0:00

This episode is sponsored by Antica Formula.

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0:06

you need to elevate

0:06

your at-home bar experience. It's

0:09

an essential component of many classic cocktails

0:12

like the always stylish Manhattan and the

0:14

of the moment Spagliato. Using

0:16

the original recipe created in Italy in 1786, Antica

0:20

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bar experience home for a drink tonight. Must

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be 21 and up to drink and please drink

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responsibly. Hey,

0:49

so this month on In Her Shoes, we're celebrating

0:51

Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage

0:53

Month. Here's a throwback to one of

0:56

my favorite interviews we did last year with comedian

0:58

Margaret Cho.

0:59

Margaret always keeps it real

1:01

and we talked a lot about what it was like to be

1:03

one of the first Asian American women to

1:05

break ground in the comedy world. For our next episode

1:08

this month, we got a chance to chat with Atsuko

1:10

Okatsu, the viral comedian whose

1:12

HBO stand-up made huge waves on the

1:14

comedy scene. She's talked a lot

1:16

about how Margaret was a major influence for her

1:18

when she was coming up as a comedian. She's

1:21

like a true weirdo like me

1:24

and so I

1:25

loved that she was authentically

1:27

her but also was talking

1:31

about some things like about her family

1:33

that I could also relate to. I loved

1:35

the way she built worlds with

1:38

her comedy. Check out the full interview

1:40

in two weeks on In

1:41

Her Shoes. Welcome

1:52

to In Her Shoes. I'm Lindsay Peeples

1:54

and I'm editor-in-chief of The Cut. On

1:56

this show, I get to talk to people that we love

1:59

and admire. or some that we just find interesting.

2:02

We'll explore how they found their path and

2:04

what maybe have gotten in their way and how

2:06

they brought others along now that they've arrived.

2:10

Margaret Cho is undeniably a comedy

2:13

giant and a standup legend who paved

2:15

the way for so many women in comedy we

2:17

see today.

2:18

She gave Asian American women the liberty to

2:20

be loud, to be vulgar, to be quirky

2:23

and just outright hilarious.

2:25

Her comedy hits on the topics of race,

2:27

gender, politics, sexuality

2:29

and all of the controversial things that we're probably

2:32

not supposed to talk about, but we want to anyway. Most

2:35

recently she starred in Flight Attendant on HBO

2:37

Max and now she's in a new summer film

2:39

on Hulu called Fire Island. She

2:41

joined us to talk about her career, how her race

2:44

has shaped her comedy and her new film. Margaret,

2:46

thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us today.

2:49

Of course, thank you. I like your mic, Margaret.

2:52

It's pink for pride month. I

2:54

love that. I wanna start

2:57

at the beginning because we talk a lot

2:59

at the cut about longevity

3:01

and especially for

3:04

the careers of women and femmes and how

3:06

you transition, how you continue to keep

3:08

going. And I know that you started comedy at

3:10

a very young age and you've

3:13

talked a lot about how it helped you through issues and

3:15

different issues in connecting with people. What

3:18

drew you to comedy to start so young and

3:21

how did comedy really help you confront

3:23

different things? Like was it a coping mechanism?

3:26

Did it just make you come alive?

3:28

Like what was going on in your head at a younger age?

3:30

I just love the art form, you know? And then

3:33

where I come from, San Francisco,

3:35

there was a big comedy scene.

3:37

There was a big nightclub scene.

3:39

That was kind of big thing about, you know, when you're

3:42

like going on a night out in

3:44

the 70s, you're gonna wear a wraparound dress and

3:47

you're gonna go to a

3:49

nightclub and watch comedians. And then,

3:51

you know, like I would listen to the radio and

3:53

in the morning, all the comedians would come

3:55

and

3:56

do these sort of like radio kind

3:58

of... morning show

4:01

antics. And then it was just so like

4:04

a lifestyle that I could really get behind. And I

4:06

just had a hard time connecting

4:09

with people in school. I was

4:12

very obviously very queer, so I got

4:14

bullied a lot. And I didn't really understand

4:17

like how to be friends with people

4:19

who didn't want to be friends with me because they

4:21

said that I was a lesbian, which I didn't even

4:23

understand what that was. So

4:26

it was so painful to kind of go

4:28

to school. So I just sort of escaped

4:30

in this idea that,

4:32

well, I'm gonna be a comedian. And I

4:34

started very young because I just wanted

4:36

to be an adult. I didn't want to be a child anymore. Like

4:38

I didn't love the

4:40

powerlessness of childhood combined

4:43

with the horrible children.

