Margaret Cho calls herself an "old hag" and loves every part about it. A veteran performer, she returns to the stage with her edgy and raunchy humor on an international stand-up tour titled "Mother," and covers everything: drugs, bisexuality, abortion, and even being listed on Christopher Dorner's manifesto before he went on a shooting rampage.
She does, however, have some favorite bits about her performance. "With a song, I get everyone to sing with me about large vaginas," Cho tells LAist.
Vaginas aren't something Cho is afraid to talk about; it's among some of the topics fans have found endearing in her stand-up routines over the past couple of decades. Her career has grown since her stand-up performances in the early 1990s and when she spearheaded All-American Girl, the first show on ABC featuring an all Asian family. Now at 45, she's been on Lifetime's Drop Dead Diva (which has just been picked up for a sixth season) since 2009, hilariously portrayed Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un on 30 Rock, and has also become a champion of LGBT civil rights over the years.
"There was a young man who told me he watched my comedy with his father, and then was able to come out to him, feeling emboldened by the jokes, the laughter," she says. "I felt so proud of that. Like, I was able to help someone. That's the best thing there is."
Her relationship with her own mother—who is a recurring topic in her routines as she oftentimes imitates her Korean accent—has evolved as well. Cho now is able to speak in Korean with her mother; it was something she wasn't able to learn until recently. Her mother, Young Hie, loves being "the star of the show" and "really laughs" about the jokes, Cho says.
Cho has always embraced her Korean heritage. When she comes out to L.A., she hits up Koreatown for grub as well as a good dose of Korean spas. Back in May, she went to Aroma Spa & Sports and was asked to cover up her heavily tattooed body because it was upsetting the other Korean patrons at the spa, and she wrote a telling column about the experience in Jezebel. She isn't fazed about the situation though.
"I don't think anything is going to keep me from me and that steam room," she says. "I have a mugwort monkey on my back—and a lot of dead skin! I am seriously addicted to the jimjilbang tradition, so I guess it hasn't affected me."
Cho isn't a stranger to being out of her comfort zone. In her Mother tour, she's hit up more conservative cities in the Midwest and South, and the Westboro Baptist Church members tweeted to its followers to picket her show in Missouri.
"It's good to be different."
Margaret Cho will perform at the Wiltern on Friday, Dec. 6.
