What if you woke up tomorrow and you were beautiful?
Margaret Cho hates that question.
“What do you mean, what if?” she said to the radio DJ who asked her that question recently.
“No, what if you woke up and you were blonde and you had blue eyes and you were 5’11” and you weighed 100 lbs.?” the DJ replied.
“I said, ‘Well, I probably wouldn’t get up because I’d be too weak to stand,’” she said.
And this is where Cho got the idea for her new show, titled “Beautiful.”
“I thought, ‘That’s really fuckin’ awful.’ If that’s the only kind of person he thinks is beautiful, what a sad thing,” she said. “He must not see very many beautiful people ever. And I think everybody’s beautiful.”
Cho’s show also grew out of her positive experiences in the world of burlesque. She says going to see burlesque shows helped cure her of “body dysmorphia and eating issues” because burlesque displays a range of women and body types, all of whom Cho thinks are beautiful.

“I think that’s really incredible to see somebody who is, say, larger or more voluptuous feeling sexy and feeling beautiful,” she said. “I think that seeing these kinds of images of women can really cure us of what fashion magazines do to us.”
Cho took her appreciation of burlesque a step further and actually performed her own show, “The Sensuous Woman.”
All of this spurned Cho to create a one-woman show about tattoos, beauty, women’s bodies, sexuality and politics.
“It’s about a lot of things,” Cho said. “It’s not so much based on current events as my previous show (“Assassin”). It’s a different kind of political… Politicizing beauty feels like a different vibe.”
Cho isn’t afraid to get political. Her previous show, “Assassin,” was about the Bush administration and the Iraq War and the “hypocrisy behind it.”
But now that the Bush administration is nearing its end, Cho has turned her sights to the 2008 election. She’s supporting a Democratic candidate but is afraid to reveal just who she prefers.
“I voted in the primary, and I’m not saying who I voted for because half my friends are really into Obama, half are into Hillary, and I would get half my ass kicked,” she said.

She also takes a lighter approach to the presidential election, discussing which candidate has the hottest body.
Cho chose former candidate John Edwards as the hottest body, followed by Mitt Romney, who also dropped out of the race.
“Not that I would vote for him,” she added.
All kidding aside, Cho is ready to get down to business this election season. Queer politics have long played a big role in her comedy, and this year they are at the forefront of Cho’s political concerns.
She said, “The politics for the queer community are really aligned with my politics. I hope to be a voice – a good voice – for this community.”
Cho, who identifies as queer, believes the major issue facing the LGBTQ community is visibility. “In this election, gay marriage has completely disappeared as an issue up for discussion. I think that’s because in the last election we discovered that the homophobia in America is such a bad problem that it can’t even be addressed,” she said.
“The biggest challenge is to make sure that we are visible, to make sure we are included. This is vitally important that we still exist within the national landscape. We have to exist on this level because right now we don’t, and that’s really upsetting.”
One way Cho is working to increase visibility of the LGBTQ community is by featuring Ian Harvie, a transgendered comedian, on parts of her tour.
She met Harvie, who is a female-to-male transexual, while filming the OutLaugh Festival on all-gay cable network LOGO.
Being a comic, especially a queer comic, can be difficult, and part of Cho’s work with the OutLaugh Festival involves mentoring young queer comedians. She’s used to the rejection and disappointment that comes with the industry.
“The thing about Hollywood is that if you can endure rejection, ultimately you’ll be able to keep on going,” she said. “If you can just steel yourself, get really, really thick-skinned, and get really devoted to what you’re doing, then ultimately you’ll be successful.”
Local fans will get the chance to see how Cho’s politics and humor collide to form her unique brand of comedy when “Beautiful” comes to Portland’s Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall this Thursday. Eager fans are certainly looking forward to seeing her, and Cho is anticipating returning to the Rose City.
“I love Portland. I love Powell’s Books,” she said. “I think it’s a very political city, it’s a very smart city. It’s one of my favorite places to play.”
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