4:47

Like that was just like the worst. So I just

4:50

started comedy early. I found

4:53

a lot of success pretty quickly.

4:56

And you know, it is a coping mechanism. But

4:59

also humor is really looking

5:01

for hope in a situation.

5:03

So when you can find hope, you can

5:06

find a way to survive things. And

5:08

that's really what comedy always

5:10

is for me. That's really beautifully

5:13

said. Also, where

5:16

are those kids now? You know? You know,

5:18

it's really something like kids really

5:21

have a lot of fear.

5:23

And when somebody's different,

5:27

they channel that fear into

5:29

attacking the one that's different because

5:33

then they will hopefully not be attacked.

5:36

Right. You know, that's kind of like what bullying is.

5:38

It's just kind of fear turned into now itself. It's

5:41

interesting because I've been

5:43

in contact with some of those people. Wow,

5:45

you have? Yeah, they really have no memory.

5:49

They're very proud of their association with me. That's

5:51

fizzing me out though, of course. Of course, they don't

5:53

forget the bad things they've done. It's dumb.

5:56

But it's like, it is interesting how

5:58

people really...

6:00

I love the idea of

6:02

somebody who's kind of made it in their connection

6:05

with them. And so people always

6:07

are kind of coming out of like my childhood

6:09

and then later

6:11

my teenage years and like my shows and

6:13

stuff. And it's funny because I

6:16

don't hold any animosity towards

6:18

them because that's just sort of the way that kids are naturally

6:21

fearful and naturally bully.

6:24

Not to say that it's right, but it's just

6:26

something that we didn't have even language to talk

6:28

about. That was such a normal thing in the

6:31

70s and the 80s to happen in

6:33

school.

6:34

It was tough, but I think it's

6:36

better to just kind of, they're

6:39

doing their thing. But

6:41

you're doing yours, more importantly. Exactly.

6:44

I mean, your comedy hits on so many

6:46

heavy things. So you talk a lot about addiction,

6:50

abuse, politics. Why

6:52

has it always been so important for you to find

6:54

the humor in things that a lot of other

6:56

people would deem to be really complicated

6:58

things to talk about, but also

7:01

could be traumatic as well?

7:03

Well, those things have an emotional charge

7:05

and it's really about trying to find

7:07

hope in something. And

7:09

then so laughter is

7:11

kind of this involuntary intake

7:14

of breath, which you don't expect,

7:16

but it carries you into life to

7:19

live the next moment. So really

7:21

finding humor is a way

7:24

to find hope and another

7:26

reason to live. So it's

7:28

quite

7:29

poetic actually. And so those subjects

7:32

such as racism, abuse,

7:34

trauma, those things have

7:36

a need to find

7:39

a way to be alleviated and

7:41

to find hope in those situations. So I

7:43

think that's why. It's also like I'm

7:45

always looking for something to write about and things that

7:47

have the emotional charge like

7:49

those subjects often give me

7:51

the best payout.

7:53

Yeah. I

7:55

was watching the episode that you were in

7:57

of Soul of the Nation and talking.

7:59

a lot about your influence and comedy and obviously

8:02

your identity as well. And I'm always

8:04

curious because I feel like, uh, as women

8:07

of color, we have a lot of experiences

8:09

that we go through in very different

8:11

ways, but are fundamentally at the core,

8:14

very similar, where I think

8:16

for, for myself, I feel like blackness

8:19

is such a huge part of who I am, what

8:21

I do, and obviously my identity,

8:23

but there's also so much

8:25

to do with like issues in our,

8:28

in my own community, in the black community and,

8:31

um, feeling like there's, you know, there's always

8:33

been a crabs in a bucket mentality or like,

8:35

we can't all win, or there's only can be one of

8:37

us. And a lot of, you know, criticisms

8:40

of not being enough

8:42

or being too much and how do we move forward?

