He is a Chinese scientist, PhD, and also a comedian.
He got stand-up ovation on annual RTCA dinner.
He has a heavy accent.
He makes Americans laugh
When talking about how mainstream media and diasporic media portray “the minority”, it reminded me of Joe Wong, who has obtained huge success in stand-up performance art in US. As we know, “Journalism and media praxis hold a unique position in the creation of representation” (Elfriede, P66) Mainstream media tends to ignore their own identities but exaggerate others; meanwhile diasporic media tends to focus on their “depicting the roles of their own group as victims of other racial/ethnic groups”(Sang Y. Bai)
Once in a while, I consider Joe Wong as an exception in the media since he has made a huge difference on how to perceive Chinese. Usually, when refers to Chinese, you may think of martial arts, agriculture, developing economy, or sometimes weakness, but you will never think of a comedian who is satirizing America’s politics, economy and making jokes of history, awkwardness of mixture culture. To some extent, he has overturned the image of “victim”.
However, after I thought it over, I must say the image may be altered to some degree but there is another awkwardness brought in. When Joe Wong talked about the standing ovation on annual RTCA dinner, he mentioned: “I am the only Asian comedian that can stand on that platform…I kinda gave the first immigration generation of voice… It's been almost hundreds of years since the first Chinese came to United States…not given enough credit…it’s like I gave these immigrants voices although it's an only 15 minutes’ performance.” He made Americans laugh not only because his has great punch line in his speech but also he is one in the minority. In addition, He has a heavy accent and he is an academic, which totally show a picture of Asians—nerd. This is probably a representation of mainstream media again—overlooking own and overstating the other, which I think is a key to attract audiences’ attention because audiences fancy culture clash and diversity.I am struggling between these two points. What do you think?
After watching a bit of his comedy, it seems that Joe Wong also has to balance these two points. He clearly wants to give the Chinese immigrant population a voice and believes he is doing so. Watching the first part of his comedy routine, you see that he uses a number of stereotypes to get the audience laughing and warmed up to him. As his comedy progresses, he begins to shift into more non-racially based humor. I think that because his is the first Chinese comedian to get to such a high level in his career, it very much becomes a question of balancing where he came from and where he wants to go.
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of the example Travis brought up in class about David Chapelle and how he was doing comedy in "black face" and saw a white man laughing at him. Something clicked in his head that said what he was doing was wrong. He was actively participating in the continual perpetuation of racism against his own race. I think that Joe, too, may one day get to that point in his career where he questions whether he should continue to use racially based jokes.
While Joe does refer to himself as the "first Asian comedian to stand on this platform", I think of another Asian comedian has actually been on that platform for quite some time, although American-born--Margaret Cho. Cho uses many Asian-American stereotypes in her comedy but she has also found a way to use her comedy as a way to critique social and political issues touching on topics from LGBT issues, to anti-Bush-isms, to eating disorders and the list goes on.
I think that it is possible for Joe Wong to eventually find a balance within his career that allows him to continue to identify with his Asian identity, as well as his American identity in a way that is appealing to all types of audiences.
The fact that Jolanne is Chinese-American is not something that he or the media can hide. Any impression that wind is portrayed by the media as a nerdy Chinese stereotype is in fact a projection of our stereotyping of Chinese people who dress like one did for this event. In fact for a formal gala Long's attire was appropriate. Furthermore, I believe that long artfully blended political, economic, and social humor in his roast of VP Joe Biden. Well he did use the pronunciation of Chinese to create humorous jokes like this the campaign slogan who cares, He also critiqued Massachusetts healthcare universal healthcare in general, pre-existing conditions, garnering the youth vote by requiring homosexual relationships and critiqued nuclear arms by suggesting that he would text message his enemies while driving. His humor was undeniably American in terms of critiquing larger social issues. However I believe that Joe Wong finds his position as the first first generation comedian to reach this platform as extremely important. He has found or created the opportunity for a first generation immigrant to tell his own story rather than waiting for the success of the second or third generation immigrant to recount the narrative of the first generation. It may be that the first generation feels more strongly other then degenerations that proceed. I am not suggesting that this is always true but rather that the first generation immigrant experience is undeniably different and more directly tied to the culture of origin. Much like other comedians David Chapelle, and Lewis see. K., Joe Wong must dance a fine line between opening mines and furthering negative stereotypes.
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