When Margaret Cho began performing stand-up comedy in the early 1990s, it was vital to her as an artist to spike the laughs with social commentary. It still is today — and she’s got plenty of material from the past three years.
Cho brings her Live and Livid tour to Atlanta’s Buckhead Theatre on Saturday, June 24, which happens to fall during Pride Month. Back on the road after the pandemic, she’s using the tour to mark four decades in the entertainment industry and to examine what’s happening right now to the LGBTQ+ community she’s proudly part of.
“We’ve dealt with a global pandemic, dealt with a disastrous presidency and an attempted coup,” said the bisexual comedian, actress and activist. “It’s been a very strange rise and a mainstreaming of alt-right Nazi beliefs. And they’re attacking drag queens all of a sudden. This is a very weird time, and there’s real legislation that is very anti-trans.”
Legal attacks on drag performers scare her. “The language of the laws ... is so vague. That is the problem. It’s ethereal. You can’t pin down what is illegal,” she said during a recent Zoom call. Cho’s also angry at anti-trans activists. “They don’t know any trans people,” she said. “If they were really concerned about protecting children, they would get rid of guns.”
Although the LGBTQ+ community is under siege in many ways right now, Cho said she also sees some changes for the better. She appreciates that people are talking about the use of personal pronouns, for instance.
“It’s a big deal,” she said. “When people are asked to talk about their gender in a way that makes it less gendered, we are acknowledging that a nonbinary and gender-nonconforming population exists. This is real progress, and that is what is so threatening to these people who think in such concrete terms about gender.”
After decades in the entertainment industry, Cho said she likewise has witnessed some positive changes. For example, comedians have been forced to think more in-depth about how their jokes impact different types of people.
“I look at it as an opportunity to be more educated about how language affects people. I don’t see it as a bad thing. It’s a way to elevate art and to look at the effect on society — although it’s fearsome,” she said. “You don’t want to show your ignorance. But then when you do, you are learning and that is always important. I think we are always meant to learn and grow.”
She also sees more women and more diversity among performers today.
“It has really expanded to include so many more different kinds of people who can tell different stories,” Cho said. “It is amazing that we have so many queer storytellers and artists and people who are combining their art and their activism and the diversity within that, as well as the presence of Asian American performers out there in acting, music and comedy and every area of entertainment.”
When younger comics acknowledge her as a role model and as someone who helped change the face of the industry, it means a lot to her. “I love it because for me it’s job security,” she said, laughing. “I am really hitting them up for jobs, and it works most of the time.”
Not long after she started performing stand-up in the early 1990s, Cho headlined the ABC sitcom “All-American Girl.” She later reached the masses with her landmark comedy tour “I’m the One That I Want” in 1999. Subsequent roles have included the films “Face/Off” and “It’s My Party” and an Emmy-nominated turn on TV’s “30 Rock.”
In 2022, she appeared in the well-received gay rom-com “Fire Island,” inspired by Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice.”
Among her upcoming projects is a film called “Ron” with friend and actor John Cameron Mitchell. “Ron” is based on a 2015 song Cho wrote called “Ron’s Got a DUI.” The film follows the relationship between a 10-year-old girl and her gay babysitter.
From 2009 to 2014, Cho appeared in the popular, locally filmed series “Drop Dead Diva” as Teri Lee, a paralegal.
“It was another way of looking at romantic comedy, at a different kind of hero. I loved working on that show and working with Brooke [Elliott]. I learned so much from her. We got to host some icons: Liza Minnelli, Joan Rivers, Delta Burke, the Kardashians, Paula Abdul. Hallmark now has a whole new generation of people watching it.”
At one point, the cast and crew of the series lived in Peachtree City, but everyone gradually shifted to Atlanta. Cho’s favorite apartment in Atlanta was above The Vortex Bar & Grill on Peachtree Street. She’d film all day and then go to the Laughing Skull Lounge at the back of the Vortex at night.
“I really loved living in Midtown and Atlanta,” Cho said. “To me, it is full of excitement. Everyone comes through it. It’s a big rock and roll town, but you also have country and hip-hop happening. There is so much diversity within the city. It has changed a lot since I was there, but I will always have such a great affection for the place, the people, the food, everything.”
PERFORMANCE PREVIEW
Margaret Cho: Live and Livid
8 p.m. Saturday, June 24. $40-$60. Buckhead Theatre, 3110 Roswell Road, Atlanta. 404-843-2825, livenation.com.
About the Author