8:44

And I was curious on your end of, I

8:47

know you've had some criticism around like, is

8:49

she too Asian? Is she not enough? And

8:51

how have you felt like that and, and, and

8:54

dealt with it in your own right?

8:56

It's very difficult to navigate those things

8:58

because in that way, white supremacy

9:00

remains invisible. They, they, they

9:03

say it's our problems within our own community,

9:05

but really these problems wouldn't exist without white

9:07

supremacy. Oh, of course. Yeah. What,

9:09

yeah, what supremacy has done is sort of faded

9:11

to the background to

9:13

sort of like deceive

9:16

and make us think that we're fighting amongst ourselves. We're

9:18

not fighting amongst ourselves. This is what happens

9:20

when racism is like internalized and

9:24

that tokenism idea, or there can only

9:26

be one

9:26

and that you can't

9:28

support other people of color

9:31

because that would make your, uh,

9:33

accomplishment less exceptional.

9:36

And all these ideas, I mean, there's a, it's

9:38

quite gendered too, the way that

9:41

women of color are viewed against, uh,

9:43

men of color and how do we

9:45

talk about the gay community then in the trans

9:48

community, non-binary community.

9:50

It's a very interesting examination

9:53

where it's all about white supremacy,

9:55

yet somehow

9:56

white supremacy has left the chat. Yeah.

9:59

That they're, they're. It cost all this. They're

10:01

like, what are you talking about? And now we're fighting

10:04

and we don't know why. And it's like, you

10:06

know, the way that we can like

10:08

look to take out all this discrimination

10:10

is to really like look at the big picture of it and

10:13

to see that this is systemic.

10:16

You know, these are systemic problems that we need to

10:18

fix. It's not actually our

10:20

communities. It's the way that

10:22

our communities are juxtaposed and

10:25

pit against each other.

10:27

Right. Tell me about

10:29

like what was the comedy scene like

10:31

when you first started?

10:34

Because I know you've been such a pioneer for

10:36

so many people in comedy

10:38

and specifically women of color who want

10:40

to start up in comedy. Like, do you feel

10:43

like a lot has changed? And what was it like versus

10:45

now that you feel like has

10:46

brought about some change? Well,

10:48

there were very few women

10:51

in comedy when I started out and there were

10:54

very few people of color

10:56

at all. In women of color, basically,

10:59

we just were so few of us.

11:01

There were probably

11:04

more queer women, I think because comedy

11:06

at that time was such a male dominated industry

11:09

that queer women had more of an

11:11

easy time navigating it because we

11:14

didn't care what men thought,

11:15

which is still kind of true. That's

11:18

where we have an advantage where we don't care what men think

11:20

so that we have a

11:22

leg up because we're not

11:24

constantly second guessing what we

11:27

should be doing. It's not a gendered space

11:29

in that way.

11:30

But there were no Asian Americans,

11:32

really. It was a very limiting environment.

11:35

But when you're doing stand up comedy, you're on your

11:37

own. So there's a kind of freedom

11:39

and agency there, which

11:42

doesn't necessarily need that

11:45

sort

11:46

of like I don't

11:48

need a studio. I don't need a network. I don't need a production

11:50

that has Asian Americans

11:52

cast in it, which is fortunate

11:55

because there was just a head

11:57

stand up comedy and that was it.

12:00

How do you now find

12:02

inspiration or new material? Is

12:05

it more challenging? How would you say the experience

12:07

is now since you've been doing it for so long?

12:09

I think I'm better at it, actually.

12:11

I think it's not as challenging,

12:14

but it's also

12:17

definitely like you want to still be

12:20

better than you yourself. You

12:22

want to improve on what you've done.

12:25

So that to me is really my

12:27

challenge, how do I do

12:29

more profound work than

12:32

works I've already done? That's my biggest

12:34

challenge is against myself, which is kind of a good

12:36

place to be. You know, it's like I just want

12:39

to do better than what I've done before.

