March 23, 2018 • 41 mins
B shares a few laughs funny lady Jenny Yang and talks through how to make comedy more inclusive.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Bridget and you're listening to stuff mom
never told you. Now, if you've ever listened to an
episode of Siminty, you probably already know that representation is
(00:26):
kind of our thing, and our episodes on Lisa Simpson
we've already talked about the ways that representation is super,
super important. It's not just about what TV shows you
like or what movies you like. If you can't see it,
you can't be it. And so if a generation of
women and girls aren't seeing themselves reflected on screen, it's
a problem. Now. I talk a ton about inclusion and media,
but oftentimes those conversations can fall along the spectrum of
(00:47):
black and white, and I'm definitely guilty of that. But
when you look at Asian representation, they're often looked out
of the conversation altogether. That's why I'm so excited to
be joined by today's guest, Funny Lady Jenny Yang. Jenny
the former labor organizer turn stand up comedian, writer and actor.
She produces the Disoriented Comedy Tour and the Comedy Comedy Festival.
In President Obama honored her as a White House Champion
(01:11):
of Change for her leadership in Asian American and Pacific
Islander art and storytelling. Jenny, thank you so much for
being here today. Oh my gosh, thank you so much
for having me. This is amazing. You're amazing. Oh my gosh,
you're all amazing. I know. Then let's just start with
a big affirmation circle. I know. I feel like, you know,
(01:31):
stuff Mom never told you is that we can actually
just like compliment ourselves. Okay, totally, that's very real, Jenny.
We already know that TV is pretty much hella white
and hella male, but when it comes to Asians on screen,
it feels like things are pretty dismal. I was just
reading the study from seventeen out of Biola University called
(01:52):
Tokens on the Small Screen, and you guessed it. Why.
It's pretty much dominate the television landscape. They make up
nearly seventy of TV series regular When can here to
moder Racio Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders who only compromise
about four percent. Yeah, I mean it doesn't surprise me
at all. You know, I think growing up as as
a non white person in America, you just get used
(02:13):
to not seeing yourself um portrayed in a way that
you can honestly relate to We've been forced to relate
to white heroes and white characters. Um. But you know
it's so for me to hear the hard facts. Not
at all surprised, not at all. Yeah, what was even
sort of surprising to me is shows that take place
in cities where you would fully expect to find, you know,
(02:36):
a diverse community of Asians. They even then they are
very diverse. And so shows that are set in places
like l A, New York even they don't have series
regulars who are Asian. And it's like, if you're trying
to depict l A without Asians, like, what are you doing?
I know, it's you know, that's the thing. I grew
up in southern California. I grew up in the Los
Angeles area, and you know, to me, the race landscape
(02:59):
was immigrant, it was Asian American, it was Latin Latin
X it was black, brown, Pacific Islander even, um, it
was everything. And and you know, I think it was
a real culture shock for me when I went to
the East Coast for college and I you know, which
was a school altelled Philadelphia, Um, and I was like, wow, Philadelphia,
(03:19):
East Coast, Why is the sort of racial dynamics so
black and white, and it was really strange to me.
You know, I get it, you know, I I understand
you know, black blackness and whiteness. You know, is uh
sort of the folk rum I think upon which are
race issues balance and and and and teeter. But you know,
(03:40):
uh that just as a as a kid just trying
to come up, it just really was. It was a
culture shock. So when you during your upbringing, when you
didn't really see a lot of other Asians and comedy,
did you feel like, you know, was it was it
almost like, oh, our Asians not funny? Is it not
supposed to be what I'm supposed to be doing with it?
Kind of give you the message that Asian and in
(04:00):
did not have a place in a comedy landscape. Yeah,
I mean I feel like I feel like, you know,
if you're a woman period, it's it's it starts so
early in terms of how we're socialized and rewarded, right,
Like you know, ever since I was little, and I
think most people would agree, if you're a girl, you
were taught to laugh along rather than make the joke,
(04:22):
you know, you were taught to uh support someone else
and being the being funny, but not necessarily be the
center of attention making the smartass remark, you know. And
I know that that's changing, but you know, for me,
that's that's just on our lived experience much less you know,
what we saw. Like, you know, I grew up in
a in an environment where it was like I had
(04:43):
too much older brothers, so I was really taking their lead. Um,
I wanted to be a boy, you know. I was like,
you know, not in like a deep way, but like
in the like socialized way right where I was just like, dude,
boys get to like play sports and like be chill
at it and sweaty, and they get to you know,
like they get to control the remote control, they get
(05:04):
to speak with authority because they have lower voices. Like
that was the those are the messages I got, you know.
And and when I watched comedy, it was, oh, gosh,
all men except for I have to say, you know,
if we think back, what's really influential is you know,
I saw female comics or comedic personalities in sitcoms, and
(05:27):
that was amazing. You know. I loved being able to
see right, uh, girls star sitcoms star and sitcoms or
like even like Lucille Ball like they would play I
Love Lucy NonStop. I'm sure they still play I Love
Lucy NonStop. And I was mesmerized by her. So who
were some of the other early role models for you
with a woman in comedy? Oh gosh, I think definitely
(05:49):
Margaret Show. Like I remember people telling me I was
like Margaret Show even before I knew who she was.
When I was a kid, you know, because I honestly
was exposed to more like Eddie Murphy, uh, you know,
as a stand up comedian, because my brothers were into them.
They were like ten years older. And I was like,
inappropriately watching raw or something like as a as I know,
(06:11):
not what not kids watch. I'm like, why are they
throwing their shoe at the kid? You know, like whatever
the bits were, you know, And I was like thinking,
I was like just a tiny kid. I literally like,
I also, you know, got exposed to like music and
albums before a lot of kids, you know, when I
was like in the second grade or the third grade,
you know. So I just had a really strange American upbringing, honestly,
(06:35):
Like I don't think I really learned about American pop
culture as like mainstream folks know about it until like
v H one. I don't even remember v H one.
Back in the day, they used to have these like
I love eighties or I love the nineties, right, And
I remember watching that just and just like just drinking
it in because I was like, wow, I don't have
parents who listened to the Rolling Stones. I don't know
(06:57):
who they are, you know, so I just feel like that. Yeah.
I mean, you know, I am definitely raised by pop culture.
I'm raised by television. You know. Um, when when I
was a kid, my my family barely before I could
even understand, I remember watching Three's Company. Do you remember
Three's Company? That is all? Yeah, they were always getting
(07:21):
into like sexy jam exactly, little little you know, innuendo, misunderstandings, right,
it was so good. Yeah. And you know, my I
barely I barely understood as a little kid. Um, and
my parents their English wasn't that great. But as a
whole family, we watched Threees Company Fresh Fresh into America,
(07:43):
you know. And you know, I like the Pratt Falls,
I like the physical comedy. Um, I didn't appreciate until
like maybe a few years ago, I like watched it
again on Netflix and I was like, wow, these two women,
they're kind of dizzy, but you know, it's so awesome
how as an ensemble, you know, they get to be
funny together, you know. And I really I think if
I were to look back to think about, like what
(08:04):
kind of representation of women in comedy, um, it was
a lot of sitcoms. But yeah, Asian completely invisible. You
know you let's not even get started on you know,
folks who are indigenous or or otherwise you know, but
definitely you know, as an East Asian woman, UM, I
didn't see anything. Yeah, So how did you get involved
(08:26):
in comedy professionally? Take me through your journey because a
lot of comedians, you got your start as this badass,
lefty organizer and now you're a state up comic. Kick
me through this, you know. Um, I don't know about you,
but I I definitely I call myself a recovering overachiever.
You know. Uh when when when I arrived in America
at five years old, my parents, my mom was a
(08:46):
garment worker, and I saw how hard she worked blowing
her nose out, you know, onto onto Kleenex and having
like fibers from the bad ventilation at the garment factory
and being like, why do you work so hard? This
seems so hard. And she said to me, Jenny, your
job in America is to listen to your parents, Uh,
listen to your teachers, and get straight a's. That's all
(09:07):
I ask of you. Said, you don't have to like
do what I'm doing, because this is really hard work.
And I really took that to heart, honestly, you know.
And so I got straight a's. I got into good schools,
and and the thing that I really took to besides
being a good student was you know, naturally being extroverted
and having extra energy. And um, I was a student
government nerd. You know, I really took on this idea that, like,
(09:30):
I'm a I'm a leader and leadership is important. But
what I didn't know is that in high school, leadership
didn't mean much because the stakes were so much lower.
