While Margaret Cho is most famous for her portrayal of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il on 30 Rock for which she received an Emmy Nomination. She has decided to take on portraying and slaying even more of them in her music video DICKtator which drops today. So many new videos on Tuesday December 1st results in red eye, in a good way, I always say. Margaret has something to say about it, hey you didn't think she wouldn't did you?! "Here's a fun song I did with Princess Superstar and C Fire Da Rambler. It struck me that we needed an apocalyptic battle rhymes song to deal with the news of the day. My friends and I played dictators through history and Andy my partner shot it all on our phones and edited it on my laptop. We laughed so much while making it and we hope you do too" - Margaret Cho Cheers, here's to you Donald Trump! Jump down to the video:
Margaret Cho: Bring It!
Photo: Kyle Christy for TLC
"I'm of mixed North and South Korean decent. My people have been separated, incarcerated, starved, brainwashed and denied free speech for over 65 years. The only weapon I have is comedy. If you deny us the most basic human dignity, I have the right to make fun of you. I'm not playing the race card. I'm playing the rice card. " Margaret Cho
This was Margaret Cho's response regarding her show stealing appearance on the 2015 Golden Globes Award Ceremony when some people declared what she did racist. Margaret was just doing what comes naturally to her, pushing the envelope and "playing the rice card" like she has for many years prior to the high profile evening.
In addition to her recent triumph on the Globes Cho also has a new TV show. What's it about? It's All About Sex, she along with Heather McDonald, Marissa Jaret Winokur and Dr. Tiffanie Davis Henry let it all hang out every Saturday night at 11 pm on TLC.
And she recently took to the streets of San Francisco to busk a move for the city's homeless in honor of the late Robin Williams.
OK you all know the drill, it's time to get down to business, Cho business!
MS: Hi Margaret, I hear you have a land line today.
MC: Oh I know it's like, I have no reception in this building and it's really crazy! It's so weird to be that cut off so it's very exciting to have a land line.
MS: Congratulations on the Golden Globes that was really awesome!
MC: Thank you.
MS: What a surprise it was really kept under wraps.
Hey North Korea, We're Addressing You! l-r Tina Fey, Margaret, Amy Poehler
MC: It was a big secret. Tina Fey and I had talked about it and said that is was our secret thing. Her and Amy Poehler didn't tell anybody it was going to happen, it was great! I love those guys!
MS: They were going to tell jokes about North Korea anyway, this took it to the next level.
MC: Right and they actually had somebody of North Korean decent to be able to sock it to them! (laughs) I mean I really wanted to sock it to North Korea, my family has been separated for sixty-five years. They've been tortured, killed and starved for over a generation and a half. It's really important to me to be able to make that statement against them, because the only weapon I have is comedy. It was a great, beautiful pleasure to do it.
MS: People's backlash against you doing it seemed really strange to me.
MC: Because people are racist, it's just racism and it's really sad. There is so much anti-Asian things out there in comedy. Yet the only time anyone makes a fuss is when I do something. That's fucked up.
MS: It's totally fucked up. No one I know thought anything like "Ooooooo racism" when they saw it. All I heard from friends was how great you were.
MC: Because you don't know any racists! (both laugh) You don't know anybody who is racist! (laughing)
MS: Well I wouldn't tolerate it.
MC: That's good, yeah I wouldn't either so it's shocking to me too.
MS: You played the "rice card."
MC: Yeah, those are my people and I'm playing the "rice card."
MS: Let me play Devil's Advocate really quickly here. Since this whole race thing came up, and it is something that never would have occurred to me. How would you have felt if a Caucasian comedian, say Tina Fey did what you did?
MC: Well I don't think she would. I don't think anybody would and I would be disappointed because I would want to do it. This type of thing is my job.
MS: How was meeting Meryl Streep?
MC: Afterward she kissed me.
MS: Ooooooooh!
Yes! Benedict Cumberbatch Photo Bombing Meryl Streep & Margaret
MC: She kissed me on the cheek after and it was so warm and loving and generous. I was super excited about Benedict Cumberbatch photo bombing me. I am a total Cumberbitch! When I was rehearsing the angle of the photo I pointed the camera in his direction hoping he would do it, and he did. (laughs)
MS: Let's talk about your latest TV show All About Sex on TLC. I caught the premiere episode and I like what Dr. Tiffanie Davis Henry said about women having extramarital affairs. That women have always been having them, but now they are just more open about them. I think that is true. MC: Right. We're able to be more honest now about our dishonesty. MS: Like you said on the show women are conditioned to lie, be duplicitous. MC: Be liars, be duplicitous. To not sort of tell the truth and to be very good at it. To save people's feelings, not to be emasculating...whatever the reason. It's very much ingrained in us to have a double agent personae. MS: (laughs) I like that, I know plenty of women who are just as horny as men. MC: Exactly! MS: Did you know I write about sex? MC: Yes,that's great! MS: Like you, I don't have a degree in that field but I have an opinion. MC: Everybody is an expert actually. We all know what it is and what's going on, we can all speak to it. MS: The first episode was titled "Friends With Benefits" that's something you like, correct?
