“Normal confident guys”: Chinese female stand-up comedians performing, triggering, and commercializing the “female complaint”

Abstract

ABSTRACT In the fast-evolving global context of audiovisual streaming services, stand-up comedy shows, such as Rock & Roast, have become a popular medium for articulating, expressing, and critiquing significant social-cultural concerns in China. This article examines how Chinese female stand-up comedians enact, activate, and monetize the “female complaint,” originally theorized by Lauren Berlant, suggests that women’s experiences are often marked by a pursuit of love that proves to be both demanding and unrewarding. We contend that in the Chinese context, female stand-up comedians have devised ways to express soft, safe, and marketable “female complaints” that align with their goals of profitable performances and adherence to the Communist Party’s standards of positive energy. As such, the article enriches Berlant’s theory of the female complaint by infusing it with a global perspective, exploring new mediums of expression (stand-up comedy), highlighting the interplay with political and economic dynamics, and situating it within the specific cultural and feminist context of China.