And it wasn't until college that I realized a leadership
is not at end and of itself. You know, It's
not just for your self aggrandizement, right, It's like not
just about you being the boss. It's a it's leadership
is a set of tools. It's a set of skills
(09:51):
for something bigger than you. And that's when I got
activated on campus, you know, through through the books, through uh,
you know, honestly learning through a lot of black female activists,
fellow college students who taught me about, um, you know,
social justice issues and feminism and what it means to
be a woman of color and care about issues of race, gender, class, sexuality,
(10:12):
you know. Um. And so I think I knew it
was a foregone conclusion that I would work in politics,
but it wasn't until I would say, most of my twenties,
like trying to figure out, like, wow, I'm like moving
up very quickly. Like I was like literally so young,
be a director at a huge labor union that represented
eighty five thousand public employees, like supervising people over twice
(10:35):
my age, you know. And and I burnt out frankly.
I was like, Okay, you know, it's nice that I
could shop, you know, a full price of anthropology at all,
and you know, yelped my xx, yelped my excess spending
on the weekends. But like, you know, I'm not happy.
And I think during this whole time that I was
working in politics in the labor movement, I was I
(10:57):
kept writing. I've been a writer all my life, I
wrote a tree a lot, I performed it. It was
in college that I realized, you know, through the Neureecan
kind of poetry movement on the East Coast, that like,
you can actually you know, perform your poetic words to
build community. And and I really, you know, took to that,
and so I continue doing that back in Los Angeles
(11:18):
when I was working here UM as a young book
and uh, you know, I just decided I had gotten
all this feedback, Hey Jenny, you're funny, and I would
just ignore it because I would never claim the label
of artists, you know, like sometimes we just you know,
we check ourselves out of the game even before we
start by just not even claiming the a label, you know.
(11:38):
And so it wasn't until like I was like, I'm
not happy being burnt out, not looking up to the
people I'm working for. UM, life is too short, Yellow,
I need a I need to just like answer my
creative calling and call myself an artist, called myself a writer.
And by the way, there's so many times that people
have called me Margaret cho or thought I was really funny,
(11:59):
get I'm just gonna try stated up comedy. And it
was like no looking back after that, I love it.
Was there a moment for you that crystallized, Hey, I'm
not happy in this political organizer labor field. Was there
a moment or a feeling that you remember thinking, God,
this is just not for me. You know. It was
really a series of moments that built up into my
own little mini artistic come to Jesus moment. I think
(12:23):
so much. And I get a lot of people asking
me about this because becoming a stand of comedian is
not normal to most people, so it's a risk and
and uh They're always like, yeah, what what made you
feel like you could take that risk? And I just
felt like for me, the gap between how I wanted
to live in the happiness and joy I wanted to
(12:43):
feel became too great compared to my reality. You know
that there was just such a huge gap between between
what I was living and what I wanted, you know,
to how I wanted to live. And I think risk
and fear is there. But like when I finally felt
that that gap was big enough for me to like
and worth it enough for me to fight that fear,
(13:05):
I just had to do. And so I actually, you know,
it was like in this fit of fury and and
anxiety and like, oh, I just have to accept it.
I need to like pursue my creative you know, desires
and and and try things be out of my comfort zone. Um.
I called my friend who like runs this amazing multidisciplinary
arts space that's like twenty years running in Los Angeles
(13:28):
called Tuesday Night Project, where I it was like a
sort of a home space for me to perform poetry.
Her name is Tracy Kato kai Yama, amazing mentor and
friend of mine. I called her up at like eleven
thirty at night on a weeknight, and I just said, Tracy,
what do you do? She's like, I'm getting boba, And
I said Tracy. I was like Tracy, and I knew
Tracy as a poet and she's rights and she like
(13:50):
kept like long late night hours, like she'll just slam
double double espressos at like midnight, you know. And right,
so I said, Tracy, can I just can I be
there in twenty five minutes? And I need to talk
to you. I can't explain, but I'm just I'm having
a hard time, you know. So I'm tearful driving down
the one Tin Freeway down through downtown to Guardina, where
(14:11):
she lives. Can I just pause? This is such an
l a story, I know, right, I'm sorry, and if
I'm going along, feel free to edit this out. But no, no,
I love it. I love it so much. But it's
like the Boba the one head. Yeah, so I'm a
good way in a very good way, in a very
good way. So I go down there and I opened
the door, and without saying a word, I just cry.
(14:33):
I just start crying. I'm just weeping. And she just
gives me a hug. She doesn't even ask me what's wrong.
She just gives me a hug and she just holds
me like the fairy god sister of art, artistry and
creativity that she is. And I just said, Tracy, I
can't deny that I have to live differently. I have
to accept that, like I have to answer some creative
(14:55):
calling or at least take my creativity seriously. And it
sounds for me to say this, even hearing back me
saying this, and it makes it sound like unlike full
of it in a way, but it's not because I
think so many times like there's like all these feelings
that we have inside us of like, oh, I know,
I'd love to do that but we just don't take
it seriously, you know what I mean, Like we just
(15:17):
dismiss it out right, and I just I hate that.
I hated that, and and it got to the point
where I just couldn't deny that anymore and I just
didn't want to live like that. That's so real, And
I think it connects back to what you were just
saying about how you know, who gets to call themselves
a comedian or a creative right, and that that struggle
where you I think we train ourselves that any kind
(15:38):
of internal inclination that we have towards being a creative
or someone who's an artist, we have to suppress that
because you need to get a good job and blah
blah blah, and that when you just let yourself accept that,
it's kind of it sounds so hokey, but there's a
there's a scary power in that of I am going
to say it. People tell me that I'm funny like
Margaret Trow and I'm a comedian. Yeah, totally. It's almost
(16:02):
like this like this high you get where you're like,
you know, you were pushing against all this resistance and finally,
right that boulder just tips over and you're like, oh,
the path is clear, but you're not. It's not you
know what I mean. It's it's almost like I can't
believe it. I've been pushing against this and resisting so long,
and now I'm letting myself have this path open to me.
(16:25):
And I guess once, you know, one step at a time,
I'm going to do an open mic, you know. And
that's what it turned into for me. Um And it
was not like I was hilarious off the bat, you know,
but you know, because being on you know, funny on
command in the sort of context of a stage and
the lights and the microphone is very different. But you know,
(16:46):
and I'm not saving the world here, but man for me,
for my personal journey, it's I cannot imagine my life
being any different, and yet none of what I'm living
right now is what I imagine. Well, you say you're
not saving the world, but I happen to know that,
Like I almost wonder if your background as an organizer
(17:07):
and a lefty because your comedy, your comedy is very political.
It's about race, about gender, it's about culture, it's about politics,
and I almost wonder if you've taken that background with
you it's just a different platform. Yeah, I mean, I
I definitely you know. That's why when people like to
label me as activist, I actually don't like to use
the word activists, sort of speaking of owning labels if
(17:29):
you give it to me, sure, But I don't call
myself an activist because I believe we all can be activists,
and sometimes we have these labels and it makes us
feel like, oh, Jenny's this type of person. She calls
herself an activist, and I'm not exactly like her. So
I can't call myself an activist too, you know. Um.
And so that's why I tend to sort of not
claim that label myself. But um, in terms of like, yeah,
(17:50):
like I bring my whole self to my voice, you know.
And that's really the reason why I'm in this game.
You know what. I When I worked in politics, I
was representing eighty five members. Everything I said in my
you know, shoulder padded suits, slightly shoulder padded suit. Back
in the day. Um, I was accountable for you know,
(18:14):
I had to represent them. And now, UM, I am
so blessed that I can just represent myself. And my
job is to engage in introspection, is to take in
the world and process it through my filter and try
to regurgitate it back in a funny way or in
a way that you know communicates, And um, I love
(18:35):
doing that, and and and so yeah and so yeah, exactly.
The person I've been, every everything I've done up to
this point is a part of who I am when
I step on stage. I love that. That's so real
because you you don't compartmentalize who you are. You can't
write like you're all these different things. You're the labor person,
you're the funny lady, you're the you know, children of
(18:55):
your parents, like, you're all these things may all sort
of it's like that the taps that makes you you,
that just comes to life on stage. Yeah, I like
to think I'm a tapestry. Oh I like that. Yeah,
you can use that. But you know, I'll be honest though.
You know, people have asked me, have you talked about
the labor movement and you're on stage? And I say
(19:15):
yes sometimes, But honestly, I have not gotten deep into
it because you know, even though I don't work in
that movement directly anymore, I'm that employed by them, you know,
I still believe in the principles, and as much as
there are problems in the labor movement, sometimes I don't
feel like, um, I want to use my platform to
put them on blast, you know what I mean? UM
(19:38):
in a public way. I think there's a time in
place sometimes for for that UM. And so we'll see,
you know. But but that's that's also another aspect of
like what it means to bring your whole self, you know.
