“Miracle?” by Margaret Cho
- On the chapter “Miracle” from her book I’m the One That I Want, Margaret Cho describes how the toxic environment surrounding her character on her show All-American Girl led to dangerous consequences for her health. As Cho says herself, “having so much body shame and all the cultural baggage surrounding it, it’s no wonder that I felt I had no other option” (p.119).
- Cho begins the chapter by describing how momentous it felt to be chosen as the star of a sitcom featuring the first Asian-American family on television, even though that sitcom became something distorted and fake. The weight of this task became apparent as Cho attended executive meetings about how they would do it, but she “thought they knew what they were doing” (p.106). She then describes the experience of being told by the producers that she would need to lose weight for the role, citing the “roundness of her face” as their primary concern. Even in the book, Cho asserts that it was not anyone’s fault but her own for the self-hatred and detrimental thoughts that resulted from this request saying “but it isn’t their fault, I told myself then. It is mine. I let myself react that way” (p.108). I think it’s very interesting how Cho still struggles to accept that every adult who had a hand in letting her physically self-destruct should take blame for her health problems that resulted. They all absolutely should have known better and should have protected Cho who was clearly “terrified of losing the show and everything I had worked for” (p.112). She does not lay the blame purely on the executives however, and also gives credit to her cultural background for her image issues. Cho describes how her weight was a constant point of conversation, to the point where she had to cut off family members for her own mental health to avoid constantly talking about it.
- Cho uses some unique terminology to support her claims. For example, while examining how Korean culture played a part in her destructive behavior she asks why they “cannibalize our own as ‘different’, ‘imperfect’, ‘fat’?” (p.118). The use of the word cannibalize really drives home how much this culture of driving for perfection can destroy someone like Cho, whose toxic dieting really did force her body to eat itself alive and shut down.
- The themes in this chapter are very reminiscent of the “Letter to My Sister” that we read early on in class. The constant expectations to meet a certain beauty ideal, to “fix” herself by avoiding her natural features are parallel to the struggles described in the letter. Whether it be through plastic surgery or extreme diet and exercise, both women went crazy trying to be what they were constantly told was perfect, instead of realizing that it was an incorrect definition.
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