As Malaysia cancels Jocelyn Chia, Asia's comics open up on the risks of 'crossing the line'

She has been cancelled, barraged with internet opprobrium and hit by a vague threat to get Interpol on her case, but US-born, Singapore-raised comic Jocelyn Chia is unrepentant over the gag that enraged Malaysia and kicked up a commotion over taste, decency and humour in Asia's increasingly patrolled online space.

The notorious 89-second clip, from a bit delivered at a New York comedy club in April but that only went viral in Asia three weeks ago, carried a joke about MH370, the Malaysia Airlines flight carrying 239 people that went missing in 2014 while flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

It upset Malaysians, including the police chief who said he would ask Interpol to help track the comedian down, and drew a rebuke from senior ministers in neighbouring Singapore, keen to expunge any link between Chia and the city state.

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But on the other side of the world it has played differently, catapulting Chia to a hitherto unknown level of fame in the United States, where she now has a television special on the cards.

"Life goes on, right?" Chia told This Week in Asia. "The advice [from friends who have been cancelled] is to keep putting out content and your fans will follow you, and your career will just keep building and growing.

"This gave me some notoriety and a certain amount of fame but at the end of the day, my career will live or die based on the strength of my jokes," she said.

Chia's gag aimed a dart into the hypersensitivities of politics, nationalism and identity between Singapore and neighbouring Malaysia, nations bound by history and culture, but where gentle jousts over differences can segue into stereotypes and discrimination.

Crossing lines through comedy is an increasingly treacherous business in Asia, several comedians told This Week in Asia, where race, identity and politics may play well inside a comedy club but can draw dangerous levels of outcry once on the internet.

TikTok, where Chia's viral skit was posted, has since taken the video down for breaching community guidelines by containing "hate speech" or involving "hateful behaviour".

And even the defiant Chia said she was unexpectedly dipping into her training as a lawyer over fears she could be detained by authorities in Singapore were she to travel there.

"I don't think it will happen, but I'll take a peek at the extradition laws when I have a moment," she said.

Indian stand-up comedian Radha Karia, 33, said given the climate of heightened sensitivity and the strong presence of mob vigilantism on social media, she had been extra careful about what she posts online, fearing that someday it might come back to haunt her.

"The internet in India has become very cheap, a lot of people have access to it and when that happens, everybody has an opinion and everyone can get offended," she said. "Indians are generally more sensitive when it comes to religion, culture, the language - anything."

When the authorities and online mobs stalk the internet, self-censorship is the outcome, she said.

"From the start, [show producers] would tell you not to make jokes about religion, jokes about the government or jokes that might offend someone ... which makes it more difficult for comics," she said.

Many comics have internalised the boundaries - on race, religion and incendiary political issues - instinctively knowing that the barometer of decency is calibrated differently in different places.

"You don't have the right to cross the line on someone else's life," said Singapore's best-known comic, known by the mononym Kumar. "You don't get too personal ... Sometimes when I do it, I will always say sorry because I will feel like I did something wrong."

However, the imaginary line separating 'edgy' and 'offensive' from 'illegal' has become increasingly blurred - and crossing it can mean jail time.

In India, stand-up comic Munawar Faruqui, who has been accused of cracking jokes that insulted Hinduism during a comedy show in Indore, was detained for 37 days by police in 2021.

In Malaysia, operations at Crackhouse Comedy Club House were suspended after it was linked to a video of a woman discarding her headscarf and Malay dress, which authorities said was offensive to Islam.

Meanwhile, Malaysia-born Nigel Ng - better known by his caricature "Uncle Roger", a stereotypical middle-aged Southeast Asian man - who built an audience in the millions during the pandemic, found his Weibo and Bilibili accounts suspended after poking fun at the Chinese government, implying that Beijing uses devices produced by Chinese firms to spy on the population.

Some comedians say the risks are now shaping content.

Singaporean comedian Jacky Ng said his Malaysian friends in comedy were steering clear of sensitive discussions and directing their focus onto their work for now.

One Malaysian comedian, who declined to be named fearing a backlash, said comics were trying to put up a "united front", insisting spirits had remained "quite strong throughout it all".

Indian comic Ankur Tangade has received rape and death threats, on top of being stalked, after being part of a show which had a line-up of comedians from the Dalit community, who are the bottom of the Hindu caste structure.

"I thought I'd try my best to not offend anyone since as a comedian, my job is to make people happy," she said. "But I realised that people will hate on you even though they don't know what I talk about on stage. So I stopped trying to please everyone."

Experts speculate that in Southeast Asia, security and social cohesion may take precedence over freedom of expression - in stark contrast to that of liberal democracies such as the US.

There are also political forces at play, said Ang Peng Hwa, a professor of communication studies at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University, suggesting outrage at Chia's joke - while offensive to many Malaysians - was juiced up by some factions looking for quick leverage.

A small rally by the youth wing of right-wing Malay nationalist party Umno was held at the US embassy on June 9, a few days after Chia's gag did the rounds.

"I view this as a highly political incident, politicised for whatever ends that these people may want to have," Ang said. "We are not exactly following the West to the same extent of cancel culture. But people are looking and seeing how one might use it to cancel people they don't like."

Context remains the rule governing a good joke and the best laughs are often won in local languages including Bahasa Melayu, Tagalog or Mandarin, said Singaporean comic Jacky Ng.

"We live in different parts of the world and we see the world so differently," he said, seeing the outcry over Chia's skit as an occupational hazard of comedy in the internet age.

"I think what happened has happened before, and will continue to keep happening: a comedian has a good set in the club, posted a clip of the performance online and people online take the clip out of context and react extraordinarily," he said.

"Personally, I will continue to do my own style of comedy and keep trying to improve as a comedian."

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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