Hot Stuff! Margaret Cho
Photo: Dusti Cunningham
MC: Yeah, that's a thing, as is long love affairs, monogamy and one night stands. They're all different and they're all great in their own way. They all have pros and cons, any kind of human connection that's sexual has the potential to be fulfilling.Every connection with another human being is different, you grow to enjoy and respect the differences. The world is full of people and you've got to figure out and navigate your own way through it. MS: Tell me about busking for the homeless in your home city of San Francisco in honor of Robin Williams. MC: It was great! I got to bring all the different things I do together...comedy, singing and burlesque, I would just get naked in the street. That raised a lot of money, people would see my body and give me money, I don't know why (laughs) but I raised a lot of money for the homeless. I would put money in my G-string and give it to homeless people, and they were so happy they were crying. It was so beautiful, we were able to set-up haircuts for homeless people, we had the show happening and food, money and clothing were being donated. There was a beauty salon on the corner with many talented people donating their time giving manicures and pedicures on the street. That's incredible! This would go on for three hours at a time all over San Francisco it was really profound, I really loved it. MS: Awesome! MC: What's really remarkable was there was a big storm and the city opened up a bunch of buildings so homeless people could have shelter from the rain. Also Google donated two million dollars to the homeless the same week we performed. I feel like we started some sort of consciousness about the homeless that had a greater effect than what we were just doing. MS: Very cool. Of course you're touring in 2015, where are you recording your special? MC: At the Gramercy Theatre in New York, the special will be recorded on March 7th, I will also be performing there on March 6th as well. The show is all about how to deal with the problems of the world we're encountering and how to manage our own reach around the injustice. It's called "There's No I in Team, But There is a Cho in Psycho" (both laugh). MS: This is off the cuff but do you ever watch "The Good Wife?" something you just said made me think of it. MC: Oh, my really great friend Alan Cumming is on that, no I haven't seen it. MS: You should watch it sometime I think you'd love it. MC: I will, Alan is the best guy! Keep Current With Everything Margaret at: https://twitter.com/margaretcho http://margaretcho.com/ https://www.facebook.com/officialmargaretcho
The controversial, worldwide sensation smuggled from North Korea
WINNER of Founders Grand Prize from Michael Moore for
Best Picture at the Traverse City Film Festival
Propaganda is the way of the world, get yourself some...
Controversial to its core, this hard-hitting anti-Western propaganda film looks at the influence of American culture on the rest of the world from a North Korean perspective, and has been described as 'either a damning indictment of 21st Century culture or the best piece of propaganda in a generation.'
Propaganda signals the birth of a new genre-bending generation of film maker. Using the 'fake North Korean propaganda' found-footage device, Director Slavko Martinov, (who just spoke at a recent TED conference) parodies its language and stylings, before targeting the mountain of hypocrisies and contradictions that make up the modern Western narrative. In doing so, the film delivers a devastating blow to those who might be quick to laugh at 'backward' ideologies before considering how political and cultural trends have weakened Western claims to the moral high ground.
In chapters with titles including "Rewriting History," "Creating Ideas and Illusions" and "The Cult of Celebrity," the film takes aim at advertising, war, TV, consumerism, religion, censorship, celebrity and historical revisionism - all sources of, or the result of state propaganda - in a way that is thoroughly North Korean, alarmingly authentic and disturbingly precise.
Propaganda has caused an international incident involving the NIS (South Korea's CIA), the Catholic Church, Homeland Security and the FBI. In fact, Martinov and his crew to this day stand accused of being North Korean agents by the South Korean government. If the best way to see our selves is through the eyes of another, then this jaw-dropping film will hold a mirror to Western media, politics and history, and the propaganda that has shaped them.
