Online feminist stand-up comedy: an emerging affective-discursive intervention on gender in China

Abstract

This article focuses on online women’s stand-up comedy in China and its intervention on gender-related and feminist issues. Acknowledging the role of affect in both stand-up comedy performance and the formation of feminist politics, we conduct an affective-discursive analysis of women’s stand-up performances from the popular Chinese online stand-up comedy show Rock & Roast (脱口秀大会). In the analysis, we explore how the female comedians discursively and physically express two affects–disgust and shame–in ways that reveal their bodily and affective awareness of everyday gender inequalities. We argue that these online performances create a digital affective space which allows everyday affects of Chinese women to be expressed, circulated, and shared. These stand-up performances are affective-discursive manifestations of female comedians’ self-authorship and self-empowerment in the contemporary context of Chinese digital feminisms.