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I choose to look at the tiny number of readers of this blog as a positive thing. I’m so far out on the forefront of the future, nobody can notice it!
Well, maybe that’s not the case. That being said, there aren’t a lot of foreigners who perform Chinese-language comedy, and so I often find myself wondering what I could do if there were hundreds of people like me in Beijing who got our kicks by making Chinese people laugh.
But there are countries where large amounts of ethnically foreign people speak the language fluently. Yesterday a British friend of mine introduced me to the comedy show “Goodness Gracious Me!” which stars Indian actors and covers issues where India and Britain collide. With several hundred complicated years of history to go off of, as well as a bevy of modern day issues, I knew this would have a lot of potential.
The fact that many Indians are English citizens, speak fluent English, and have long been exposed to English culture means that they are ideally situated to take the piss out of the English (Did I say that right?). In this great sketch, Indians in Delhi “Go for an English,” and replicate the attitude English people take towards ordering Indian food in England.
The piece is masterful. From the mispronunciation of the waiter’s name to making the normal English term “bread rolls” carry the same exotic tone that English speakers order nan bread with, the piece manages to ride the line between truthful and offensive quite well.
Obviously, as an American, I can’t quite say whether English people feel the jibes are fair. But based off of my own experiences in America, where people sometimes tell me they won’t eat “ethnic” food (what does that even mean?), this seems pretty spot on.
For my own purposes, this reminds me of several things to do if trying to create similar works in China. First of all, all of the jibes are in subtext—the closest that the actors get to saying anything actually offensive about England is that its food is bland, but that joke is so overused it doesn’t have any power in it anymore. It also happens to be true.
SEE WHAT I DID THERE?
Secondly, the imagery of loud Indians makes the scene a bit more palatable to the mainstream audience. Sure, everyone knows what’s going on… but what they see is Indian people being inappropriate, ostensibly being the targets of mockery themselves.
The keystone of the piece is that the sole British actor is a low-status waiter who gets abused verbally and physically but can say nothing. The person designed to relate to the audience is literally standing in the shoes of those the writers want audiences to sympathise with.
The environment masterfully backs up this feeling. Everything is perfect to reflect a swapping of worlds: The waiter’s low economic status (like many immigrants’) to the proportion of “non-foreigners” to “foreigners” (like many immigrants will deal with) to his expertise and opinions being ignored except for when they touch on his ethnic background (like many immigrants encounter). And, of course, we all feel for the souls who have to work in service industries when customers like these arrive.
But there are differences between what you can do in England with Indians and in China with… well, anyone not Chinese. China is not at the point yet where foreigners who “take the piss out” of China can quite get away with it. For laughter, audiences must feel that jokes making fun of their cultural habits or societal situation must be fair. What cultures see as fair critiques of their own society changes drastically, and so having a finger on the pulse of society is crucial for doing comedy anywhere.
You can see this in American society. Listen to Eddie Murphy’s jokes about gay people from decades ago, if you can get past his outfit:
Nowadays, these jokes are seen as pretty repulsive. It’s not the graphic sex in the jokes, as Americans clearly love sex jokes, but the homophobia. As a comedian, though, this is only partially his doing. Murphy clearly had a finger on the pulse of America at the time… listen to the crowd’s reaction!
But now look at this newer bit, this one by Chris Rock:
Two comedians can have different views, so the existence of two different opinions is hardly surprising. But listen to the audience: they explode at his opening line, “Everybody gets all homophobic, you gotta cut that shit out!”
Has the type of audience that attends Chris Rock and Eddie Murphy shows changed in twenty years? If it’s changed, then it’s because the people themselves have changed. Sure, the audience will be a bit younger on average, but not everyone in that audience is so young they don’t remember the time Eddie Murphy’s routines were funny.
If I had a team of grad students, I’d set them off analyzing audience reactions to hot-button social issues. Is there a correlation between audience support for comedy routines that support a viewpoint broader and societal acceptance as a whole of those views? Do audiences increase support for anti-homophobic routines as homophobia becomes less acceptable in society? I think they would. It might just be that comedy clubs tend to congregate in cities, which tend to be more liberal, and might support more liberal comedy, but even if that is the case it would be an interesting thing to discover.
Anyways, it’s good to see that there are examples of “foreign” communities working within the comedy routines of the cultures that they now interact with and getting laughs on both sides. I think that in light of the sorts of things that have been happening in Britain lately with ethnic and social tensions, routines like this one are worth their weight in gold.
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