12:41

Yeah, I love that. You also

12:43

have a podcast, Mortal Minority,

12:46

and you had, season

12:49

two was about Asian American hate crimes and

12:51

historical context around them. And

12:54

you've talked a lot about racism that

12:56

a lot of Asian Americans have experienced. How

12:59

have you personally grappled with

13:01

that? And is there anything that you

13:03

learned, you know, during that season that

13:05

you didn't know or realize was happening?

13:07

Well, what I learned that was really important

13:10

was that the violence and racism

13:12

against Asian Americans is cyclical and

13:14

that we've experienced it since our appearance

13:17

in America since 1849. We've

13:20

incurred this kind

13:23

of wrath over and over,

13:25

whether it's the Chinese Exclusionary

13:27

Act, whether it's the Japanese internment

13:30

camp, whether it's the murder of Vincent

13:32

Chin when Japanese auto companies

13:35

seem to be quote unquote taking over,

13:37

whether it's the LA uprising or

13:40

even now with the violent

13:42

anti-Asian attacks pretty

13:43

much daily happening in

13:46

the time of coronavirus.

13:48

I think I didn't know about so

13:50

many instances that happened, just like we

13:53

don't know so much about history,

13:55

whether it's indigenous people, whether

13:58

it's black Americans, whether it's Asian

14:00

Americans, whether it's queer

14:03

Americans. We don't know anything about our country,

14:05

really. Yeah.

14:11

This episode is sponsored by Antica Formula.

14:15

Antica Formula might be the secret ingredient

14:17

you need to elevate

14:18

your at-home bar experience. It's

14:21

an essential component of many classic cocktails,

14:24

like the always stylish Manhattan and the

14:26

of the moment spa gluetal. Using

14:28

the original recipe created in Italy in 1786,

14:32

Antica Formula is infused

14:33

with captivating aromatics like

14:35

vanilla, saffron, wormwood, and

14:37

bird sugar. With a beautiful

14:40

amber color and well-rounded flavor, Antica

14:42

Formula perfectly balances complementary

14:44

spirits like bourbon or gin because

14:47

your cocktail is only as good as your sweet

14:49

vermouth.

14:50

Bring the finest bar experience home for a drink

14:53

tonight. Must be 21 and up

14:55

to drink, and please drink responsibly. I

14:59

often find

15:00

myself quite frustrated

15:09

with just

15:12

how the new cycle is run as someone who

15:14

has to pay attention because other people

15:16

have the privilege of being able

15:19

to say, I won't watch this, or I don't want to read

15:21

this, or I want to look away.

15:23

But obviously part of my job, and I think it's

15:25

really important to be informed, but

15:27

how do you handle the fact

15:30

that I think we go through this new

15:32

cycle of something bad will happen and then a

15:34

week later people forget? I

15:36

feel like that with a lot of mass

15:38

shootings, there'll be a mass shooting, and then

15:41

a week later everybody is onto another thing, or

15:43

there'll be a hate crime and you'll

15:45

see it on the news, and then people move on to the

15:48

next thing. But for so many people of color,

15:50

I feel like we are carrying the

15:52

burdens of how to make this better, and

15:55

why don't more people care? And I'm

15:58

curious of how you felt about it. It's

16:00

very hard because the trauma remains

16:03

and then you're not allowed to

16:05

heal from it

16:07

until there's like another

16:09

trauma on top of it. So it's

16:11

very difficult to

16:14

manage that, to manage that

16:17

all of the weight of that suffering and

16:19

trying to find a solution through that. But

16:22

there's got to be some hope through that. It's

16:24

just so alarming that

16:26

some people feel like so strong

16:29

about the

16:30

gun issue.

16:33

We've been proven time and time again,

16:35

none of their solutions work. Zero

16:38

of them work. None of them work. And

16:41

it's not rational and

16:43

it's not productive. And we're

16:45

the only country that grapples with this. And it's

16:47

quite a shameful thing.

16:49

Incredibly. We're supposed to

16:51

be the most advanced. We are not. And

16:54

it is so shameful and it's so sad

16:56

that it's the most vulnerable

16:59

in our communities.