I do consider like we wear these multiple identities and
sometimes there's you know, a public conversation and there's private conversations,
there's mixed company, and there's not. And for me, I think,
(20:01):
you know, talking about the labor movement and I haven't
got gone to a place where I could kind of
talk about talk about that quite yet. Let's take a
quick break and we're back. So I want to switch
to gears quickly. So you wrote this amazing piece and
(20:21):
l if folks haven't read it, definitely check it out.
We'll linked to it in the show notes. It's called
I'm an Asian American stand up comedian? What if I
could just be a stand up comedian? And the piece
is amazing. Basically it's for this series that l is
doing on female anger and the different ways that it
comes out. And so you start your piece with this
very very powerful memory where you're talking about being an
(20:42):
open mic with fellow comics who are just starting out,
and this guy gets on stage and makes this really
gross racist joke. Is this a situation that you found
yourself in pretty often? Yeah? I mean this guy literally
looked into my eyes as the only woman in the
room of stand up comics at this open mic, the
only Asian in the room, and then while locking eyes
(21:03):
with me, said I dated an Asian girl once and
proceeded to tell a joke. That's probably the most direct
and confrontational type of example of of a comedy club
scenario that I've encountered. But everything else is sort of
a shade or a variation of that, you know what
I mean. So um, yeah, I mean, you know, I
think if I were to string together all of the
microaggressions and the little incidents and the and the sort
(21:26):
of more aggressive experiences I've had, um, it's not pleasant
at all. On you know, I'm still here and I'm
still standing and I'm still standing up, so that's good.
And it didn't sort of push me out right the
sort of accumulation. Accumulation of all of these experiences didn't
push me out, but yeah, definitely. You know, as I
(21:46):
said in the essay, a big part of when you
start out is you just feel more vulnerable and sometimes
if you don't have the right support, if you don't
have the right resources, you know, whether that's in people
or just making a living so that you have the
time time to go and work on your jokes and
go on stage, because that's where you learn. It's it
can feel overwhelming to have also these additional, right hostile
(22:10):
pressures when you're just trying to be funny. You know,
you're trying to make people laugh. It's supposed to be
something that's joyful. Um. But yeah, but sometimes when you're
starting out, you feel more vulnerable, and so those types
of incidents can actually cause, like cause folks to leave
and not continue to pursue stand up comedy. That's so real,
and I think that you highlight something that I often
(22:32):
find myself frustrated with. You know, a lot of people
will say, like, oh, it's a meritocracy. Like a white
guy and a woman of color, we're all starting at
the same place. When you're someone in comedy doing stand
up comedy is not easy for anybody. It's really scary
and really challenging. But when you're a woman or a
person of color or a woman of color, you have
this added extra layer that white comics aren't dealing with. Yeah,
(22:54):
it's you know, it's it's an added extra layer of
what happens to you, how you're perceived in room. And
that's one layer. But the other layer is also just
the ground that we stand on. You know. Um, I
I've been able to move forward in my career because
I come from a middle class level of privilege in
my background. You know, I was able to have a
(23:15):
full time job and have savings in order to like
set myself up so that I can weather any kind
of like lack of income stream while I transition into
pursuing entertainment and comedy, you know. And I think what's
really hard is that sometimes for women, sometimes for women
of color, we don't have that same kind of systemic
privilege or class background that allows us to you know,
(23:38):
have the time and and resources to get good. And
and that's what needs to happen to get good. You know,
you gotta like have that time. And so, um, I
think that's another kind of layer that that gets added
onto us. Absolutely absolutely, So back to this story that
you start your LPs with, so you are really faced
with whether or not you're going to call out this
(24:01):
guy for his racist and frankly like not even funny joke,
or if you're just gonna, you know, deal with this.
You right, I had to make a choice, did I, Heckle,
a fellow comedian. Open Mic shows are supposed to be
quote free speech zones and atmosphere where comics can test
out raw ideas. If I got upset, I was showing
that I didn't have thick enough skin to hang. But
(24:21):
I spent my first career as a political organizer standing
up for the underdog. A professional injustice confront her, was
I going to stop now? And Jenny, what did you do?
I split the difference. I uttered a very sort of
defined and short boo like boo, and then like visibly
(24:43):
shook my head. But no one really registered that in
the room. You know, he just kept going because everyone
was laughing at the joke. All the dudes were laughing
at the joke. Yeah, And so I just can't imagine
what it must feel like to find yourself in the
situations all the time, and they often say that with microaggressions,
it's like, um, what's the expression. It's like a death
by a thousand cuts, where it's not one thing, it's
(25:04):
just little things that all at where you deal with
it day after day after day after day, when you
wake up one day and realize, I don't even feel
like a person anymore. I don't even feel like I
can pursue this thing I love anymore because it's just
too much. I feel like I'm up against too much. Yeah. Yeah,
I think it wears you down, you know. I think
in any situation where you feel like there's a mismatch
(25:24):
between who you are and who you want to be
versus the culture that you live in, you know, I
think that's that that will always wear you down, because
you know, the set of values that people are laughing
at and that they're praising in the comedy club setting
doesn't match with our value sometimes. And so that's why, honestly,
the only way that I could have survived this long
(25:45):
and to be able to eventually make a living doing
what I do is I had to create my own space.
I just had to. It was it was like, I
can't I can't live like this, um just ignoring UM.
I have a fig skin, trust me, But I could
at the time definitely, I was like, I can't. This
will not be sustainable. I will need to create my
own spaces. Well, speaking of that, something that I really
(26:08):
loved about the story you told earlier about your friend
Tracy was sort of one creator of color welcoming in
another and sort of ushering them, showing them the way.
You know, and you've really spent a lot of your
career building spaces where other women, folks of color can
have platforms. And that's something I really respect, and obviously
the White House also respects it because you're an Obama
administration champion of change for that very work. Why did
(26:32):
you take that on? Like why is it important for
you to lift up others as you climb? You know,
we talked about how I bring all of myself to
this work, and you know, being a stand up comedian
can seem like a very solo effort. Honestly, you could
just go to the show's work on your jokes and
you can be pretty solitary. And there's a lot of
stand up comics that really love stand up comedy because
(26:53):
of that but you know, I spent most of my
life as an organizer, as someone who you know, learned
about building community and learned about how building community is
essential to our survival, you know, and so I bring
those skills in that mentality to what I'm doing now.
And so to me, it only made sense that if
(27:14):
I were to create a space for myself, that it's
not only for myself, but you know, those that I
might represent were those that might relate to me. And
so that's why when we created Disoriented Comedy, uh, we're like,
let's make this the first ever mostly female Asian American
stand up comedy tour, because most people never saw that,
and in fact, I had never seen that. And I
remember the first time we put together a show. Uh,
(27:37):
it was so emotional for us because we're like, wow,
look at these really funny uh, you know, folks who
like identify as Asian American and women and who just
like are able to share the like variety of their
lived experience and be so hilarious. Like it was so magical,
and and so you know, I don't know how to
(28:00):
be other than that. And sometimes I do have to
find a balance between you know, putting time into my
own craft and my own work and writing versus the
more external energy of producing right of producing platforms of
producing shows. Um, but yeah, I don't think I could
ever stop doing that because, um, that's how I get
(28:22):
my strength to and motivation to go on. You know,
that's how I get inspired to keep going every day
when you're just like, dude, I mean, I trust me,
I'm super lucky. I get to have so much fun
doing what I do. But there's a lot of work
into it, you know, that goes into it, and so
um in lots of rejection and so to whether that
it really is this community that we've really created a
(28:44):
network of hilarious up and coming as well as veteran
Asian American comedic talent that like, I really feel like
I'm a part of something. And I don't know if
you know, mainstream America or mainstream media has seen that
quite yet, that we're a part of an Asian American
comedic movement that's beautiful. But like you write on your piece,
(29:06):
that's as as powerful and beautiful as that is. And
I'm so glad that you're they're doing that work and
building those spaces, because god, they are important. But also
just like what you were saying that I hadn't even
considered what would it be like if you didn't have
to take this responsibility on, because honestly, you are fighting
back against a system that you didn't create, right, Like,
you didn't create white supremacies. You didn't create this system
(29:27):
that says that people of color, you know, should should
be like this, and that the people that we see
being funny on TV are white and male. But here
you are shouldering the responsibility to sort of really make
people rethink that, you know, when the world doesn't see
you for who you know you are, we have to
create our own institutions. Unfortunately, that in a way is
(29:49):
like an added diversity tax on us. You know, I
actually don't really love the word diversity, but that's been
the term that we've been using, um to to sort
of talk about these ideas of representation. And yeah, in
a way, you know, when when I have to it's
almost like they say, you know, um, there's this analogy
(30:10):
people like to use about sometimes you have to build
the bicycle while you're writing it, right, And that's what
that's a lot you have to do that when you're
not when you're someone that isn't a part of the
dominant ruling culture. You know, Like we have to build
our own paths, we have to build our own vehicles
while we're trying to do the dang thing, you know. So, um, yeah,
(30:32):
I mean I feel like I feel like I wish
I didn't have to produce. Honestly, I wish that they
were like spaces that already recognize that, you know, I'm
a normalized story that you know, I'm cool with it,
and and and and yeah, like I've definitely have access
to more sort of quote unquote mainstream spaces now that
I'm I'm deeper into my my stand up. But like
(30:55):
you know, that's it's just closes off so many other
people that that could be moving forward in developing as
artists or creators or comedians. Let's take a quick break
and we're back. So what do you think needs to
(31:16):
be done to make comedy more inclusive and less of
less of an industry where you just see one or
two stories reflected. What can be done? Well, I think
it's about um, every single one of you listening right
now who shares in these values, um showing up in
person and with your pocketbooks. Two creators of color, female creators,
(31:42):
all those people that are typically represented on mainstream stages
showing up to their shows, whether they're big time in
indycaling or if they're just you know, developing and starting out.
