Comedy legend Margaret Cho is a five-time Grammy and Emmy nominated comedian, actress, musician, activist (to name a few!)—what can't she do? From starting her comedy career in stand-up clubs at age 14, to starring in her trailblazing ABC sitcom All-American Girl (1994), to being named one of the nine best female comedians of all time by VOGUE magazine, Cho's career has been nothing short of successful.

Cho embarked on her Live and LIVID! tour last year to celebrate her 40 years in comedy, and she's got something to say! On this tour, Cho discusses topics including homophobia, sexism, racism, and "the fight to stay alive in a culture that is killing us daily."

I was lucky enough to have a conversation with Margaret Cho about these topics; read the full transcript below!

EF: We are so excited to have you in Philadelphia for the Live and LIVID Tour at the end of the month! I’m personally so excited to see it. You embarked on this tour last year to celebrate your 40 years of comedy which – congratulations that’s amazing! What excites you most about being back on the road?

MC: I think it's just the act of being able to go out and do shows you know, it seems like we've not really been able to do it at this capacity since before COVID, so this is a really special thing that live entertainment is really back and that everybody's super excited to go out and see shows, and go out and do things like this, it's really special. I’m really excited. I think it's really meaningful because you know when it gets taken away, you can't imagine. Like I could never imagine before, things like that would be unavailable or impossible for us to do but now it's really something to be grateful about.

EF: I read that you cycled through a few different names when you were deciding on what to call this tour. Was there a reason that “Live and LIVID” really stuck out to you?

MC: I like it because it’s really about live performance being back, and being livid about women's rights being taken away, abortion rights being taken away, trans kids and non-binary kids being murdered, it's very… like there's a lot to be really livid about. There's so much that I am so infuriated about that I need to work out and I think the best way to find hope is through humor, and the only way really to find hope for me has always been through humor, and a way to find a strength to keep fighting these things, you know through my own activism within the Queer community. I think it's something that you can get very exhausted by, all of the homophobia, and hatred that's out there, so to be able to address it in a comedy show is really important.

EF: That leads me into my next question! You've always been extremely passionate when it comes to using your voice and using your comedy as a tool for activism – how do you navigate that balance between humor and advocacy in your work?

MC: Well, it has to be funny. For me it's, it's got to have value as entertainment you know. There's certainly a line where it is just kind of talking about politics and you can get emotionally exhausted from it. So, I don't ever want to veer too far away from being an entertainer. So, I think even if you don't necessarily agree with what I'm talking about that you should be able to get something out of it in the sense that I'm still, I mean very much foremost a comedian, and foremost an entertainer.

EF: With the material and the subjects that you're covering on this tour, I noticed that you hit a lot of states like Florida, Georgia, Texas, you know a lot of the southern and Midwest states where these conversations really need to be happening. Was there anything that surprised you most when you were visiting these areas and spreading this message?

MC: Well, the shows there were the most engaging, the most exciting, the most riotous, like very exciting and really important. Just because those places have local governments which have conservative values, a portion of them do, but a lot of the people who live in the state don't. You know the transphobic, homophobic laws that they're passing are not reflective of the people who live there, and it's always the case it's a small minority of people who are, you know lobbying, who are overriding all of these things you know, and kind of attacking our basic rights as Americans, that are being sort of the political voice in these places. Pushing this Christian evangelical agenda which is really not a huge portion of the state, you know that's just the loud portion unfortunately. So eventually you go and do these shows and the audiences are really, they're hungry for a different message than they're hearing where they are and I love that.

EF: That’s incredible! You know, when you're challenging these stereotypes, and pushing these boundaries, how do you handle backlash from audiences or criticism, that sort of thing?

MC: Well, it's going to occur. It's sort of like, it doesn't really change my opinion as an artist. And then also to remain steady on this idea that I'm still a comedian, I'm still an entertainer. You can't lose sight of that; you can't get too serious or too into your own message and not entertain the fact that people might disagree, and that in itself can be funny too. So, there's a way to do it that really that uses a lot of grace and finesse which I think is really important.