17:01

That whether it's children or it's

17:03

hospitals or it's the elderly,

17:05

it's always

17:09

people of color dying and

17:11

nobody's doing anything. And it's really

17:13

it's so

17:16

again, we're coming up against white supremacy

17:18

in a way that is so it

17:20

seems so insurmountable. Yeah.

17:23

But there's got to be a way and

17:25

it you know, it's just so terrible.

17:29

You've used the word hope a lot

17:31

in this conversation. I don't use the word hope

17:33

enough. So that's a good reminder for me. Where

17:36

does that come from? Is that something from your

17:38

family? Is that like where do you

17:40

get that inner hope and desire

17:42

for there to be better? And that's a choice. That's

17:44

a hundred percent of choice to have some type

17:46

of hope for better things. Yeah,

17:49

it's and it's important. It's important to have hope. And

17:51

I think that I have hope because it

17:54

is family related. It's a generational

17:56

thing. It's you know, my family

17:59

has endured.

17:59

so many traumas

18:02

that they've really been

18:04

resilient through, whether that's

18:07

war, whether that's occupation

18:10

by another country, whether that

18:12

is coming to America. All of these

18:14

traumas that are so deeply embedded

18:17

in our psyche that

18:19

really

18:20

have emergent set of beautiful

18:22

practices of looking for hope, looking for hope wherever

18:25

that is, even in plant

18:27

life. I used to think that my grandparents were

18:31

so boring because they love to go to the park, but

18:34

I didn't realize until adulthood they were

18:36

stealing plants' cuttings

18:39

to propagate. So

18:41

we have these huge, amazing

18:43

botanical gardens in our homes

18:46

that were just stolen

18:49

from arboretums and conservatories all

18:51

over San Francisco. But it's

18:53

just like they just took the little crumbs of

18:56

leaves and sticks that people were throwing

18:59

on the ground and getting these gardens

19:01

from that. To

19:03

have that

19:05

passion for bringing

19:08

life to things is just

19:10

so incredible. I think

19:13

our story of coming to America from

19:15

immense poverty and now I can just live in

19:20

my backyard.

19:22

I don't have to steal cuttings from plants. I have

19:25

all of the plants purchased

19:29

and thriving in my backyard. It's

19:33

really incredible to see where we've come

19:36

from

19:36

the difficulties

19:40

of our ancestors. There's

19:42

some joy in that and there's pride in that.

19:45

You've also talked about your struggles with body image

19:47

and the idea of aspirational

19:50

whiteness that a lot of women of color have

19:52

dealt with. Is there a moment

19:54

when you decided that

19:57

you weren't going to let yourself go

19:59

down that

19:59

viral where you stopped caring about

20:02

the beauty standards of the world

20:04

because I often feel like, or

20:07

I mean it could have obviously been a million little

20:09

things, but we talk about this so

20:11

much with the cut because there

20:14

does seem to be this constant disconnect

20:16

with how we talk

20:18

about our bodies versus the language

20:21

that is used and how it actually makes people

20:24

feel. And I'm always curious

20:26

because I think that that's an area that

20:28

is talked about so much and is still not

20:31

that much improvement, at least in the actual

20:33

fashion

20:33

industry. It's hard.

20:36

It's hard. It's hard to find a place of peace

20:38

within our own bodies. But,

20:41

and again, this is sort of where

20:43

the patriarchy and white supremacy has really

20:45

invaded our mindset, where

20:48

we can't accept and love who we

20:50

are because of this proposed ideal

20:53

that doesn't really even exist in

20:55

life. I mean, it's a very weird

20:58

thing of like trying to attain something that's not

21:00

even real. And

21:03

so it's,

21:04

to me, I think there wasn't like necessarily

21:07

a moment where I just sort of made the decision to

21:09

stop

21:10

cutting my own

21:12

body down or my own body image

21:14

down in my mind. It's like an

21:17

overtime realization that I'm

21:20

like growing old in this

21:22

body that I've never appreciated. And

21:24

it's so tragic because now

21:26

I look back at photographs, which I have relatively

21:29

few

21:30

as a young person, and

21:31

I really missed out on

21:34

the vitality and the youthful beauty that I

21:36

did possess. And now I have a different kind

21:38

of beauty, but it's a definite

21:40

choice to appreciate because

21:42

you realize how brief and fleeting

21:44

life can be. And

21:47

our joy is so much more important

21:50

than cultural ideals of who we're supposed

21:52

to be.

