Though known as a sassy, boundary-crushing comedian, Margaret Cho proved to Obies on Friday that she is also a natural motivational speaker. By the end of the night Finney looked like the setting of a self-help infomercial: tearful students were lining up to ask Cho intimate questions about their lives and jumping on the stage to collect hugs from the feisty performer.
Before Cho’s one woman show, there was some controversy on campus about the Student Union’s decision to pay over $20,000 for the big-name comedian to grace Oberlin with her presence. There were also some murmurs about Cho’s racially-charged routine that plays off of her Korean-American heritage. But despite Oberlin’s mixed welcome, Cho didn’t fail to entertain the audience in attendance and even offered helpful bits of advice to those who stayed after her routine.
Cho is famous for her merciless sense of humor; even Oberlin didn’t escape her tongue. “I’ve known about your school for a long time,” Cho said, stepping onto the stage barefoot in a casual pants-tank-top outfit. “I knew this really preppy girl in high school who went to Oberlin and came back named Green Dragon …I guess that’s what you do here.”
Throughout her performance Cho grazed the fuzzy line between funny and gross, and sometimes she crossed it on the gross side. Her bit about her visit to the enema doctor was a tad gratuitous, although it did have amusing parts. She recalled how Enya was playing in the waiting room: “Something about Enya really facilitates release,” she said.
Cho’s routine became more interesting as she delved into hot topics like sexual identity, racism, sexism and America’s obsession with thinness. Cho, who says she has had problems with all of the above, had the familiar rise and fall from grace of any Behind the Music starlet. Her ABC sitcom All American Girl was canceled in 1995 and then she slipped into a period of drugs and depression.
Unlike some celebrities who gloss over the less glamorous periods of their lives, Cho found humor in her missteps. Throughout her life, Cho said she has struggled with eating disorders. Her discussion on dieting was the funniest and most genuine part of her routine.
“My brother and I would eat healthy during the day and then, after school, my mom would take us to McDonald’s…you know you have an eating disorder when you’re going to McDonald’s for dessert.” For four years Cho had anorexia, but since recovering, she has abandoned diets. “I’m tired of dreaming about Cinnabon in the middle of the night,” she said.

The heart of Cho’s show was her discussion of racism. She talked about the prejudice that she has faced as an Asian American woman in the entertainment business. “People come up to me and say ‘Where are you from?’ And when I say ‘California,’ they say, ‘No where are you really from?’ ” Cho said that her path to success has been working outside of the Los Angeles entertainment system by creating her own production company.
Cho’s signature imitation of her mother’s Korean accent seemed to make some people in the audience uncomfortable. The comedian defended this integral part of her show, saying, “I think my mom would sound pretty funny with an English accent.”
After finishing her solid routine, Cho encouraged audience members to come up to the mics by the stage and ask her questions. The lines kept on growing and the Q and A session lasted for over an hour. Several students called the performer their new “personal hero” and asked for her advice on their problems with everything from prejudice to dating. Some one even queried how “Quentin Tarantino was in bed.” Her answer? “Alright.” Cho finally wrapped up her show by giving the audience a general piece of wisdom: “It’s okay to be full of yourself…if you have no self esteem you’ll always hesitate before you do anything in life.”