EF: Now, your comedy career started at quite a young age, and you've continued on to be unbelievably successful. You’ve hit so many milestones – like unbelievably impressive. Did you grow up with the idea that you always wanted to be a comedian or what really struck a chord with you and drew you to the art of comedy?

MC: Oh, well thank you! But you know, I just knew. I just knew that's what I was doing, I knew that's what my job was going to be as an adult. As soon as I recognized it as a job like I think watching television, by the age of eight, I pretty much knew “oh that's what I'll grow up to be”, and my aspirations were always towards that. And then I grew up in San Francisco which had a very popular and exciting nightclub scene of stand-up comedy that had dated back to the 1960s. It was really, really vibrant, and alive and so then I could visualize a place – “oh that's where I would go.” I could just see it and even in the neighborhoods that I was growing up in, or going to school in, those clubs and theaters existed. So, I saw it as a profession, a trade, early enough, and understood that it was less of an aspiration but more of a recognition of “that's what I do.” And I mean I think that's a great thing. Like I was really lucky that I had that so young, but it was really kind of internal. It was really a childhood desire that was kind of brought into adulthood.

EF: That's amazing and it's incredible how it's manifested in this unbelievable way for you!

MC: Yeah!

EF: That's really, really incredible.

MC: Thank you!

EF: So, I am a massive fan of drag, it's one of my biggest passions. You've spoken a lot about your passion for protecting drag queens, and the art of drag is a whole. How do you feel about the increased visibility of drag queens in mainstream media through outlets like RuPaul’s Drag Race, especially in times like these when it's so important, and in today's political climate?

MC: I love it! I love it. The more the better, and the more that it's challenging the status quo; because that's what drag is, it's there to challenge the status quo, to make fun of what's happening in society in a way that's really important and really political. I mean drag is really the voice of the working class, it's really the voice of the minorities, the voice of the unheard, and it's really an amazing tool for change. Even though it sort of comes in this package that is really wildly unique, and really irreverent, and often challenging, I love that! I think it's really exciting, and so I love that. Especially with drag, also the generation that grew up watching drag now, are performing it. So, they grew up with you know, these queens, you know like Raja, or even Lady Bunny (laughs), you know they're growing up and they're like, becoming their own amazing super drag queens! So now we’re creating this generation of super drag, which is really, really exciting. Drag is really—we need to protect it, we need to call it out for what it is which is a really important element of society, and an important way to criticize the society, and also a way for us to celebrate society as well. So, for that to sort of be minimized to this idea of like “ohh they're groomers”, like that's the most ridiculous notion. Also, to minimize the effect of what drag is. Drag is a movement, drag is protest, drag is resistance in its most valid and exciting form, so I think that's what they're more afraid of. They're not really afraid of “grooming” as much as they are afraid of us really thinking about what politics mean and how we can change the world so that's what drag is to me.

EF: I love that! And I love what you mentioned— “super drag”, I love that.

MC: Yeah it’s so cool! So cool.

EF: I just have one last question for you—how do you hope the “Live and LIVID” Tour will contribute to a larger cultural conversation?

MC: Well, I hope that we are able to find hope through humor in talking about abortion, and talking about gay rights, and talking about protecting drag queens, and talking about protecting trans kids, non-binary kids, and talking about all of these things. Especially with the recent death of Nex Benedict, you can see how bad it is when you see these politicians react to the death of a child, reacting and saying, “we need to get this filth out of our state.” Like you see the problem is they're not thinking about children at all. They don't care when kids die. So, it's really this idea of taking that opportunity to call our community filth, and I'm not going to stand for it. So, I think that's what the legacy is of this show, is that I'm not going to stand for it. I'm not standing for it.

Note: This interview transcript has been edited lightly.

Interview and writing by Emma Fox. Photos by Sergio Garcia, Albert Sanchez, and Nick Spanos.

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