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Margaret Cho: the joke’s on beauty
Margaret Cho |
Performer Margaret Cho poses this question as she explores the nature of beauty in a brand new tour appropriately titled Beautiful which she has been touring around Australia and the United States..
Cho will perform Beautiful at The Queen Elizabeth Theatre with special guests Liam Sullivan and Kelly.
Cho recalled that she was once asked by a DJ a stereotypical question: “If you woke up tomorrow and you were beautiful, what would you do? If you were blonde, blue-eyed, 5 foot 11, and weighed 100 pounds, what would you do?”
“Well, I probably wouldn’t get up in that case, because I’d be too weak to stand,” replied Cho.
“If that is his only idea of beauty then I feel really sorry for him. I want everyone to feel beautiful and I want to do it with laughter.”
“I didn’t mean to be a role model. I guess speaking from your heart really creates a huge impact, and if I can encourage people to do that, then I would love to be a role model,” Cho said.
Tracing her roots, Cho’s grandfather was a Methodist minister who ran an orphanage in Seoul during the Korean War.
Ignoring the traditions of her patriarchal culture, her mother bravely resisted an arranged marriage in Korea and married Cho’s father, who writes joke books in Korean.
Cho started performing stand-up at age 16 in a comedy club called The Rose & Thistle above a bookstore her parents ran.
Soon after, she won a comedy contest where first prize was opening for Jerry Seinfeld.
She moved to Los Angeles in the early ‘90s and lived in a house with several other young performers.
Still in her early twenties, Cho hit the college circuit, where she immediately became the most booked act in the market and garnered a nomination for Campus Comedian of The Year.
Arsenio Hall introduced her to late night audiences, Bob Hope put her on a prime time special and, seemingly overnight, Cho became a national celebrity.
In 1994, she starred in a short-lived ABC sitcom called All-American Girl.
Says Cho: “There were just so many people involved in that show, and so much importance put on the fact that it was an ethnic show.”
Cho chronicled her experience on the sitcom in an off Broadway one-woman show called I’m The One That I Want.
The show was extremely well-received, toured the U.S., and was made into a concert film and a best-selling book of the same name.
After the success of her first show, Cho launched “Notorious C.H.O.” in 2001, a smash-hit 37-city national tour that culminated in a sold-out concert at Carnegie Hall.
Notorious C.H.O. was also recorded and released as a feature film, hailed by the New York Times as “Brilliant!”
Cho embarked on her third sold-out national tour, Revolution, in 2003.
The tour ultimately grossed $4.4 million and was heralded as “Her strongest show yet!” by the Chicago Sun Times.
Beautiful will be at The Queen Elizabeth Theater located at 649 Cambie St., Vancouver.
For info call 604.665.3050 or visit: www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/theatres. For more information about Cho see: www.margaretcho.com.
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