We need people to support us as we develop throughout
the pipeline, if that makes any sense. People don't just
show up and turn into Lena Waife, you know what
(32:04):
I mean. People don't just show up and turn into
men decaling ready to like write their own sitcom. You know,
we need support and resources and audience to come along
with us, you know, and so the way people should
have for Black Panther. Yeah, guess what, Let's make that
a thing even more so, not just for a huge
(32:25):
Marvel Universe movie, you know, let's do it for the
open mics. Let's do it for you know, the smaller
shows that could be possibly just as great. You know,
absolutely what are some content creators or shows or projects,
Are movies that you know about that folks would check out?
Oh gosh, I mean, I think I think supporting your
local comedy scene and seeking out the ones who specifically
(32:50):
like to make sure they book women, queer folks and
diversity in other ways, right, make sure you show up
and just like adopt those shows as like your show
to support I think, supporting local comedy scenes in the
city that you're at. You can find it. Google is
your friend, so you know, and once you get in there,
(33:10):
it's a small community and you'll you'll get to know
everyone and it's like super fun. Um. I think in
terms of bigger projects, I'm really excited about um, you know, honestly,
stuff that y'all may not have heard about like I have.
I'm because of the sort of comedy festival and tour
that I've been organizing since. Um, I'm connected to this
amazing Asian American and people of color creative community and
(33:34):
we are all independently producing our own shows, whether it's
a live show or if it's um, you know, uh,
television pilot or films and features. And I don't think
y'all are ready like we are making our own you know,
a friend of mine, Naomi Co, she actually is. It
was just announced that she will be premiering her self
(33:58):
independently produced television pie litt Um at the Tribeca Film
Festival in their pilot episodic category. You know, like we're
like literally if the systems and in the industry are
not ready for us. We're gonna make them ready. We're
gonna you know, we're not waiting for them. We're doing
things on our own. And honestly, nowadays there is no
excuse for us not to because of technology. Um, and
(34:21):
so you know, that's what I'm excited about, is like,
you know, if you want to scope out asco film
festivals or other types of like festivals, that's where independent creators,
your next Leno wases are going to be there. You know,
there's so many digital platforms. I love, I love you know,
keeping an eye on what Heyn Park is doing. She's
out of New York. She's been directing a different series
(34:43):
and has been hired to be directors for Refinery twenty
nine production that's coming on, you know, Andrew On he's amazing.
He won the John Cassavetti's Director Award last year at
the Independent Spirit Awards, and um, he's directing Naomi's pilot. Yeah,
it's hard whenever people ask me for examples, I mean,
(35:04):
there's so many, That's the thing. It's like, for so long,
I've heard that same old tired pipeline line of oh, um,
there's just not enough you know, funny Asian women are
funny Black women, and it's like both people are out there.
You're not looking. Yeah, you're not looking. And now you
have no excuse because we have way more platforms and
way more ways to get the word out. And so
(35:27):
if you're not looking, then you're not hearing us. You know,
you're not. We're because we're talking, We're we're putting our
stuff out there. Absolutely. So let's say that someone out
there is listening and they're thinking, Gee, I hate my
day job. I've always felt called to be a creative.
What is your advice for that person? Oh my gosh. Um,
if someone's like, gee, I hate my day job, I mean,
(35:49):
here's the thing, Um, I want a world where you know,
we could all live up to our highest potential, you know.
And I think it's such a personal process for us
to figure out what that is. Um, But I do
know for a fact that, Um, I'm just gonna speak
on behalf of East Asians. I'm from Taiwan, you know Chinese,
(36:11):
that for too long we have not recognized that we
can sometimes veer away from the kind of expectations are
our parents have of us, you know, to sort of
walk this very stable, predictable path. Um. If I had
it my way, I would have a an American economy
(36:33):
and a social support system where not all of us
need to like be freelance and not have health insurance
or struggle to kind of take care of ourselves in
basic ways. I can talk all day, but I don't
want to get fired. So let's just say I agree. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally.
I think. I think that's what's challenging. It's like, you know,
sometimes we need more support for um folks who are writers, creators,
(36:58):
um to really shift culture. And and you know, that's
so much of like when we complain about people not
understanding us having so much division in this country, I
have to say, the solution in the end is not logic.
A lot of times, it's storytelling. It's culture, you know. Um.
And so I think we have a task to like
(37:20):
step up. And if you're not happy, then you know,
consider this your sort of like call to arms, Like
how do you how do you like look inside yourself?
You know, like how do you get yourself right? How
do you make sure that like in the end you
can live with yourself? You know, that's so real, Jenny,
You aren't such an inspiration. I'm so so glad you
(37:40):
were able to join us today. I think somebody out
there is going to be driving their car to work
right now and be like, Yo, today is the day
I'm gonna quit. I'm moving to Hollywood and moving to
New York. I'm I'm gonna do my thing, and that's
what we needed. Wait wait, let's back this up. Hold up,
Hold up, I'm not telling everyone listening to gore their
job right now. Any you need, you need to introspect
(38:05):
and you need to get right with yourself about what
that process is. Because it's not black or white. You know.
You know, you can be at your day job right
but still carve out ten to fifteen minutes every day
to work on that novel. Like I'm That's what I'm saying, though,
that's the same that's the same thing about when people
like to throw labels about being an activist. It's not
all or nothing, you know what I mean. You don't
have to be, you know, Dolora Suerta or Angela Davis
(38:29):
in order to call yourself an activist. You know, you
don't have to quit your day job and move to
Hollywood in order to call yourself a creative you know,
there's so many different ways that we as fully fleshed out,
blessed human beings can kind of live our lives, you know,
and take care of ourselves while nurturing that part of
us that we know we need. We need to nurture
(38:51):
so that, you know, our soul doesn't die a little
every day. So it's like, what is yeah, so what
does that look like for you? You You know? And by
the way, this does not preclude me from who knows, tomorrow,
I get myself a nine to five gibby job, okay
because something happened and I just need it, So that
doesn't preclude me from doing that. So don't let me
(39:11):
be your inspiration, you know what I mean? Honestly, that's
why I do the work that I do and like
connect with others because they they're the ones that inspire me.
You'll be surprised how many people in your life can
inspire you to move forward. M hm. That is so real. Jenny,
Where can folks find out more about what you're up to? Yes? Um,
all the time I'm online, Come talk with me, play
(39:31):
with me. All of my socials use the handle at
Jenny Yang TV on Twitter, that's j E n N
y y A n G t V, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook,
and then my website is Jenny Yang dot tv. I
have so many things coming up, videos that I'm gonna
put out as well as later this year, the Comedy
Comedy Festival Colan, a comedy festival here in Los Angeles,
(39:53):
will be happening in uh In Man, Yes in thank
you in October. So if you're gonna come out here
in October, come and visit me, stay in touch. We're
gonna have a huge festival of Asian American community talent.
I love it. Jenny, thank you so much for being
here with us today. Bridget You're amazing once again. Full circle?
(40:13):
Can I kind of just say affirmation circle? Yes, you're
holding it down, putting out you know, two podcasts a week?
What are you doing? Look at this? This is amazing
telling us about ourselves. You know, I try, I try well.
I hope that Jenny inspired you to get creative in
your everyday life. If you're not quite ready to quit
(40:35):
your nine to five and buy a one way ticket
to Hollywood, how are you staying creative in your everyday life?
