Margaret Cho, whose concert film Revolution has her artfully styled as Che on the cover, isn’t necessarily leading a revolution. She’s leading a tour, certainly, called “State of Emergency.” And right now, the comic has her sights set on mobilizing her base around the hotly contested 2004 election. But her revolution has been a long time coming.
Campaigning against injustice and hypocrisy whenever possible, Cho also takes the time to interact at length with a highly devoted audience composed of gays, straights, whites, Asians and whatever else America’s so-called melting pot can contain. Because, as much as any talent working in these tough times of Patriot Acts and cowed journalists, she understands that although true revolution begins at home, it ends in the public square.
“To me, revolution is the entitlement to change, to empower oneself to change,” Cho recently explained to me in an interview. “That’s the most difficult part of revolution – feeling that you deserve one. It is a powerful statement to want one, and of course an even more powerful thing to go about starting one.”