As Malaysia cancels Jocelyn Chia, Asia’s comics open up on the risks of ‘crossing the line’
- The US-born comic is capitalising on a wave of infamy with an upcoming TV show, after angering Malaysia over a gag about missing flight MH370
- From India to Singapore, some comics say the humour business is increasingly risky, as the line separating ‘offensive’ and ‘illegal’ becomes blurred
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.
“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.
