Living & Arts

Cho's humor resonates with college crowd

In print | February 28, 2008

If Swarthmore were a comedian, it would be Margaret Cho. Known for her sassy wit and deep commitment to socio-political activism, Cho reflects the fearlessly outspoken nature (although not necessarily the politics) of the campus at large. Students responded enthusiastically to Cho’s performance this past Saturday on the LPAC main stage, applauding and laughing their conscientious heads off throughout the evening.

Cho was preceded by comedian Ian Harvey, who lampooned careless hunters such as Dick Cheney and extolled the virtues of strap-on dildos. Although the dildo trope fell a bit flat, beneath the surface of Harvey’s performance lurked a deeper discussion of queer and transgender issues. Harvey “came out to [his] parents twice:” once as a lesbian and a second time as a transgendered person. After coming to terms with his desire to “to pee [his] name in the snow,” Harvey began taking testosterone. He will soon have chest surgery because, having measured one of his breasts on a supermarket scale, he realized that he was carrying “the equivalent of an Olsen twin — not the fat one.”

Cho bounded on stage to Harvey’s welcome and an intense wave of cheers and applause from the audience. Although she began her highly acclaimed stand-up career over nine years ago with the one woman show, “I’m the One that I Want,” Cho’s humor is still sharply insightful.

What makes Cho’s comedy so hilariously powerful is that she is not afraid to work more serious issues into blatantly ridiculous topics. While satirizing Paris Hilton’s jail stint and Britney Spear’s appearance at the VMA’s, Cho also commented on female body image. “Britney did not look fat. She looked beautiful,” Cho said.

She later returned to this theme of perceived beauty on a more personal level. During a radio interview, Cho was once asked, “If you woke up tomorrow and you were beautiful, what would you do? If you were, blonde, blue-eyed, 5’11”, and weighed 100 pounds, what would you do?" Cho snarkily responded, “Well, I probably wouldn’t get up in that case, because I’d be too weak to stand.”

Cho does not rant either. No matter how passionate she is about the often controversial issues her shows tackle, Cho never uses the stage as a pulpit. Instead, she wraps her messages in layers of impressions, funny faces and copious use of the words “pussy” and “dick.”

Many of these messages touched on subjects that Swarthmore students hold dear, genitalia included. “She was perfect for the Swarthmore crowd. Everyone around me was laughing so hard,” Jessa Deutsch ‘10 said. From abortion to “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” Cho left no issue uncovered. "I am not bi, I’m ‘I’," Cho said when explaining her queer identity to the audience. Even environmental sustainability had its moment in the sun when Cho said, “Dick is sustainable!”

Most Swarthmore students took well to Cho’s unique brand of comedy. “I thought that her ability to subvert the crude language usually used to marginalize minority communities to craft biting social commentary and satire was a clever technique that is uniquely suited to her brand of comedy. Also, she was really funny,” Aaron Brecher ’10 said.

Cho closed her performance with an original ode to oral sex, lyrically exhorting the audience to “eat me out.” At this point in her sex-saturated show, the musical number pushed things a bit over the top. Although audience laughed and cheered, not all were fans of Cho’s comedy at the end of the night. “The show was not really my style,” said Melissa Cruz ’10, who was working the door.

Even though the performance was not suited to all tastes, the Cooper Committee deserves many thanks for bringing a comedian as blunt and flat-out hilarious as Margaret Cho to Swarthmore.

For more on Margaret Cho’s visit to Swarthmore, see page 12.