Let us know. You can find us on Twitter at
mom Stuff podcast on Instagram and Stuff I've Never Told You,
And as always, we love those emails at mom stuff
at how stuff works dot com
Hey, this is Bridget and you're listening to stuff mom
never told you. Now, if you've ever listened to an
episode of Siminty, you probably already know that representation is
(00:26):
kind of our thing, and our episodes on Lisa Simpson
we've already talked about the ways that representation is super,
super important. It's not just about what TV shows you
like or what movies you like. If you can't see it,
you can't be it. And so if a generation of
women and girls aren't seeing themselves reflected on screen, it's
a problem. Now. I talk a ton about inclusion and media,
but oftentimes those conversations can fall along the spectrum of
(00:47):
black and white, and I'm definitely guilty of that. But
when you look at Asian representation, they're often looked out
of the conversation altogether. That's why I'm so excited to
be joined by today's guest, Funny Lady Jenny Yang. Jenny
the former labor organizer turn stand up comedian, writer and actor.
She produces the Disoriented Comedy Tour and the Comedy Comedy Festival.
In President Obama honored her as a White House Champion
(01:11):
of Change for her leadership in Asian American and Pacific
Islander art and storytelling. Jenny, thank you so much for
being here today. Oh my gosh, thank you so much
for having me. This is amazing. You're amazing. Oh my gosh,
you're all amazing. I know. Then let's just start with
a big affirmation circle. I know. I feel like, you know,
(01:31):
stuff Mom never told you is that we can actually
just like compliment ourselves. Okay, totally, that's very real, Jenny.
We already know that TV is pretty much hella white
and hella male, but when it comes to Asians on screen,
it feels like things are pretty dismal. I was just
reading the study from seventeen out of Biola University called
(01:52):
Tokens on the Small Screen, and you guessed it. Why.
It's pretty much dominate the television landscape. They make up
nearly seventy of TV series regular When can here to
moder Racio Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders who only compromise
about four percent. Yeah, I mean it doesn't surprise me
at all. You know, I think growing up as as
a non white person in America, you just get used
(02:13):
to not seeing yourself um portrayed in a way that
you can honestly relate to We've been forced to relate
to white heroes and white characters. Um. But you know
it's so for me to hear the hard facts. Not
at all surprised, not at all. Yeah, what was even
sort of surprising to me is shows that take place
in cities where you would fully expect to find, you know,
(02:36):
a diverse community of Asians. They even then they are
very diverse. And so shows that are set in places
like l A, New York even they don't have series
regulars who are Asian. And it's like, if you're trying
to depict l A without Asians, like, what are you doing?
I know, it's you know, that's the thing. I grew
up in southern California. I grew up in the Los
Angeles area, and you know, to me, the race landscape
(02:59):
was immigrant, it was Asian American, it was Latin Latin
X it was black, brown, Pacific Islander even, um, it
was everything. And and you know, I think it was
a real culture shock for me when I went to
the East Coast for college and I you know, which
was a school altelled Philadelphia, Um, and I was like, wow, Philadelphia,
(03:19):
East Coast, Why is the sort of racial dynamics so
black and white, and it was really strange to me.
You know, I get it, you know, I I understand
you know, black blackness and whiteness. You know, is uh
sort of the folk rum I think upon which are
race issues balance and and and and teeter. But you know,
(03:40):
uh that just as a as a kid just trying
to come up, it just really was. It was a
culture shock. So when you during your upbringing, when you
didn't really see a lot of other Asians and comedy,
did you feel like, you know, was it was it
almost like, oh, our Asians not funny? Is it not
supposed to be what I'm supposed to be doing with it?
Kind of give you the message that Asian and in
(04:00):
did not have a place in a comedy landscape. Yeah,
I mean I feel like I feel like, you know,
if you're a woman period, it's it's it starts so
early in terms of how we're socialized and rewarded, right,
Like you know, ever since I was little, and I
think most people would agree, if you're a girl, you
were taught to laugh along rather than make the joke,
(04:22):
you know, you were taught to uh support someone else
and being the being funny, but not necessarily be the
center of attention making the smartass remark, you know. And
I know that that's changing, but you know, for me,
that's that's just on our lived experience much less you know,
what we saw. Like, you know, I grew up in
a in an environment where it was like I had
(04:43):
too much older brothers, so I was really taking their lead. Um,
I wanted to be a boy, you know. I was like,
you know, not in like a deep way, but like
in the like socialized way right where I was just like, dude,
boys get to like play sports and like be chill
at it and sweaty, and they get to you know,
like they get to control the remote control, they get
(05:04):
to speak with authority because they have lower voices. Like
that was the those are the messages I got, you know.
And and when I watched comedy, it was, oh, gosh,
all men except for I have to say, you know,
if we think back, what's really influential is you know,
I saw female comics or comedic personalities in sitcoms, and
(05:27):
that was amazing. You know. I loved being able to
see right, uh, girls star sitcoms star and sitcoms or
like even like Lucille Ball like they would play I
Love Lucy NonStop. I'm sure they still play I Love
Lucy NonStop. And I was mesmerized by her. So who
were some of the other early role models for you
with a woman in comedy? Oh gosh, I think definitely
(05:49):
Margaret Show. Like I remember people telling me I was
like Margaret Show even before I knew who she was.
When I was a kid, you know, because I honestly
was exposed to more like Eddie Murphy, uh, you know,
as a stand up comedian, because my brothers were into them.
They were like ten years older. And I was like,
inappropriately watching raw or something like as a as I know,
(06:11):
not what not kids watch. I'm like, why are they
throwing their shoe at the kid? You know, like whatever
the bits were, you know, And I was like thinking,
I was like just a tiny kid. I literally like,
I also, you know, got exposed to like music and
albums before a lot of kids, you know, when I
was like in the second grade or the third grade,
you know. So I just had a really strange American upbringing, honestly,
(06:35):
Like I don't think I really learned about American pop
culture as like mainstream folks know about it until like
v H one. I don't even remember v H one.
Back in the day, they used to have these like
I love eighties or I love the nineties, right, And
I remember watching that just and just like just drinking
it in because I was like, wow, I don't have
parents who listened to the Rolling Stones. I don't know
(06:57):
who they are, you know, so I just feel like that. Yeah.
I mean, you know, I am definitely raised by pop culture.
I'm raised by television. You know. Um, when when I
was a kid, my my family barely before I could
even understand, I remember watching Three's Company. Do you remember
Three's Company? That is all? Yeah, they were always getting
(07:21):
into like sexy jam exactly, little little you know, innuendo, misunderstandings, right,
it was so good. Yeah. And you know, my I
barely I barely understood as a little kid. Um, and
my parents their English wasn't that great. But as a
whole family, we watched Threees Company Fresh Fresh into America,
(07:43):
you know. And you know, I like the Pratt Falls,
I like the physical comedy. Um, I didn't appreciate until
like maybe a few years ago, I like watched it
again on Netflix and I was like, wow, these two women,
they're kind of dizzy, but you know, it's so awesome
how as an ensemble, you know, they get to be
funny together, you know. And I really I think if
I were to look back to think about, like what
(08:04):
kind of representation of women in comedy, um, it was
a lot of sitcoms. But yeah, Asian completely invisible. You
know you let's not even get started on you know,
folks who are indigenous or or otherwise you know, but
definitely you know, as an East Asian woman, UM, I
didn't see anything. Yeah, So how did you get involved
(08:26):
in comedy professionally? Take me through your journey because a
lot of comedians, you got your start as this badass,
lefty organizer and now you're a state up comic. Kick
me through this, you know. Um, I don't know about you,
but I I definitely I call myself a recovering overachiever.
You know. Uh when when when I arrived in America
at five years old, my parents, my mom was a
(08:46):
garment worker, and I saw how hard she worked blowing
her nose out, you know, onto onto Kleenex and having
like fibers from the bad ventilation at the garment factory
and being like, why do you work so hard? This
seems so hard. And she said to me, Jenny, your
job in America is to listen to your parents, Uh,
listen to your teachers, and get straight a's. That's all
(09:07):
I ask of you. Said, you don't have to like
do what I'm doing, because this is really hard work.
And I really took that to heart, honestly, you know.
And so I got straight a's. I got into good schools,
and and the thing that I really took to besides
being a good student was you know, naturally being extroverted
and having extra energy. And um, I was a student
government nerd. You know, I really took on this idea that, like,
(09:30):
I'm a I'm a leader and leadership is important. But
what I didn't know is that in high school, leadership
didn't mean much because the stakes were so much lower.
