so beautiful and fun. I love Spam musubi.”

She will not be running for any political office any time soon.
“They don’t make very much money,” Cho said. “It’s kind of a hideous, thankless job. At least I kind of don’t have to work for votes. I can kind of just be silly and do whatever but I think it would just be so serious. And I don’t know if I would like it.”

She’s an over-achiever.
“I have a book coming out later this year,” she said. “It’s sort of a book about politics. Then I have this movie [Bam Bam and Celeste] and the tour, which will go out for the rest of the year. And I’m writing another film.”

And she quilts.
“It’s one of those things I have to do,” said Cho. “I used to smoke cigarettes—or you know, kind of do unhealthy things like eat or whatever—to combat stress and fatigue. But now I do the fiber arts!” MTW