The fact is, is that rape and comedy now have become very connected.
Margaret Cho is a trailblazer.
The Korean-American started doing comedy
when she was just 16 years old.
Back in the 90s, she co-created
the very first all-Asian sitcom on US TV, "All-American Girl".
But the TV executive told her that her face was too fat,
leading her to get hooked on diet medication, booze,
and eventual kidney failure.
She channelled the rage onto the stage.
Her stand-up comedy tackles her history
of being sexually abused as a girl, racism, sexism,
being out-and-proudly bisexual,
and yes, her very Asian mum.
How can this happen to Mummy?
LAUGHTER
- Welcome to the show. - Thank you.
I want to talk about your tour but I did want to start with the story
that I heard that I wasn't entirely sure whether or not it was true.
Okay.
Is it true that you once drank Jagermeister
from the icy vagina of Anna Nicole Smith?
It's very true. She had a party and so we were at her house
and she had an ice sculpture of herself
and you would pour Jagermeister into the mouth
and then it would work its way down the body and come out of her vagina.
And so I drank it. I don't...
- You can't not, right? - Yeah, I mean, I...
I don't think I would do it now, um, because I don't drink alcohol
but it was a very... it was a heady time.
Yeah.
It was exciting to be around her. Um, unfortunately, she's gone.
LAUGHTER
I am a childhood sexual abuse survivor,
so I believe I can make jokes about it if I want to.
But they did not agree with me.
You've talked about being a survivor of sexual abuse on stage.
You've talked about it online.
Is there something for you personally,
is there something empowering about standing up on a stage
and talking about it?
Yeah, well, it's about showing off your level of skill also,
you know, when you're a comedian, that that, like, level of skill
is determined by how serious a subject you can tackle.
The fact is, is that rape and comedy now have become very connected,
with Bill Cosby, with Jimmy Savile, with Rolf Harris.
Every continent seems to have their own version,
and so we have to deal with it
because it's what's happened newswise because of their actions.
Stand-up is an intensely personal and very public activity.
Do you draw a line
about what is just for me, what do I keep to myself?
Or do you put everything out there?
I think you put everything out there. I think that it depends,
like there are some things that, um, you know, there's more value
in revealing them as opposed to keeping them kind of private.
I think that an audience is the extension of friends.
It's a closeness that I've built up with going and doing shows
and seeing the same people over and over for many, many years.
So I think what's challenging
is talking about ideas of, um, like, where can we triumph?
When you're talking about sexual abuse,
when you're talking about all of the stuff,
the journey from becoming a survivor from being a victim,
these topics are considerably taboo,
you know, they're hard to deal with
and they're hard to kind of approach as a comedian.
You know, this is something that's totally new,
but I feel like that's probably the most challenging area.
Addiction I understand, like that's a tough life,
and I've been there.
You know, I know. And at my worst point of my own addiction,
my own drug problems,
Bobby Brown asked me out.
LAUGHTER
And I thought, "I need help."
LAUGHTER
You said a great thing in an interview a couple of years ago,
that anorexia and bulimia is sexism internalised.
- Yes. - But... could you explain that?
I think that's what it is. I mean, I think that, uh,
when we look at sort of an idealised body,
the idea that we have to be a certain weight
really is kind of put upon us by...
misogyny that's kind of in the media,
the way that we have these expectations about women's bodies
and so these diseases that are about eating disorders,
they're really this internalised diversion of misogyny,
of sexism, of body hatred.
It's all very sexist.
- Margaret! - Oh, my God!
The stories about you being told
that your face was too round by network executives, is that true?
Oh, yeah, I mean I was told
that I was too fat to play the role of myself,
I was too Asian to play the role of myself,
or not Asian enough to play the role of myself.
- How can you be not Asian enough? - I don't know, I'm not really sure.
In North Korea, we know how to put on a show.
This is not a show!
No, you no have thousand baby playing guitar at the same time.
One of the people that I loved the most
died in August of last year.
It was my father in comedy, Robin Williams.
You were friends with Robin Williams.
When he died, there was this huge outpouring of grief.
But what is it that
the people outside your circle of friends don't know?
What was he like personally that we don't know?
It was really something that none of us expected from him.
And, I mean, he was always...
kind of shy and retiring, kind of closed off and complicated.
He would always give you money,
there was always this sense of like him taking care of the community,
people around us.
Also, and when he did movies, there was a clause in his contract
that stipulated that a certain percentage of the crew
had to be homeless workers.
But we had never thought to ask him if he needed help.
And that's something that I think that a lot of us have to live with,
the fact that we never asked him if he was okay,
and obviously he wasn't.
And that's something very... It's really difficult.
We never got to see if he was okay, we never asked,
and it was incredibly selfish and incredibly difficult.
You know, we never thought that would end up being something that, um,
he would do, suiide never seemed like an option,
but... unfortunately, that's what he did.
Has that changed the way people in your circle of friends
have behaved around depression and suicide?
I think so. I think that people are now definitely much more...
aware of it and conscious of it
and conscious of asking and making sure that their friends are okay.
He was an amazing... a hero to so many of us.
Margaret Cho, thanks so much for talking to us.
- Thank you so much for your time. - Thank you.