21:54

So what do you do to find joy

21:56

outside of comedy? I know you've dabbled

21:59

in some music. and fashion

22:01

and other art forms, what do you do? I

22:03

have an array of very fascinating

22:06

living creatures at my house. I have this

22:08

dog, I have three cats. I have 28 bird

22:11

feeders. I have a bog of carnivorous

22:13

plants outside that eat bugs and

22:16

make flowers from the bugs they

22:18

ate. Okay, I will be Googling this after.

22:21

It's so beautiful. Now they're like

22:24

these beautiful flowers that are like the

22:26

Venus fly traps.

22:28

Oh yeah, I've heard of those, okay. Yeah,

22:30

and pitcher plants and these plants that,

22:33

you know, they ingest

22:35

animals and bugs. It's

22:38

really fascinating. And

22:40

they need so little from me, but I can appreciate

22:42

their beauty and I just give them some water sometimes.

22:46

And I grow strawberries, I grow tomatoes.

22:48

I have all of these really weird cactus

22:50

that lay down. So my job is

22:53

taking them from, they're standing up position

22:55

and I lay them down. They're called the creeping devil.

22:57

And they move on their own. Creeping

23:00

devil, I love this. I think they're supposed

23:02

to be hallucinogenic, I don't know. But

23:04

I've never tried.

23:05

But I have a huge forest

23:08

of them. I have a plant that it's

23:10

called the well witcher mirbilis. And

23:14

it's a plant that actually was around during

23:16

dinosaur times,

23:18

prehistoric times. So to

23:21

me, it's all about the plants, it's about the animals.

23:23

It's about cultivating my happiness.

23:26

Because it's like you have to find that hope and happiness

23:29

within yourself and within your home.

23:32

Right. Do you feel like you, like

23:35

if you are doing all of those things, it helps you

23:38

stay in the mindset of being creative

23:40

and helps you be sharper because you're

23:42

not just focusing on what your

23:44

next stand up is gonna be?

23:46

Yes, because then it's like you're

23:48

able to kind of, it's like a walking meditation

23:50

in a sense because you can kind

23:52

of empty your mind and put your needs

23:55

aside to care for another being's

23:58

needs, whether that's... an

24:00

animal or a plant or

24:02

even an insect or somebody who wants to eat

24:04

insects. Do

24:07

you walk through your garden and then you'll think of jokes?

24:10

Like what is your writing process now?

24:12

Oh, no, it's just like I have like

24:14

different pieces of paper everywhere and then I'll write

24:16

something down or like, you know, I have things

24:18

on my phone or every device that I have has like

24:21

several like reams of things that I

24:23

should be talking about and need to think about writing

24:26

about, you know, focusing

24:28

on.

24:29

So that's

24:31

kind of it. Like I just have little things

24:33

around that I can record all my thoughts

24:35

because that to me is another part of the cultivation

24:38

process.

24:39

Right, right. Although people

24:41

won't be able to see your pink mic for

24:43

Pride, but we're at the start of Pride.

24:46

It's a very pink. We're

24:48

at the start. And what do you have planned? What are you looking forward

24:50

to?

24:51

Well, I think Pride is

24:53

really amazing and I don't know exactly.

24:56

I'm not sure. This Pride is

24:58

very,

25:00

it's fraught with

25:02

a lot of concern

25:05

because of the anti-gay legislation, the

25:07

anti-trans bias and everywhere,

25:10

the fear around that and the

25:12

anger that we have around that.

25:14

And so celebrating Pride to me

25:16

is really about finding ways of resistance,

25:19

whatever that looks like. Yeah, I want

25:21

to go. I mean, I feel like

25:23

I haven't been able to attend Pride, although I've

25:26

done a lot of stuff virtually over

25:28

the last couple of years during this pandemic.

25:30

But I really hope I get to

25:33

celebrate it with people. So I think

25:35

that's going to happen. But

25:37

it's really something that is very,

25:40

you know, Pride becomes much more

25:43

important now than ever because we're fighting

25:45

so many things. I agree.