And it wasn't until college that I realized a leadership
is not at end and of itself. You know, It's
not just for your self aggrandizement, right, It's like not
just about you being the boss. It's a it's leadership
is a set of tools. It's a set of skills
(09:51):
for something bigger than you. And that's when I got
activated on campus, you know, through through the books, through uh,
you know, honestly learning through a lot of black female activists,
fellow college students who taught me about, um, you know,
social justice issues and feminism and what it means to
be a woman of color and care about issues of race, gender, class, sexuality,
(10:12):
you know. Um. And so I think I knew it
was a foregone conclusion that I would work in politics,
but it wasn't until I would say, most of my twenties,
like trying to figure out, like, wow, I'm like moving
up very quickly. Like I was like literally so young,
be a director at a huge labor union that represented
eighty five thousand public employees, like supervising people over twice
(10:35):
my age, you know. And and I burnt out frankly.
I was like, Okay, you know, it's nice that I
could shop, you know, a full price of anthropology at all,
and you know, yelped my xx, yelped my excess spending
on the weekends. But like, you know, I'm not happy.
And I think during this whole time that I was
working in politics in the labor movement, I was I
(10:57):
kept writing. I've been a writer all my life, I
wrote a tree a lot, I performed it. It was
in college that I realized, you know, through the Neureecan
kind of poetry movement on the East Coast, that like,
you can actually you know, perform your poetic words to
build community. And and I really, you know, took to that,
and so I continue doing that back in Los Angeles
(11:18):
when I was working here UM as a young book
and uh, you know, I just decided I had gotten
all this feedback, Hey Jenny, you're funny, and I would
just ignore it because I would never claim the label
of artists, you know, like sometimes we just you know,
we check ourselves out of the game even before we
start by just not even claiming the a label, you know.
(11:38):
And so it wasn't until like I was like, I'm
not happy being burnt out, not looking up to the
people I'm working for. UM, life is too short, Yellow,
I need a I need to just like answer my
creative calling and call myself an artist, called myself a writer.
And by the way, there's so many times that people
have called me Margaret cho or thought I was really funny,
(11:59):
get I'm just gonna try stated up comedy. And it
was like no looking back after that, I love it.
Was there a moment for you that crystallized, Hey, I'm
not happy in this political organizer labor field. Was there
a moment or a feeling that you remember thinking, God,
this is just not for me. You know. It was
really a series of moments that built up into my
own little mini artistic come to Jesus moment. I think
(12:23):
so much. And I get a lot of people asking
me about this because becoming a stand of comedian is
not normal to most people, so it's a risk and
and uh They're always like, yeah, what what made you
feel like you could take that risk? And I just
felt like for me, the gap between how I wanted
to live in the happiness and joy I wanted to
(12:43):
feel became too great compared to my reality. You know
that there was just such a huge gap between between
what I was living and what I wanted, you know,
to how I wanted to live. And I think risk
and fear is there. But like when I finally felt
that that gap was big enough for me to like
and worth it enough for me to fight that fear,
(13:05):
I just had to do. And so I actually, you know,
it was like in this fit of fury and and
anxiety and like, oh, I just have to accept it.
I need to like pursue my creative you know, desires
and and and try things be out of my comfort zone. Um.
I called my friend who like runs this amazing multidisciplinary
arts space that's like twenty years running in Los Angeles
(13:28):
called Tuesday Night Project, where I it was like a
sort of a home space for me to perform poetry.
Her name is Tracy Kato kai Yama, amazing mentor and
friend of mine. I called her up at like eleven
thirty at night on a weeknight, and I just said, Tracy,
what do you do? She's like, I'm getting boba, And
I said Tracy. I was like Tracy, and I knew
Tracy as a poet and she's rights and she like
(13:50):
kept like long late night hours, like she'll just slam
double double espressos at like midnight, you know. And right,
so I said, Tracy, can I just can I be
there in twenty five minutes? And I need to talk
to you. I can't explain, but I'm just I'm having
a hard time, you know. So I'm tearful driving down
the one Tin Freeway down through downtown to Guardina, where
(14:11):
she lives. Can I just pause? This is such an
l a story, I know, right, I'm sorry, and if
I'm going along, feel free to edit this out. But no, no,
I love it. I love it so much. But it's
like the Boba the one head. Yeah, so I'm a
good way in a very good way, in a very
good way. So I go down there and I opened
the door, and without saying a word, I just cry.
(14:33):
I just start crying. I'm just weeping. And she just
gives me a hug. She doesn't even ask me what's wrong.
She just gives me a hug and she just holds
me like the fairy god sister of art, artistry and
creativity that she is. And I just said, Tracy, I
can't deny that I have to live differently. I have
to accept that, like I have to answer some creative
(14:55):
calling or at least take my creativity seriously. And it
sounds for me to say this, even hearing back me
saying this, and it makes it sound like unlike full
of it in a way, but it's not because I
think so many times like there's like all these feelings
that we have inside us of like, oh, I know,
I'd love to do that but we just don't take
it seriously, you know what I mean, Like we just
(15:17):
dismiss it out right, and I just I hate that.
I hated that, and and it got to the point
where I just couldn't deny that anymore and I just
didn't want to live like that. That's so real, And
I think it connects back to what you were just
saying about how you know, who gets to call themselves
a comedian or a creative right, and that that struggle
where you I think we train ourselves that any kind
(15:38):
of internal inclination that we have towards being a creative
or someone who's an artist, we have to suppress that
because you need to get a good job and blah
blah blah, and that when you just let yourself accept that,
it's kind of it sounds so hokey, but there's a
there's a scary power in that of I am going
to say it. People tell me that I'm funny like
Margaret Trow and I'm a comedian. Yeah, totally. It's almost
(16:02):
like this like this high you get where you're like,
you know, you were pushing against all this resistance and finally,
right that boulder just tips over and you're like, oh,
the path is clear, but you're not. It's not you
know what I mean. It's it's almost like I can't
believe it. I've been pushing against this and resisting so long,
and now I'm letting myself have this path open to me.
(16:25):
And I guess once, you know, one step at a time,
I'm going to do an open mic, you know. And
that's what it turned into for me. Um And it
was not like I was hilarious off the bat, you know,
but you know, because being on you know, funny on
command in the sort of context of a stage and
the lights and the microphone is very different. But you know,
(16:46):
and I'm not saving the world here, but man for me,
for my personal journey, it's I cannot imagine my life
being any different, and yet none of what I'm living
right now is what I imagine. Well, you say you're
not saving the world, but I happen to know that,
Like I almost wonder if your background as an organizer
(17:07):
and a lefty because your comedy, your comedy is very political.
It's about race, about gender, it's about culture, it's about politics,
and I almost wonder if you've taken that background with
you it's just a different platform. Yeah, I mean, I
I definitely you know. That's why when people like to
label me as activist, I actually don't like to use
the word activists, sort of speaking of owning labels if
(17:29):
you give it to me, sure, But I don't call
myself an activist because I believe we all can be activists,
and sometimes we have these labels and it makes us
feel like, oh, Jenny's this type of person. She calls
herself an activist, and I'm not exactly like her. So
I can't call myself an activist too, you know. Um.
And so that's why I tend to sort of not
claim that label myself. But um, in terms of like, yeah,
(17:50):
like I bring my whole self to my voice, you know.
And that's really the reason why I'm in this game.
You know what. I When I worked in politics, I
was representing eighty five members. Everything I said in my
you know, shoulder padded suits, slightly shoulder padded suit. Back
in the day. Um, I was accountable for you know,
(18:14):
I had to represent them. And now, UM, I am
so blessed that I can just represent myself. And my
job is to engage in introspection, is to take in
the world and process it through my filter and try
to regurgitate it back in a funny way or in
a way that you know communicates, And um, I love
(18:35):
doing that, and and and so yeah and so yeah, exactly.
The person I've been, every everything I've done up to
this point is a part of who I am when
I step on stage. I love that. That's so real
because you you don't compartmentalize who you are. You can't
write like you're all these different things. You're the labor person,
you're the funny lady, you're the you know, children of
(18:55):
your parents, like, you're all these things may all sort
of it's like that the taps that makes you you,
that just comes to life on stage. Yeah, I like
to think I'm a tapestry. Oh I like that. Yeah,
you can use that. But you know, I'll be honest though.
You know, people have asked me, have you talked about
the labor movement and you're on stage? And I say
(19:15):
yes sometimes, But honestly, I have not gotten deep into
it because you know, even though I don't work in
that movement directly anymore, I'm that employed by them, you know,
I still believe in the principles, and as much as
there are problems in the labor movement, sometimes I don't
feel like, um, I want to use my platform to
put them on blast, you know what I mean? UM
(19:38):
in a public way. I think there's a time in
place sometimes for for that UM. And so we'll see,
you know. But but that's that's also another aspect of
like what it means to bring your whole self, you know.