Winner: Best Picture - Traverse City Film Festival
Official Selections: DOXA 2014, CLIFF Film Fest, Olympia Film Festival, CPH:DOX 2013, Melbourne underground Film Festival, Raindance Film Festival, PUFF Festival - Hong Kong, Docville Festival 2013, Doc Edge Festival 2013, Byron Bay Film Festival, IDFA Film Festival 2012
It’s a Cho, Cho World - with season four of “Drop Dead Diva” already in full swing & her upcoming comedy tour “Mother” not to mention her too cool for school guest spot as Kim Jong Il on “30 Rock” Margaret Cho is in your face B!tches!
She even caught the attention of the Fred Phelps comedy troupe known as The Westboro Baptist Church, who called her a “Lying Pervert” uh, ok, we Cho fans already knew that, duh!
MS: Hi “Lying Pervert“.
MC: It’s true, when I read that I was kind of like, well, yes! I think that’s fine.
MS: The Westboro Baptist Church is so over the top, I find the the sh!t they say oddly funny.
MC: It’s really kind of flattering. Once they had a big picture of Elizabeth Taylor with the words “Fag Hag” underneath it. I thought it was just so flattering, some sort of signage for people who support gay rights, it’s really kind of amazing.
MS: BTW I watched the season four premiere of “Drop Dead Diva” you look like you are having a blast on that show!
MC: Yes, I have a really good time and I really love the cast. They are all really talented actors and we have really amazing guest stars all the time, which is a lot of fun. My favorite this year have been, Patty Duke…and I didn’t even get to meet Kim Kardashian, but I guess she is coming back soon, so hopefully I will get to see her. We’re always having all sorts of fun people drop in. It’s a great place to be for shooting “Drop Dead Diva“, Atlanta, GA, people are here everyday. Kathy Griffin just came through this past weekend and that was a lot of fun. It’s a cool place to be and being part of cast for four years and playing a character for four years is really great.
MS: The chemistry between the actors on the show rocks. I did watch the season four premiere before we spoke, Kim Kardashian wasn’t bad actually.
MC: She was good.
MS: Let's talk about your upcoming tour “Mother”.
Photo: Austin Young
MC: I have to put my tour schedule together for six months out of the year, because the other six months I am working on “Drop Dead Diva”. Every once in a while I’ll be able to get out and do a gig, but that’s pretty rare, finally I’m actually getting to go back out on the road. People have talked about my “Mother” impression all throughout my career, I wanted to do a show that was just, full on about her (laughs). It’s also about how I have become a “Mother” for the Queer community, I became a maternal figure within that context. This show is about my Mom, dedicated to Mom’s and about a Mom, which would be me I guess. (laughs)
MS: Do you ever want kids for real?
MC: No, no, I mean it is a possibility, it’s important to think, that even if I am not an actual “Mother” I still have to be there for Queer/LGBT young kids. You have to be there as an adult figure within the Queer community. We all have to do that it’s an important thing. In my generation I lost a lot of people that I looked up to in the Queer community. People that are “Generation X’ers” have to have much more of a parental influence to bridge that gap.
MS: There are plenty of people that I do that with. Since we were on the subject of Mom’s I had never really asked you if you wanted to become one, so I had to go there.
MC: You sort of become one by default, in the sense that when you age and get older you just become a kind of a “Mother” even if you don’t literally have child, you have one, we all do.
MS: I caught your guest stint on “30 Rock” as North Korean Dictator Kim Jong Il, you played a guy, but it really worked.
MC: Oh yeah, it was insane because I looked just like him. When I went outside, I was standing there in the bald cap and the wig…I got cruised by this hot older Bear. He thought I was a hot young Asian Bear, I’m like: “ I just got “Bear Cruised” - but I could not follow through on it exactly because I am sure he did not know I was a woman. (laughs)
MS: Yeah, I did not recognize it was you right off.
MC: It’s so crazy how much I look like him, it’s really scary.
MS: Tina Fey said it was one of her proudest moments on the show, having you on as Kim Jong Il, how cool is that?
MC: I really love her and am so proud to have been on the show and have played that character, I am actually North Korean. To be from there and to be isolated from my family because of this dictator, and to be able to make fun of him is a great thing, but it is also pretty sad too, it’s a weird situation.
MS: When he died what were your thoughts?
MC: I was hoping there would be some sort of a change, that it would be time for that country to open up, but that hasn’t happened obviously it has gotten a bit worse. There is less contact, less communication and less scrutiny.
MS: How’s your music going?
MC: I will be doing some music on “Drop Dead Diva” this year.
MS: Very cool!
MC: Also I am so excited to go out on tour as well!
MS: Out of everything you do is touring your favorite?
MC: Touring is and will always be my favorite job! I really love stand-up.
Margaret Cho is not a “Lying Pervert” keep up with her at: www.margaretcho.com
