“On the contrary, most local comedians who do their shows in English or Malaysian-English tend to resort to crude, rude, insulting or racist humour which many would find offensive and in poor taste. While a specific audience may find this amusing, they would not appeal to a broader audience.”
The above is an excerpt from an opinion letter to The Star by A Moreton-Shabirin of Kuantan written on 7 November 2018. The title of the piece was “Offensive humour is not funny.” Link attached.
Firstly I want to put it out there that I appreciate the opinion and more so, the desire to discuss the state of comedy in a national paper. Lord knows we could use the publicity! Thank you so much. Back to the opinion piece— it is a valid opinion but one that I find myself unable to fully agree because ‘offensive’ or ‘rude’ felt like a generalisation here. So here are my thoughts.
This matters to me because I am part of the young but hungry comedy scene in Malaysia. 10 years ago, there was only one show a month, TimeOut KL Comedy Thursday, with only five to eight regular aspiring-comedians. Presently, while comedy venues/clubs are closing down in regional Singapore and Hong Kong, Malaysia has Crackhouse Comedy Club, operating at least 5 days a week, on course to celebrate their fifth birthday in 2019 and another full-time comedy club, Joke Factory. We are thriving, baby!
Number of comedians have risen close to the sun as well. I worked on a stand-up comedy TV show, Sedapnya Mulut, produced by my friend Shamaine Othman, where 42 comedians, new and haggard, were involved in. That’s 42 comedians okay-ed for the Malaysian TV masses!
As a storyteller, comedian, person, one of your most accessible yet valuable possessions are your stories and experiences. The writer wants to hear them all— BUT CLEAN! I think that is non-starter approach to comedy. My favourite comedian, Mike Birbiglia, said, “All jokes are offensive…to someone.” in his special ‘Thanks God For Jokes’ which by the way, is an ESSENTIAL viewing for the writer (it is on Netflix and I implore you to watch it when you find the time). Birbiglia was addressing the Charlie Hebdo incident where 10 satirist/comedy writers were murdered.
Comedy always has a victim. Wait, victim is a strong word but I can’t think of another at the moment. Sorry. Anyway, I’m going to prove this fact. The writer names Jim Gaffigan, Michael McIntyre, and Jerry Seinfeld among others who has achieved immense success without the need to be offensive. Great list of comedians. In Gaffigan’s latest (and very good) special, Nobel Ape, (available on Spotify), he has a fantastic bit on massages. It goes, “What do we really know about massage therapist? They like to rub strangers for money, while listening to the Avatar soundtrack. That’s a red flag. Those are the traits of a serial killer.” In this joke, the target, TARGET! That’s the word I was looking for, not victim. The target in the joke are massage therapists but even when put in the context of a comedy show, told by a wholesome father of five, can anyone guarantee no one will find it insulting (offensive)? Not a chance. Micheal McIntyre has a bit on the sport of tennis and cricket having too much ‘faffing’ and goes into a potent physical act-out of all the ‘faffing’ that goes on. The target there are tennis players and cricket players. Comedy always has a target.
Seinfeld swore on stage early in his career but decided to stopped. He discussed this in yet another ESSENTIAL viewing for the writer— HBO’s ‘Talking Funny’. On the flip side, Pete Holmes, another comedians refrained from swearing on stage to be ‘wholesome’ and ‘clean’ but finally found his stride when he let loose and started swearing (like a sailor). He discussed this on Mike Birbiglia’s recent podcast, ‘The Old Ones’.
I have seen crude, racist, dirty or insulting comedy on the Malaysian stage. I don’t agree with all of it but I understand because I started there too. I thought a joke was more likely to land when you draw from a shared pool of knowledge. For me, the shallowest, closest part of the pool would be our multiculturalism— Chinese are like this, Malays are like that, Indians are forgotten.
Eventually I grew out of it, and pride myself a clean comedian for many years. But this year, I caught myself swearing on stage. I was a bit upset but it also felt natural to me. Swearing existed in my psyche, in my thoughts, so why shouldn’t it exist in my words given the right circumstances like a comedy show marketed to 18-and-over only? Did it hurt anyone? I don’t know. Is it a big deal? No, I don’t think so.
Maybe the comedians the writers had watch here were aspiring comedians like myself, 10 years ago. Green and unsure of their voices yet. That’s okay. But I want to assure the writer that while the stand-up comedy stage is the closest semblance to freedom of speech, we draw lines that cannot be crossed. I have seen people get thrown off the stage for performing chauvinistic, bigoted material. Back when I started and operated the once-a-month comedy show, there was a bigot who’s whole set was women-bashing and so we pulled him off the stage. Months later he came back, told us he had a ‘new set’ and that he learnt his lesson. We let him back on stage and he had replaced women-bashing with Muslim-bashing. Alamak!!! What did we do? We banned him from ever performing on our stage. (Comedians of 2010s, remember this buttface?!)
I really like that the writer is a comedy fan. I don’t even know all the comedians he’s named! The vastness of knowledge is such a beautiful thing.
But I have to say that this difference in opinion is in some ways our doing as well. Whenever someone says “comedy in Malaysia”, the sad sad truth is what it really means is “comedy in KL/PJ”. After all, Crackhouse is in TTDI KL, Joke Factory is in Publika, KL. The myriad of open-mic shows are all in KL/PJ. Why haven’t we in the last 10 years been able to built a sustainable route to more cities around the country? This is a conundrum that upsets me and one I hope to fix.
I do want to do my part so here’s a promise: The one-hour show that I wrote this year, Electric Butterflies, has been booked to perform in Adelaide and Edinburgh in 2019 but I have also started putting together a national and regional tour route. I promise the writer, I will bring the show to Kuantan! Please come! But, be warned, comedy always has a target!
Till next year, don’t stop watching comedy. Trust me, like the rest of the world, you WILL grow to like our jokes.
Jenhan
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