I do consider like we wear these multiple identities and
sometimes there's you know, a public conversation and there's private conversations,
there's mixed company, and there's not. And for me, I think,
(20:01):
you know, talking about the labor movement and I haven't
got gone to a place where I could kind of
talk about talk about that quite yet. Let's take a
quick break and we're back. So I want to switch
to gears quickly. So you wrote this amazing piece and
(20:21):
l if folks haven't read it, definitely check it out.
We'll linked to it in the show notes. It's called
I'm an Asian American stand up comedian? What if I
could just be a stand up comedian? And the piece
is amazing. Basically it's for this series that l is
doing on female anger and the different ways that it
comes out. And so you start your piece with this
very very powerful memory where you're talking about being an
(20:42):
open mic with fellow comics who are just starting out,
and this guy gets on stage and makes this really
gross racist joke. Is this a situation that you found
yourself in pretty often? Yeah? I mean this guy literally
looked into my eyes as the only woman in the
room of stand up comics at this open mic, the
only Asian in the room, and then while locking eyes
(21:03):
with me, said I dated an Asian girl once and
proceeded to tell a joke. That's probably the most direct
and confrontational type of example of of a comedy club
scenario that I've encountered. But everything else is sort of
a shade or a variation of that, you know what
I mean. So um, yeah, I mean, you know, I
think if I were to string together all of the
microaggressions and the little incidents and the and the sort
(21:26):
of more aggressive experiences I've had, um, it's not pleasant
at all. On you know, I'm still here and I'm
still standing and I'm still standing up, so that's good.
And it didn't sort of push me out right the
sort of accumulation. Accumulation of all of these experiences didn't
push me out, but yeah, definitely. You know, as I
(21:46):
said in the essay, a big part of when you
start out is you just feel more vulnerable and sometimes
if you don't have the right support, if you don't
have the right resources, you know, whether that's in people
or just making a living so that you have the
time time to go and work on your jokes and
go on stage, because that's where you learn. It's it
can feel overwhelming to have also these additional, right hostile
(22:10):
pressures when you're just trying to be funny. You know,
you're trying to make people laugh. It's supposed to be
something that's joyful. Um. But yeah, but sometimes when you're
starting out, you feel more vulnerable, and so those types
of incidents can actually cause, like cause folks to leave
and not continue to pursue stand up comedy. That's so real,
and I think that you highlight something that I often
(22:32):
find myself frustrated with. You know, a lot of people
will say, like, oh, it's a meritocracy. Like a white
guy and a woman of color, we're all starting at
the same place. When you're someone in comedy doing stand
up comedy is not easy for anybody. It's really scary
and really challenging. But when you're a woman or a
person of color or a woman of color, you have
this added extra layer that white comics aren't dealing with. Yeah,
(22:54):
it's you know, it's it's an added extra layer of
what happens to you, how you're perceived in room. And
that's one layer. But the other layer is also just
the ground that we stand on. You know. Um, I
I've been able to move forward in my career because
I come from a middle class level of privilege in
my background. You know, I was able to have a
(23:15):
full time job and have savings in order to like
set myself up so that I can weather any kind
of like lack of income stream while I transition into
pursuing entertainment and comedy, you know. And I think what's
really hard is that sometimes for women, sometimes for women
of color, we don't have that same kind of systemic
privilege or class background that allows us to you know,
(23:38):
have the time and and resources to get good. And
and that's what needs to happen to get good. You know,
you gotta like have that time. And so, um, I
think that's another kind of layer that that gets added
onto us. Absolutely absolutely, So back to this story that
you start your LPs with, so you are really faced
with whether or not you're going to call out this
(24:01):
guy for his racist and frankly like not even funny joke,
or if you're just gonna, you know, deal with this.
You right, I had to make a choice, did I, Heckle,
a fellow comedian. Open Mic shows are supposed to be
quote free speech zones and atmosphere where comics can test
out raw ideas. If I got upset, I was showing
that I didn't have thick enough skin to hang. But
(24:21):
I spent my first career as a political organizer standing
up for the underdog. A professional injustice confront her, was
I going to stop now? And Jenny, what did you do?
I split the difference. I uttered a very sort of
defined and short boo like boo, and then like visibly
(24:43):
shook my head. But no one really registered that in
the room. You know, he just kept going because everyone
was laughing at the joke. All the dudes were laughing
at the joke. Yeah, And so I just can't imagine
what it must feel like to find yourself in the
situations all the time, and they often say that with microaggressions,
it's like, um, what's the expression. It's like a death
by a thousand cuts, where it's not one thing, it's
(25:04):
just little things that all at where you deal with
it day after day after day after day, when you
wake up one day and realize, I don't even feel
like a person anymore. I don't even feel like I
can pursue this thing I love anymore because it's just
too much. I feel like I'm up against too much. Yeah. Yeah,
I think it wears you down, you know. I think
in any situation where you feel like there's a mismatch
(25:24):
between who you are and who you want to be
versus the culture that you live in, you know, I
think that's that that will always wear you down, because
you know, the set of values that people are laughing
at and that they're praising in the comedy club setting
doesn't match with our value sometimes. And so that's why, honestly,
the only way that I could have survived this long
(25:45):
and to be able to eventually make a living doing
what I do is I had to create my own space.
I just had to. It was it was like, I
can't I can't live like this, um just ignoring UM.
I have a fig skin, trust me, But I could
at the time definitely, I was like, I can't. This
will not be sustainable. I will need to create my
own spaces. Well, speaking of that, something that I really
(26:08):
loved about the story you told earlier about your friend
Tracy was sort of one creator of color welcoming in
another and sort of ushering them, showing them the way.
You know, and you've really spent a lot of your
career building spaces where other women, folks of color can
have platforms. And that's something I really respect, and obviously
the White House also respects it because you're an Obama
administration champion of change for that very work. Why did
(26:32):
you take that on? Like why is it important for
you to lift up others as you climb? You know,
we talked about how I bring all of myself to
this work, and you know, being a stand up comedian
can seem like a very solo effort. Honestly, you could
just go to the show's work on your jokes and
you can be pretty solitary. And there's a lot of
stand up comics that really love stand up comedy because
(26:53):
of that but you know, I spent most of my
life as an organizer, as someone who you know, learned
about building community and learned about how building community is
essential to our survival, you know, and so I bring
those skills in that mentality to what I'm doing now.
And so to me, it only made sense that if
(27:14):
I were to create a space for myself, that it's
not only for myself, but you know, those that I
might represent were those that might relate to me. And
so that's why when we created Disoriented Comedy, uh, we're like,
let's make this the first ever mostly female Asian American
stand up comedy tour, because most people never saw that,
and in fact, I had never seen that. And I
remember the first time we put together a show. Uh,
(27:37):
it was so emotional for us because we're like, wow,
look at these really funny uh, you know, folks who
like identify as Asian American and women and who just
like are able to share the like variety of their
lived experience and be so hilarious. Like it was so magical,
and and so you know, I don't know how to
(28:00):
be other than that. And sometimes I do have to
find a balance between you know, putting time into my
own craft and my own work and writing versus the
more external energy of producing right of producing platforms of
producing shows. Um, but yeah, I don't think I could
ever stop doing that because, um, that's how I get
(28:22):
my strength to and motivation to go on. You know,
that's how I get inspired to keep going every day
when you're just like, dude, I mean, I trust me,
I'm super lucky. I get to have so much fun
doing what I do. But there's a lot of work
into it, you know, that goes into it, and so
um in lots of rejection and so to whether that
it really is this community that we've really created a
(28:44):
network of hilarious up and coming as well as veteran
Asian American comedic talent that like, I really feel like
I'm a part of something. And I don't know if
you know, mainstream America or mainstream media has seen that
quite yet, that we're a part of an Asian American
comedic movement that's beautiful. But like you write on your piece,
(29:06):
that's as as powerful and beautiful as that is. And
I'm so glad that you're they're doing that work and
building those spaces, because god, they are important. But also
just like what you were saying that I hadn't even
considered what would it be like if you didn't have
to take this responsibility on, because honestly, you are fighting
back against a system that you didn't create, right, Like,
you didn't create white supremacies. You didn't create this system
(29:27):
that says that people of color, you know, should should
be like this, and that the people that we see
being funny on TV are white and male. But here
you are shouldering the responsibility to sort of really make
people rethink that, you know, when the world doesn't see
you for who you know you are, we have to
create our own institutions. Unfortunately, that in a way is
(29:49):
like an added diversity tax on us. You know, I
actually don't really love the word diversity, but that's been
the term that we've been using, um to to sort
of talk about these ideas of representation. And yeah, in
a way, you know, when when I have to it's
almost like they say, you know, um, there's this analogy
(30:10):
people like to use about sometimes you have to build
the bicycle while you're writing it, right, And that's what
that's a lot you have to do that when you're
not when you're someone that isn't a part of the
dominant ruling culture. You know, Like we have to build
our own paths, we have to build our own vehicles
while we're trying to do the dang thing, you know. So, um, yeah,
(30:32):
I mean I feel like I feel like I wish
I didn't have to produce. Honestly, I wish that they
were like spaces that already recognize that, you know, I'm
a normalized story that you know, I'm cool with it,
and and and and yeah, like I've definitely have access
to more sort of quote unquote mainstream spaces now that
I'm I'm deeper into my my stand up. But like
(30:55):
you know, that's it's just closes off so many other
people that that could be moving forward in developing as
artists or creators or comedians. Let's take a quick break
and we're back. So what do you think needs to
(31:16):
be done to make comedy more inclusive and less of
less of an industry where you just see one or
two stories reflected. What can be done? Well, I think
it's about um, every single one of you listening right
now who shares in these values, um showing up in
person and with your pocketbooks. Two creators of color, female creators,
(31:42):
all those people that are typically represented on mainstream stages
showing up to their shows, whether they're big time in
indycaling or if they're just you know, developing and starting out.
