Since breaking through as a correspondent on The Daily Show in 2015, Ronny Chieng has continued to prove himself one of the funniest stand-up comics in the game. Now, he is back with a second hour-long special on Netflix called Speakeasy that takes on everything from anti-science podcasters to the myth of cancel culture.
In this episode of The Last Laugh podcast, Chieng talks about pushing the envelope without fearing the consequences, describes how Trevor Noah changed his life, takes down his favorite “piece of shit” Fox News host Jesse Watters, and more.
“I’m under no delusions,” the Malaysian-born, Singapore-raised comedian tells me early in our conversation. “Just because you have a special on Netflix doesn’t mean everybody knows who you are.”
But now, with two hour-long specials on the streaming service—his first, Asian Comedian Destroys America!, remains an all-timer—and multiple high-profile spots at this week’s Netflix Is a Joke Fest in Los Angeles, Chieng has become an A-lister in the comedy world. His new special Speakeasy, for which he performed in a full white tuxedo in front of a nearly-as-stylish crowd in New York’s Chinatown, contains some of his best and most provocative material to date.
“I wanted to capture the pandemic moment visually, without being explicit about it,” he explains. “Not necessarily with masks, but just the idea that gathering in a small room is kind of illegal now. So I was trying to capture that moment in time of people wanting to come out to listen to comedy, even though it’s risking our lives, literally, in these small rooms.”
Chieng uses that proximity to confront his audience, repeatedly challenging their preconceived notions about his cultural and political outlooks. For instance, early in the new hour, he explicitly dares the crowd to “cancel” him.
“Cancel me!” he exclaims over and over again. “What are you going to do, cancel me so I have to go back to Malaysia? Where I’m a national hero? And the currency advantage is very much in my favor?”
“Free me from this hell!” he adds, noting that he has been so busy performing comedy and starring in big-budget films like Crazy Rich Asians and Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, that he hasn’t seen his mother in two years. “Cancel me so I can see my mom!”
“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.”
If there is one bit from Speakeasy that could get Chieng “canceled,” it’s probably the long run in which he tries to get his audience to shout out the “worst race” on the count of three. Over the course of several minutes, the comedian builds tension by assuring his fans they are in a “safe space,” essentially giving them permission to be publicly racist before cannily pulling the rug out from under them. It’s a masterclass on how to work a crowd.
“I went on tour with that bit,” he tells me. “We did 50 shows around the world with it. The only time it went off the rails was in New York and someone said a race that I felt was very personal the way they said it. And I went after them for saying that, I actually said ‘fuck you’ for saying that. And then after the show, I realized, ‘Oh, maybe that was their own race.’ People shout out their own race just to be self-deprecating.
“But I think the end of that joke brought everyone back together,” he continues, without giving away the punchline. “So I was very confident doing it. I wasn’t too worried about things going off the rails too much and turning into something I didn’t want it to be.”
There’s another challenge that Chieng issues to viewers later in the special. If his fans really want him to use his platform to speak out against the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes, then he says they should try closing their Netflix special with a joke about such an inherently unfunny topic.
Then, of course, he ends up doing just that, ending Speakeasy with a bit that I won’t fully spoil here about an incident that happened to him during the pandemic. He was walking down the street in Manhattan and “out of nowhere” a woman came up to him, grabbed him by the throat, and “just started squeezing.”
During our conversation, Chieng confirms that the attack really did happen, but admits that contrary to what he says on stage, he doesn’t think it was “racial.”
Still, he says he remains on guard at all times. “In major American cities, I’m not listening to music walking down the street,” Chieng says. “I’ve got my head on a swivel, I’m looking around.” As a stand-up comedian, he mostly works at night, which he adds brings “an element of danger, more so than before the pandemic and this rise of Asian hatred.”
Chieng emerged from the encounter relatively unscathed and ultimately uses the experience to make a transgressive point about how he “respects” that “crazy” woman more than anyone who dares to criticize his comedy on social media from their couch.
“She was unhappy about something in her life and she got off her ass and did something about it,” he jokes, proving that even the least funny subject matter can get a laugh—if you have the skills.
Listen to the episode now and subscribe to The Last Laugh on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts, and be the first to hear new episodes when they are released every Tuesday.
