Loud and Proud

Comic and activist Margaret Cho takes on rowdy Republicans, fat-fearing TV execs and anyone who wants to legislate love

By Andrea Chiu

Continued from page 3

This year has been busy for Cho. She released her third film, Revolution, and is working on her own clothing line, High Class Cho, with designer Ava Stander.

But she’s focusing most of her energy on her comedy. In this U.S. election year, Cho has her work cut out for her. Her tour, titled State of Emergency, is blatantly political. She is currently working her way through swing states (the ones with no obvious winner on the horizon), where she hopes to open the eyes and minds of her fellow Americans to the negative actions of the Bush administration.

“There’s a war in Iraq and there’s an awful cultural war happening in America over things like civil rights and the idea of religious freedom and gay marriage, and all of these wars are just the direct result of the current administration,” she explains.

“We have all these channels of free speech being shut down. I don’t understand why it’s going this way, so I feel there’s a real need for a strong movement and taking as much action as possible. I’m going to try to stir up as much energy and force as possible.”

A younger, more naïve Cho may not have said these things with such conviction. But now, at 35, she views the hate mail she receives for her opinions as a sign of victory rather than a setback. “It’s just a good indication that I was making progress where I had not been on the radar before,” Cho says of the mail she received after the MoveOn event. “When you get people to really hate you, you must be doing something kind of great.”