We need people to support us as we develop throughout
the pipeline, if that makes any sense. People don't just
show up and turn into Lena Waife, you know what
(32:04):
I mean. People don't just show up and turn into
men decaling ready to like write their own sitcom. You know,
we need support and resources and audience to come along
with us, you know, and so the way people should
have for Black Panther. Yeah, guess what, Let's make that
a thing even more so, not just for a huge
(32:25):
Marvel Universe movie, you know, let's do it for the
open mics. Let's do it for you know, the smaller
shows that could be possibly just as great. You know,
absolutely what are some content creators or shows or projects,
Are movies that you know about that folks would check out?
Oh gosh, I mean, I think I think supporting your
local comedy scene and seeking out the ones who specifically
(32:50):
like to make sure they book women, queer folks and
diversity in other ways, right, make sure you show up
and just like adopt those shows as like your show
to support I think, supporting local comedy scenes in the
city that you're at. You can find it. Google is
your friend, so you know, and once you get in there,
(33:10):
it's a small community and you'll you'll get to know
everyone and it's like super fun. Um. I think in
terms of bigger projects, I'm really excited about um, you know, honestly,
stuff that y'all may not have heard about like I have.
I'm because of the sort of comedy festival and tour
that I've been organizing since. Um, I'm connected to this
amazing Asian American and people of color creative community and
(33:34):
we are all independently producing our own shows, whether it's
a live show or if it's um, you know, uh,
television pilot or films and features. And I don't think
y'all are ready like we are making our own you know,
a friend of mine, Naomi Co, she actually is. It
was just announced that she will be premiering her self
(33:58):
independently produced television pie litt Um at the Tribeca Film
Festival in their pilot episodic category. You know, like we're
like literally if the systems and in the industry are
not ready for us. We're gonna make them ready. We're
gonna you know, we're not waiting for them. We're doing
things on our own. And honestly, nowadays there is no
excuse for us not to because of technology. Um, and
(34:21):
so you know, that's what I'm excited about, is like,
you know, if you want to scope out asco film
festivals or other types of like festivals, that's where independent creators,
your next Leno wases are going to be there. You know,
there's so many digital platforms. I love, I love you know,
keeping an eye on what Heyn Park is doing. She's
out of New York. She's been directing a different series
(34:43):
and has been hired to be directors for Refinery twenty
nine production that's coming on, you know, Andrew On he's amazing.
He won the John Cassavetti's Director Award last year at
the Independent Spirit Awards, and um, he's directing Naomi's pilot. Yeah,
it's hard whenever people ask me for examples, I mean,
(35:04):
there's so many, That's the thing. It's like, for so long,
I've heard that same old tired pipeline line of oh, um,
there's just not enough you know, funny Asian women are
funny Black women, and it's like both people are out there.
You're not looking. Yeah, you're not looking. And now you
have no excuse because we have way more platforms and
way more ways to get the word out. And so
(35:27):
if you're not looking, then you're not hearing us. You know,
you're not. We're because we're talking, We're we're putting our
stuff out there. Absolutely. So let's say that someone out
there is listening and they're thinking, Gee, I hate my
day job. I've always felt called to be a creative.
What is your advice for that person? Oh my gosh. Um,
if someone's like, gee, I hate my day job, I mean,
(35:49):
here's the thing, Um, I want a world where you know,
we could all live up to our highest potential, you know.
And I think it's such a personal process for us
to figure out what that is. Um, But I do
know for a fact that, Um, I'm just gonna speak
on behalf of East Asians. I'm from Taiwan, you know Chinese,
(36:11):
that for too long we have not recognized that we
can sometimes veer away from the kind of expectations are
our parents have of us, you know, to sort of
walk this very stable, predictable path. Um. If I had
it my way, I would have a an American economy
(36:33):
and a social support system where not all of us
need to like be freelance and not have health insurance
or struggle to kind of take care of ourselves in
basic ways. I can talk all day, but I don't
want to get fired. So let's just say I agree. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally.
I think. I think that's what's challenging. It's like, you know,
sometimes we need more support for um folks who are writers, creators,
(36:58):
um to really shift culture. And and you know, that's
so much of like when we complain about people not
understanding us having so much division in this country, I
have to say, the solution in the end is not logic.
A lot of times, it's storytelling. It's culture, you know. Um.
And so I think we have a task to like
(37:20):
step up. And if you're not happy, then you know,
consider this your sort of like call to arms, Like
how do you how do you like look inside yourself?
You know, like how do you get yourself right? How
do you make sure that like in the end you
can live with yourself? You know, that's so real, Jenny,
You aren't such an inspiration. I'm so so glad you
(37:40):
were able to join us today. I think somebody out
there is going to be driving their car to work
right now and be like, Yo, today is the day
I'm gonna quit. I'm moving to Hollywood and moving to
New York. I'm I'm gonna do my thing, and that's
what we needed. Wait wait, let's back this up. Hold up,
Hold up, I'm not telling everyone listening to gore their
job right now. Any you need, you need to introspect
(38:05):
and you need to get right with yourself about what
that process is. Because it's not black or white. You know.
You know, you can be at your day job right
but still carve out ten to fifteen minutes every day
to work on that novel. Like I'm That's what I'm saying, though,
that's the same that's the same thing about when people
like to throw labels about being an activist. It's not
all or nothing, you know what I mean. You don't
have to be, you know, Dolora Suerta or Angela Davis
(38:29):
in order to call yourself an activist. You know, you
don't have to quit your day job and move to
Hollywood in order to call yourself a creative you know,
there's so many different ways that we as fully fleshed out,
blessed human beings can kind of live our lives, you know,
and take care of ourselves while nurturing that part of
us that we know we need. We need to nurture
(38:51):
so that, you know, our soul doesn't die a little
every day. So it's like, what is yeah, so what
does that look like for you? You You know? And by
the way, this does not preclude me from who knows, tomorrow,
I get myself a nine to five gibby job, okay
because something happened and I just need it, So that
doesn't preclude me from doing that. So don't let me
(39:11):
be your inspiration, you know what I mean? Honestly, that's
why I do the work that I do and like
connect with others because they they're the ones that inspire me.
You'll be surprised how many people in your life can
inspire you to move forward. M hm. That is so real. Jenny,
Where can folks find out more about what you're up to? Yes? Um,
all the time I'm online, Come talk with me, play
(39:31):
with me. All of my socials use the handle at
Jenny Yang TV on Twitter, that's j E n N
y y A n G t V, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook,
and then my website is Jenny Yang dot tv. I
have so many things coming up, videos that I'm gonna
put out as well as later this year, the Comedy
Comedy Festival Colan, a comedy festival here in Los Angeles,
(39:53):
will be happening in uh In Man, Yes in thank
you in October. So if you're gonna come out here
in October, come and visit me, stay in touch. We're
gonna have a huge festival of Asian American community talent.
I love it. Jenny, thank you so much for being
here with us today. Bridget You're amazing once again. Full circle?
(40:13):
Can I kind of just say affirmation circle? Yes, you're
holding it down, putting out you know, two podcasts a week?
What are you doing? Look at this? This is amazing
telling us about ourselves. You know, I try, I try well.
I hope that Jenny inspired you to get creative in
your everyday life. If you're not quite ready to quit
(40:35):
your nine to five and buy a one way ticket
to Hollywood, how are you staying creative in your everyday life?
Let us know. You can find us on Twitter at
mom Stuff podcast on Instagram and Stuff I've Never Told You,
And as always, we love those emails at mom stuff
at how stuff works dot com
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