Consequences of Laughter: Reflections on Performing Comedic Self-Deprecation and Reacting to Deprecation in General

Abstract

In this autoethnographic essay, the author draws on his experiences as a Chinese immigrant in Canada to reflect on how they shaped his style of comedy and how they revealed the limitations of self-deprecating humor, particularly when it is used as a response to jokes that imply discriminatory worldviews. While a self-deprecating response can steal the laugh from the person telling a derogatory joke, its outcomes are not always certain. Studies of audience responses to comedy have indicated that the presence or absence of laughter can be seen as an affirmation or rejection of the ideas embedded in the jokes, suggesting how, when self-deprecation succeeds in provoking laughter, it runs the risk of perpetuating the harmful ideas it aims to counteract. The author examines his own confrontations with racist humor alongside accounts of similar situations involving Asian comedians living in the West, such as Ryan Higa and Joe Wong, to illustrate the dilemma of self-deprecating humor as well as the potential personal and professional consequences for those who employ it.