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MARGARET CHO

Know Your Cho
Margaret Cho is back on TV, and this time she's in control
By Greg Garry

Anyone who has watched Margaret Cho over the years knows that the comedienne has worn many hats: brash funnywoman, passionate activist, and even board member for sex toy company Good Vibrations. Luckily for Cho's fans, her new VH1 reality series, The Cho Show, puts all of her varied talents to ample use every week.

Described as a scripted reality sitcom—whatever the hell that means—the show mirrors Cho's life and stand-up act as it follows her exploits in Hollywood, with her parents, squad of stylists, and 3'10" assistant Selene Luna along for the sometimes wild ride. Cho jokingly calls her new project "gay candy," and with it she threatens to dethrone even Kathy Griffin as television's foremost fag hag.

Cho holds nothing back from the cameras, from bleaching her sphincter to painting her naked body for the red carpet (there's a very good reason it airs at 11 p.m.). The show seems ripe with bits for Joel McHale to sample and ridicule on E!'s The Soup. Cho, no stranger to harsh criticism, will surely take it all in stride and good humor.

Cho rang Radar just before a gig in Tennessee to discuss the finer things in life, namely politics, periods, and pooping your pants.

RADAR: The Cho Show is good old outrageous fun. Do you feel it has healed the wounds from your '90s sitcom debacle, All-American Girl?
MARGARET CHO: Yes, it's so awesome. I look forward to people seeing it. VH1 gave us so much artistic freedom. It's pretty heavily scripted. We figured this was the right thing to do. A lot of my stand-up is confessional and pulled from real life, so my comedy is already a form of reality TV.

In the first episode, you receive the "Korean of the Year" award. You said you've felt ostracized by your native people in the past.
I've had some difficulty, because at the beginning of my career I talked about sex, queer stuff, weight issues. It was very troubling to older generations of Koreans. When I did my ABC sitcom, they threatened to boycott and picket. I never fit their image of what a Korean American should be.

It was sweet to see your parents beam with pride at the ceremony. That's my favorite bit of the show. It's also great to see how much you all love each other—and to see them in the flesh, especially after years of seeing your spot-on impression of your mom.
She's so funny. It's nice to get to work together, which we've never done.

You and VH1 are paying Mama well, I hope?
She does alright. I'll garnish her wages every now and again. They're fun, they're hard workers, and we all enjoyed it.

It's great to see them interact with Selene Luna, the tiny burlesque queen.
It's so funny. They project any feelings they would have for a grandchild onto Selene, as if she were my daughter. It's adorable.

People assume that you're a lesbian, but I've met your husband, Al, who's a really cool guy and an artist in his own right. Why isn't he on the show? Is he shy?
We want to stay married, okay? That's our life, no one else's. We want that to remain private.

You really lay it all out there in the series. You even went for anal bleaching. How did that work out for your pucker?
It's great, but a slow process. You have to dab a little bit on every day and it gradually whitens, like Crest asshole whitening strips, so I didn't keep up with it.

Who has the goddamn time?
People do it. I actually think it looks very nice, I'm just not that ... anal!

Who cares about what color it is—you don't have to look at it! You also had the "G-shot," where they pump collagen into your G-spot.
That was horrible, actually!

You weren't walking around having orgasms all day long? At Starbucks? On the treadmill?
No! It made me not want to have sex for like four months. My vagina was swollen and painful and gross. It was horrible!

You campaigned tirelessly for gay marriage for a long time—you must be very proud of California.
I'm now a certified wedding minister. I've been working for years for marriage equality, so now to switch gears and perform ceremonies is really profound and gratifying.

Lets talk a little about sexism in the comedy world. Christopher Hitchens famously said in a Vanity Fair essay that women cannot be funny, then the magazine backtracked and did a "Women in Comedy" issue as penance.
I don't know why anyone would think that women aren't funny. That makes me sad for him that he's missing out on a whole lot of funny. My favorite comedians are women. Wanda Sykes is a fucking genius!

Amen to that. Hollywood keeps making the same unfunny movie with Adam Sandler, Will Ferrell, and Mike Myers.
Funny women are always the second banana. We don't get given the opportunities since it's all so male-driven. Give us the chance!

Hitchens argued lamely that women don't need to be funny because they have boobies and are pretty.
I think men should be pretty and women should be funny.

That brings us to your new stand-up show, Beautiful. I heard you got the idea when a radio interviewer asked you how it would be if you woke up one day and were beautiful. I hope you smacked the son of a bitch.
He asked, "What if you woke up tomorrow and were beautiful?" I was like, "What do you mean, what if, bitch?" He said, "If you were blonde, blue eyes, 5'11", 100 pounds?" I was like, "I probably wouldn't get up because I'd be too weak to stand." What the fuck kind of shit is that? That attitude is so stupid—and you're missing out on so much beauty if that is your ideal. It's boring. The show is about that, but it's also really funny and really raunchy. As I get older I just get raunchier and raunchier.

You use your blog to come to the defense of the indefensible. You declare your love of Tila Tequila, for instance.
She's like my daughter. I said hello to her at the Bravo A-List Awards. I think she's great. She's adorable, like my spiritual daughter. She's Asian, queer, tattooed, and funny. I love what she's doing. It's hilarious to see lesbians and straight men fighting over her, all while eating pigs' vaginas.

People took you to task for defending Britney walking around in her bloody period panties.
Okay, that has happened to me and every other woman millions of times. It was disgusting that someone took a picture and tried to make it all about Britney's character. Bitch, that happens to everybody.

Oh, come on! She was asking for it, displaying it for the paparazzi. She wasn't wearing any pants at the time!
So? So what! Whatever—big fucking deal. I don't care. Leave Britney alone!

I'll give you this—there is a little sexist schadenfreude going on there, because you know that right now Justin Timberlake has skid-marks in his tighty whities. He's just not offering the world a glimpse.
You know he does! He likes to paint the town brown just like everybody else. Sometimes we all need some baby wipes, honey.