“I like this idea that sometimes you can inherit a gay from your mother. Sometimes that happens. Like ‘Baby, you remember uncle Ron? Well, he got a D.U.I. so he’s gonna babysit you from now on.’ The magic of the relationship between an old gay man and a little girl is, like, the best friendship that you could possibly have on earth. They will watch Twilight as many times as you want and they will play Barbies with you and they don’t have to be Ken. It’s like ‘Girl, I wanna be Skipper!’ and it’s the most beautiful thing, so I wanna really acknowledge that, and call out that one relationship that I know exists. There’s never been a movie about it. There’s never been a TV show about it, like that generational comedy between this really old gay man and this really little girl. It’s such a funny thing. It could be a crime duo! The closest thing to it is Paper Moon but that’s not even really it. Really old gay and really little girl is such a perfect combination of personalities, so I’m really trying to explore that.” – Margaret Cho

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MARGARET CHO x LOGAN LYNN
for Portland Queer Voices blog series (2013)

(Photo by Nick Spanos)

(Originally Published on Queer Voices on 8/29/2013)

Nothing Is Sacred: An Interview With Margaret Cho

I previously reported that actress & comedian Margaret Cho is bringing her new stand-up show “Mother” to the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in Portland this November, and this week I had the pleasure of interviewing this amazing, hilarious talent for Queer Voices on QBlog!

Margaret and I talked about gay men and their mother figures, what it’s like to have intersecting minority identities these days in Hollywood, how weird “Dancing With The Stars” fame is, and much more.

Read our chat below, then get your tickets to the Portland stop of Margaret Cho’s “Mother” tour HERE.

Logan Lynn: Hi Margaret! Thanks for carving some time out for me today.

Margaret Cho: Thank you!

Logan Lynn: The name of your new tour is “Mother”, so I’m guessing it’s about…politics? Animal rights?

Margaret Cho: (Laughs) Well, it is about a lot of different things. It’s about my own mother a little, but it’s also about being at the age where everybody perceives you to be a mother. In your 30’s and 40’s you’re kind of looked at as a mother figure, and then I have a lot of friends who are younger than me, who consider me kind of the maternal figure in their lives. Certainly as a hag, you know, like, a fag hag, you get to this stage where you become like a mother, where they just start calling you mother. That’s a great place to get to, that grand dame queen mother identity; so that’s part of what the show is, too.

Logan Lynn: Do you feel like that’s why gay men have historically been so magnetized your way? Do you fill some sort of mother-shaped void for us?

Margaret Cho: I think that’s true. I think it’s why sometimes gay culture is Read the rest of this entry »