Why onstage equality is no laughing matter

Female comedians forced to work harder to get respect and shake off stereotypes

When Cai Yilin told her mother she planned to perform stand-up comedy at her graduation party last summer, she opposed the idea.

"She replied, 'That's not the kind of thing girls do,'" Cai, 23, says.

"She thought I should perform an elegant dance or song, particularly for the guys, instead of sending myself up. Being humorous is something that people don't expect from a woman. Instead she must be 'tender' and 'virtuous'."

That stereotype is by no means exclusive to the Chinese, says Anete Elken, an Estonian who lives in Beijing.

Elken says that once in Beijing she went to a mostly-foreign open mic session of stand-up comedy, where comedians do test runs of their jokes. One woman's performance was not that successful and the male host commented: "Don't worry, you don't have to be funny, if you look that good."

"Some people laughed, but most of us found it offensive," says Elken, a bilingual improv comedian.

"It was so mean. The whole culture is that men are funny and women aren't. That's why female comedians have to work a lot harder than the men to get laughs from an audience."

A Beijing stand-up comedian, whose stage name is Xiaoxue, says that on stage she never wears anything that is "too tight and too sexy".

"I don't want people to be preoccupied with the way I look; I want them to be listening to my jokes."

Weight is another issue that female comedians have to contend with, she says.

"If you look at comedians, for men in a way it can be a plus if they aren't that good looking. They can joke about it. There are a lot of really big, overweight stand-up male comedians. If a woman turns up on stage like that, the attitude is, 'Oh, don't you really think you need to lose some weight?'"

But just as men can turn that issue to their advantage, so can women, says Pan Ying, who frequently makes fun of her own weight.

"The fact that I'm joking about my weight doesn't mean I agree with their judgments about me," says Pan, co-founder of the Beijing Comedy Center.

"On the contrary, it means I don't really care what they think. By being open on the subject and laughing at myself I become more confident. Yes, I do want to lose weight. But that's because I would like to be healthier, not because of what people are saying about my looks."

Jeffery Schwab, who founded an improv group in Portland, Oregon in the US, and who is now a member of Beijing Improv, says the first step in changing the status quo is to get more women on stage.

In English-language performances of Beijing Improv, there are sometimes one woman and six men on stage, and the bilingual group consists of three women and nine men.

"It may be because girls are not encouraged so much to express themselves," Schwab says. "In the States, improv groups always have fewer women than men. It's not that we don't want (female performers). Maybe it's also because guys feel they need to be heard and show off, and are less worried about speaking up and saying silly things."

Cai Yilin agrees.

"You need a really big heart to do this," says Cai, who works for a consulting firm in Beijing.

"I'm afraid girls who are very sentimental and fragile can't handle an audience being dead silent when their jokes are just not funny. The same goes for men.

"But once you are used to turning the unhappiness of daily life into something funny on stage, it really does make you a more positive, cheerful person."

In September the Beijing Comedy Center staged an all-women show featuring 12 stand-up comedians, including Cai and Pan.

"There aren't so many women comedians in Beijing, and we invited some from other places," Pan says. "We hoped it would make audiences realize that there is a rich diversity among female comedians with performing styles, and not just different looks and shapes."

Elken has started an all-women improv workshop, hoping more women will express themselves freely in the theater.

"I just want to be equal in the world of entertainment. Maybe we cannot change the world, but at least we can change this small community. Comedy is my tool."

He Na and Yang Wanli contributed to the story.

tangyue@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily European Weekly 11/06/2015 page25)