25:47

Yeah. And I think that the community

25:49

I think in person is so missed on so many

25:51

levels. So I hope so. We

25:53

have to talk about Fire Island. You

25:57

play Erin in the film. I'm very excited

25:59

to see the

25:59

We actually ran a piece

26:02

on Joel Kim Booster this weekend

26:05

in the in the indie magazine And

26:07

it's online on Bolter if anybody wants to read it you

26:10

play Erin in the film So tell us a little bit about

26:12

the film I know it's pride and prejudice inspired

26:15

and tell us about your role who's Erin in this role

26:17

as well

26:18

the Movie is

26:20

like pride and prejudice, but it's like gay pride and

26:22

prejudice because it's like really about

26:25

how we have gay pride, but

26:27

then when we go into gay pride, we're

26:29

going also from into like

26:32

caloric debt and credit card debt because

26:34

we've got to show off our pride to everybody

26:37

so the best pride that we've got to buy

26:39

and diet into and The

26:42

prejudice is you think that you can't

26:44

possibly have other Discriminations

26:47

because

26:47

we are so oppressed

26:49

but really there is so much Problematic

26:52

behavior within the queer community

26:54

whether that's racism or sexism or homophobia

26:56

even transphobia all

26:58

of these things as in class

27:00

Walls are very very rigid. So

27:03

the film is really all about that But

27:05

taking it in the form of a beautiful

27:09

romantic comedy Which this

27:11

really is also and it's

27:13

a beautiful movie and it's a great

27:16

summer watch

27:18

It's a place that I really love Fire Island

27:20

is steeped in gay history and it's

27:22

a place we've always gone always going to feel safe

27:25

in the summer and Yet,

27:27

what do you do when you don't feel safe

27:29

with your own community and it's

27:31

really about that, too

27:33

I'm very excited to see it. It looks good. It's great.

27:36

So what what is next for you? What should people be

27:38

on the lookout from for you? I

27:40

will be touring for like

27:43

a while I mean, I'm basically on a tour

27:45

that I started in 2018 and now rejoined

27:48

my fresh off the bloat tour and That's

27:51

really great. I'm very excited about that Andrew

27:53

on who directed Fire Island and doing another film

27:55

with

27:56

him. He's producing So

27:59

that That's really exciting. I'm just kind of

28:02

like excited to celebrate

28:04

pride. And

28:07

it's all really something that I really appreciate,

28:09

getting to go out there and perform, and

28:12

being able to be in shows, going

28:14

to do shows. It's really powerful.

28:17

Yeah. Very looking forward

28:19

to seeing that as well. I was looking at some

28:21

clips, and you were like talking,

28:24

laughing about your mom. And I'm really,

28:26

I'm sure people are going to be so excited to see

28:28

you on tour again.

28:30

Yeah, yeah. It's going to be great. Maybe

28:32

she'll come. She's very like,

28:35

I love to do it. I think

28:37

it's so funny. She thinks it's so

28:39

funny. So I

28:41

love her so much. She's even made

28:43

a TikTok with me. So it's really

28:46

good. Yeah, she is a Tik. She's on my TikTok.

28:49

I just wanted to ask. I'm going to have to go see it. I love it.

28:51

I started a TikTok, actually, Tomas Matos

28:53

from Fire Island showed me how to

28:55

do TikTok last summer

28:58

at Fire Island. So I've been

29:00

doing that since. So my TikTok is the

29:02

Margaret Cho.

29:03

OK, I have to go see the one with your

29:05

mother. She's very funny in it. She's really

29:08

cute. Thank you so much

29:10

for doing this. We so appreciate it.

29:12

Of course, thank you.

29:18

In Her Shoes is hosted by me, Lindsay Peeples. Our

29:20

producer and editor for this episode is

29:23

Taka Zinn.

29:24

Our engineer is Brendan McFarlane. And our

29:26

executive producer is Hannah Rosen. The

29:28

Cut is made possible by the excellent team at

29:30

New York Magazine. Subscribe today

29:32

at thecut.com

29:33

slash subscribe. I'm

29:35

Lindsay Peeples, and thank you so much for listening.

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