10 Stand-Up Comedians on Their Star-Making Netflix Specials

<p>“I like making fun of myself. I have no desire to offend someone. It’s just not what motivates me. Some people like to push buttons, I just like everybody to have a good time. I always think, I’ll make fun of me instead of making fun of you. And then you can either laugh with me or you can laugh at me. You’re either laughing because you think you’re like me or because you think I’m ridiculous.”</p>

<p>“On the one hand you had my agent going, ‘It’s a great time to have a special right now. People are just watching literally anything!’” She’s sure it “helped to be a new thing on Netflix a week before quarantine hit,” but as the pandemic dragged on and on, she adds, “I started to feel like, well, I probably missed my window because people are going to forget this even came out. I thought I was going to be comedy <em>Tiger King</em>.”</p>

<p>“I don’t see the difference between me talking about my mom and doing an accent or watching Eddie Murphy do his mom. So I don’t know what the difference is between my mom or <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-louie-anderson-became-zach-galifianakiss-mom">Louie Anderson’s mom</a> or Eddie Murphy’s mom or anyone that’s doing their mom on stage. I’m acting like my mom. The joke isn’t the way she’s saying it, the joke is what she’s doing. And I love that you asked [about being labeled an “identity” comedian] because my second special, <em>Comin’ in Hot</em>, came out on Netflix and Steven Spielberg watched it and he got it and now we’re making a movie together. So anyone out there that’s still struggling with “he’s speaking to a specific audience,” well I’m glad that specific audience has Steven Spielberg in it.”</p>

<p>“I would say 99.99 percent of the feedback I get is positive and love and I have really great, special, supportive fans. Occasionally you’ll get someone who says, ‘I found that offensive.’ And I am a very self-analytical and critical thinker and I’m always open to other points of view and I think that’s how we evolve. But when you come at me with, ‘That hurt my feelings,’ my thought is, oh, but you were OK to laugh when the joke was about other people? But when it came to you, all of a sudden you’re shutting it down? Then don’t come to a comedy show. Because nothing I’m saying is designed to hurt anyone. And you can’t please everyone. So as a comic I’m just like, look, I came with a white flag up. Everybody laughed and that’s why it’s in the special and my shame barometer isn’t going off. So I’m sorry that bothered you, but I’m not sorry.”</p>

<p>“When people ask me about the state of jokes right now, I’m always like, well, I did a special about that. It’s on Netflix. It came out long before it was the hottest topic in America. There’s a line that never made it into the show, because I felt like it was too on the nose, but I feel like is relevant to conversation now, which is: People have the right to tell jokes and people equally have the right to be offended by jokes. Those two ideas can coexist. If you’re being criticized, it means that you’re charting, culturally. If people think what you’re saying is relevant then some people will say, ‘I like what you’re saying,’ some people will say ‘I hate what you’re saying.’ But I think what’s been hard for a certain generation of comedians, perhaps, is that comedy used to be more under the radar. It didn’t chart. I wouldn’t say it was a subculture, but it was not zeitgeisty.”</p>

<p>“When I was working on this bit, ‘nobody wants to see yo dick,’ I was like, how do I talk about something that is really important, but also the way that I would talk about it with my friends at a boozy brunch? I’ve never been out here to be popular. I’m not that person. If I have one friend, if I have a hundred friends, I cannot be with people that take advantage of their power, who are predators and that’s just not who the fuck I am ever in any chapter of my life for anybody. Give me the loudest microphone, give me the smallest audience, I don’t give a fuck, I’m gonna yell that into a room. Because now that I’m raising a son and a daughter, it’s important for them to know that they have a voice, that they can speak up, that they can question authority and that nobody should take advantage of them. So fuck that, absolutely not. And I’m not even out here to get likes. I notice with this new wave of civil rights and this race revolution, people are definitely living in the likes and this is so much bigger than a fucking hashtag. This is a way of life. So if you’re for it, then be about it.”</p>

<p>“You can’t get darker as you get older, because it makes you seem bitter. But if you start out dark, you can always soften. And people will still remember what you did and you’re kind of like an old grandpa figure who definitely fought in a war and has done some stuff but now is an old sweet man. But you can’t go the other way. I hope [to soften]. I’d like to. It’s almost like being a punk rocker when you’re younger. I’m 40 now and I want to evolve and change as a person and as an artist. I want to be the type of villain that other villains are afraid of. We live in a world now where there are very real villains. I’m a comedian. People get mad at me, but I make people laugh for a living. There are way worse people out there that you should be upset with. And I like that I might make those people afraid.”</p>

<p>“[#MeToo] is such a flammable topic and I think as a comic it’s always just trying to figure out what’s a joke, what’s a movie idea, what’s a tweet, what’s an Instagram story, what goes where. For me, with what happened with #MeToo, Twitter did not feel like a smart way to express myself. Stand-up, I think, was the only way to really give it the real estate that it deserved, and the nuance that it deserved. So I actually waited until my special to really weigh in on it. Because when I would weigh in on it on social media it was just too much. It was wild. I posted something about Time’s Up and I lost like 5,000 followers. People were like, ‘Feminazi bitch!’ So I think for me I was like, this is a topic that is so complicated. And I don’t want to be the person who’s trying to get likes off of tweeting about something that’s in the zeitgeist, because that feels gross and dirty. I didn’t want to inject myself into a conversation without earning it with ideas.”</p>

<p>“The point of that bit is, there is no cancel culture,” Chieng tells me, joking that he’s been saying “awful stuff” on stage for years and has only seen his star rise. “If you commit a crime, you go to jail. That’s not cancel culture, that’s a felony. So when I did that bit, I was making fun of the ‘woke’ Twitter people who try to cancel everybody. And then I was making fun of the right-wing, who think that cancel culture is all-powerful.”</p>

<p>“It was really nice to not feel like I had to be commenting on difficult things or putting too much focus on that aspect of my life and personality, which shouldn’t be any bigger part of my life than it is for a cisgender person, you know? But then I definitely feel a responsibility because of what’s going on culturally in the States and big high-profile comedians punching down and taking shots at the trans community at a time when it’s so tenuous. Our rights are slipping backwards. It’s a bummer, so it’s just trying to find a way to make it light and personal and affecting and try to get people’s guard down. I want to be understood and seen, so it’s rewarding in that way.”</p>