What Would You Do If You Woke Up Tomorrow and You Were Beautiful?
With Proposition 8 on California’s ballot just over a week away from the date of her performance, she stated, ”I think it’s very political to feel beautiful, especially if you’re queer. Because you have to take on the world every day of your life to survive.”
Cho speaks from first hand experience about the perils of what can happen when you try to conform to an ideal that doesn’t speak to your personal truth. In 1994, she was tapped to star in the first “Asian-American” sitcom on broadcast television. The show, “All American Girl” went through several phases as the creators debated if Cho was “too Asian or not sufficiently Asian.” The final product got watered down, as network executives feared that the content was “too ethnic.” That wasn’t their only concern. They criticized Cho’s physical appearance and her face structure (too round). As a result, she starved herself for weeks to achieve a weight loss that would be commensurate with their expectations. The goal was to have the right look in time to shoot the pilot episode. As Cho told me when we spoke by telephone, the result was not just a thinner Margaret Cho.
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What Would You Do If You Woke Up Tomorrow and You Were Beautiful?
Answer: Anything I like.
Tomorrow would look like today and yesterday and every day since I was born. I am beautiful.