This spring, a stand-up comedian will be at Manhattan’s Comedy Cellar. Jocelyn Chia She played a routine that had been firmly on set for over a year about the historic rivalry between the Southeast Asian city-state she grew up in, Singapore, and its neighbor Malaysia.
However, Chea and the club sparked a backlash this week when they posted clips of their April 7 set on TikTok and Instagram. The 89-second video showed the comedian joking with a spectator who volunteered to be Malaysian. The issue ended when Chea downplayed the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in 2014, with 239 people on board.
Angry Malaysians flooded the comments section of Chia’s social media accounts.of comedy cellar The company received 4,000 one-star reviews on Google almost overnight, and the website was hacked, the owner said. TikTok removed the clip of the joke from Chia’s account and flagged it as “hateful conduct” and a violation of community guidelines, according to screenshots Chia shared with the New York Times.
Singapore’s Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan spoke out as well, denouncing Chia and apologizing for her “outrageous remarks”. Tweet “She certainly doesn’t speak for Singaporeans,” he said.
The incident explores the dangers comedians face when their edgy routines are removed from their natural habitat in alcohol-infused late-night clubs and posted on social media for everyone to see. showed a clear boundary. Managers at Comedy Cellar and West Side Comedy Club, where Chea has appeared, said they received negative reviews or were threatened as part of the backlash. Chia said her family and friends received harassing messages.
Comedy Cellar owner Noam Dwarman said it’s okay to say outrageous things at the club. “You can’t have the same moment on a small screen while you’re having your morning coffee.”
But Chia, who is performing in New York this week and has plans for future shows, said in an interview Friday that the turmoil had not damaged her career. “I will never be canceled in America by any means,” she said. “People want to come see me now.”
Chia, who was born in Boston and held a joint US-Singaporean citizenship until adulthood, was a lawyer but decided her calling was stand-up comedy.
Omitted in the clip, her lengthy routine refers to former Singaporean leader Lee Kuan Yew, and when the city-state was expelled from Malaysia in 1965, he said, “We will survive.” I thought I couldn’t do it,” Chia said, referring to how he burst into tears. video. “But 40 years later, we have become a developed country. And Malaysia, what are you doing now? We are still a developing country.
She likened the 1965 rupture to a split, and imagined Malaysia trying to bring back Singapore, explaining that it had not visited because “my plane can’t fly.” She then laughed and added: Isn’t it strange that Malaysia Airlines is missing? “
The full routine is one of her most successful pieces of late, she said. “It gets loud,” she said. “The emotions are running high because the whole thing is ready.”
Only after the set surfaced on social media this week did it seem to cause an international incident. Following the backlash, Chia removed the clip at the request of the comedy seller and reposted it on TikTok without the club’s logo. That’s when TikTok removed it.
“I didn’t want people I didn’t like to think we won, so I wanted them to back off,” she said. “Comedy Her cellar audience sees the best comedians and loves them, so how can I be ashamed of them?”
Felicia Madison, Managing Partner and Talent Booker Westside Comedy Club In Manhattan, Chia said she was threatened with negative reviews from fans who found out she had performed there. “We are a fairly new club,” she said. “When people want to know if they should go, they look up reviews.”
Dwerman argued that the spate of negative reviews that lowered Comedy Seller’s overall rating before Google reinstated it was more than exercising people’s right to be offended.
“I have the right to hate it and complain about it, but they’re trying to make it too risky for me to allow this woman to speak on stage,” he said. “This is not a counter-argument to what she said or a sensible appeal to the fact that she should think this is too hurtful. I’m doing it. “
