As Malaysia cancels Jocelyn Chia, Asia’s comics open up on the risks of ‘crossing the line’
- The US-born comic is capitalising on a wave of infamy with an upcoming TV show, after angering Malaysia over a gag about missing flight MH370
- From India to Singapore, some comics say the humour business is increasingly risky, as the line separating ‘offensive’ and ‘illegal’ becomes blurred
She has been cancelled, barraged with internet opprobrium and hit by a vague threat to get Interpol on her case, but US-born, Singapore-raised comic Jocelyn Chia is unrepentant over the gag that enraged Malaysia and kicked up a commotion over taste, decency and humour in Asia’s increasingly patrolled online space.
The notorious 89-second clip, from a bit delivered at a New York comedy club in April but that only went viral in Asia three weeks ago, carried a joke about MH370, the Malaysia Airlines flight carrying 239 people that went missing in 2014 while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
“Life goes on, right?” Chia told This Week in Asia. “The advice [from friends who have been cancelled] is to keep putting out content and your fans will follow you, and your career will just keep building and growing.
“This gave me some notoriety and a certain amount of fame but at the end of the day, my career will live or die based on the strength of my jokes,” she said.
Envoy says comedian ‘not Singaporean’ as Malaysia rages at MH370 joke
Crossing lines through comedy is an increasingly treacherous business in Asia, several comedians told This Week in Asia, where race, identity and politics may play well inside a comedy club but can draw dangerous levels of outcry once on the internet.
And even the defiant Chia said she was unexpectedly dipping into her training as a lawyer over fears she could be detained by authorities in Singapore were she to travel there.
“I don’t think it will happen, but I’ll take a peek at the extradition laws when I have a moment,” she said.
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Malaysian police ‘to seek Interpol help’ over Singapore-born comedian Jocelyn Chia’s MH370 joke
Just a joke … right?
Indian stand-up comedian Radha Karia, 33, said given the climate of heightened sensitivity and the strong presence of mob vigilantism on social media, she had been extra careful about what she posts online, fearing that someday it might come back to haunt her.
When the authorities and online mobs stalk the internet, self-censorship is the outcome, she said.
“From the start, [show producers] would tell you not to make jokes about religion, jokes about the government or jokes that might offend someone … which makes it more difficult for comics,” she said.
Many comics have internalised the boundaries – on race, religion and incendiary political issues – instinctively knowing that the barometer of decency is calibrated differently in different places.
“You don’t have the right to cross the line on someone else’s life,” said Singapore’s best-known comic, known by the mononym Kumar. “You don’t get too personal … Sometimes when I do it, I will always say sorry because I will feel like I did something wrong.”
However, the imaginary line separating ‘edgy’ and ‘offensive’ from ‘illegal’ has become increasingly blurred – and crossing it can mean jail time.
In India, stand-up comic Munawar Faruqui, who has been accused of cracking jokes that insulted Hinduism during a comedy show in Indore, was detained for 37 days by police in 2021.
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Some comedians say the risks are now shaping content.
Singaporean comedian Jacky Ng said his Malaysian friends in comedy were steering clear of sensitive discussions and directing their focus onto their work for now.
One Malaysian comedian, who declined to be named fearing a backlash, said comics were trying to put up a “united front”, insisting spirits had remained “quite strong throughout it all”.
Indian comic Ankur Tangade has received rape and death threats, on top of being stalked, after being part of a show which had a line-up of comedians from the Dalit community, who are the bottom of the Hindu caste structure.
“I thought I’d try my best to not offend anyone since as a comedian, my job is to make people happy,” she said. “But I realised that people will hate on you even though they don’t know what I talk about on stage. So I stopped trying to please everyone.”
There are also political forces at play, said Ang Peng Hwa, a professor of communication studies at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, suggesting outrage at Chia’s joke – while offensive to many Malaysians – was juiced up by some factions looking for quick leverage.
A small rally by the youth wing of right-wing Malay nationalist party Umno was held at the US embassy on June 9, a few days after Chia’s gag did the rounds.
“I view this as a highly political incident, politicised for whatever ends that these people may want to have,” Ang said. “We are not exactly following the West to the same extent of cancel culture. But people are looking and seeing how one might use it to cancel people they don’t like.”
Context remains the rule governing a good joke and the best laughs are often won in local languages including Bahasa Melayu, Tagalog or Mandarin, said Singaporean comic Jacky Ng.
“We live in different parts of the world and we see the world so differently,” he said, seeing the outcry over Chia’s skit as an occupational hazard of comedy in the internet age.
“I think what happened has happened before, and will continue to keep happening: a comedian has a good set in the club, posted a clip of the performance online and people online take the clip out of context and react extraordinarily,” he said.
“Personally, I will continue to do my own style of comedy and keep trying to improve as a comedian.”
