Amena Brown:
Recording in January of 2021 for episodes that'll probably be coming out in February is a weird pandemic experience everyone, because we are in a present and you are listening in the future. And we hope that where you are listening is better than what is happening.
Amena Brown:
We hope that it's better there. We're longing for you to tell us it's better there. But good news is, I have a wonderful guest in our HER living room; former labor organizer now stand up comedian, writer, actor, one of Variety's 10 comics to watch for 2020, writer for Last Man Standing, creator of Comedy Crossing, a hit standup comedy show held inside of the Animal Crossing video game, welcome y'all Jenny Yang to the podcast.
Jenny Yang:
Wow. Oh, I'm going to need that intro for everything I do. Thank you. I felt the energy.
Amena Brown:
I got to give it to you, Jenny. We don't have the live audience so I got to give you those handclaps that we loved. We loved when we could have those handclaps, Jenny.
Jenny Yang:
I felt it. I felt the intro. I was like, "Who is she talking about? She sounds impressive."
Amena Brown:
So I have to tell y'all, I felt jubilation and a little bit of tear in my eye when Jenny's face came up on Zoom, because the last time I saw Jenny, we were staying in one of the nicest hotels I've ever stayed in.
Jenny Yang:
A hundred percent.
Amena Brown:
I'm pretty sure I took a video of that hotel suite because I was like, "I want to have proof that I was in a room like this." And Jenny and I and some other women from MAKERS, we all just leaned up against a bar and talked late into the night and felt each other's breath and wow.
Jenny Yang:
It was magical. I mean, I feel like that's what a conference is for, especially when you pull together the right people. Right?
Amena Brown:
Yeah.
Jenny Yang:
You just naturally find affinity, you naturally find inspiration. The liquor didn't hurt. You know what I mean? But it was great and I really appreciated that around a large kind of hotel lobby lounge, you just naturally gravitate toward people's energy and you're one of those people and that's what's been really nice to check in with you basically a year later. Man, look, listen, this was right before the pandemic hit and so you are one of my last memories of a large gathering.
Amena Brown:
Right. And I want to say you and I also had on our power pink blazers that evening.
Jenny Yang:
Yes we did. You remembered this.
Amena Brown:
I think it was not the exact same blazer, but the color was right in there. And I felt the vibes and I have to tell y'all, getting to see Jenny Yang perform live and especially in a room where we were, because it's sort of a mix of different industry people. There are people there who are very corporatey, businessy, people who are into politics. It's just very cross section of people. But it was a little tight in the room I would say. And y'all Jenny-
Jenny Yang:
You mean their sphincters?
Amena Brown:
Well, could have been. Some was tight. Something of their natures was tight up in there, Jenny. And when I tell y'all Jenny walked up in there with her power blazer and she was like, "I don't care. Y'all can be like that if y'all want to be like that. I'm going to come in here and be myself." I walked by and saw her at the bar and was like, "Must stop and talk." I had to stop and talk, Jenny.
Jenny Yang:
Oh, I love that. What a complement. I mean, it was so corporate. It was the first day of the conference. Everyone was tired from traveling and getting in and I was like, "Oh, wait a minute. You all are just thinking about all the emails you're trying to catch up on after this, aren't you?" And it was a lot of power suit women. Not even power suit women, you know the kind of women you look at their outfit and you're like, "This is tens of thousands of dollars on your body right now." And I didn't grow up around that. I have been in spaces where now I recognize what that looks like, but that was a little intimidating. But I think what I learned is corporate folks, they want to keep a certain decorum, but I'm a comedian. I was doing standup and it was a nice challenge. I'm glad you laughed.
Amena Brown:
You stepped up to it though. You really did. I was like, "I want to talk to her more." And then we sat at the bar y'all until I almost couldn't keep my eyes open standing there talking with Jenny and Milck was with us. We were having just a wonderful time. So Jenny, thank you for joining me on the podcast for one of my She Funny episodes because you funny, girl, and I can't wait for you to tell us all of the process. So I want to start with, what's your earliest memory of discovering comedy? Was it in your family? Was it something that you watched? What's your earliest moment where you either remember seeing someone being funny or that you realized you could be funny?
Jenny Yang:
Oh goodness. I feel like whenever anyone asks me, "Oh, how did you decide to become a comedian?" I'm always like, "Listen, I did not grow up a little immigrant girl from Taiwan with my round ass Chinese face with people telling me, you should make a living from doing comedy." A lot of women don't get told this. I was just out there trying to do good grades. But my earliest memory of comedy and just being obsessed with comedy was actually watching a VHS tape of the best of SNL with Eddie Murphy.
Amena Brown:
Yes.
Jenny Yang:
My older brothers are like 10 years and nine years older than me. And so I was just watching things that were probably inappropriate, but as a little child in elementary school, I still understood what was funny and Eddie Murphy was hilarious to me. And I don't even understand how I understood the race kind of politics of the comedy he was doing. I don't know if y'all are familiar, but when Eddie Murphy was on Saturday Night Live, he did a White face to spoof Black Like Me, but he was White Like Me. And there was a whole bit about that that was hilarious to me, even as a child. He did Mr. Robinson's Neighborhood being Mr. Rogers, but being in the hood and changing the lyrics and doing a puppet show where he was a Black middle finger with hair Afro on it talking back to a little puppet of Ronald Reagan. That blew my mind even as a child.
Jenny Yang:
Maybe that's why in the future that was just what was to come. I would be more into politics and recognize social justice issues. But man, back then I thought it was hilarious. I memorized it. To this day I still remember word for word, some of the bits that Eddie Murphy did. And so that's really my earliest memory. As far as whether or not I decided I could do that stuff, I feel like I became a little bit of a class clown, even though I was a straight A student. But never does a young girl think, oh, someday I'm going to be a professional comedian or work in comedy. You know what I mean? But yeah, no, shout out to Eddie Murphy. I wish to meet him someday.
Amena Brown:
I join you on your shout out because Eddie Murphy is definitely one of the reasons why I'm a stage performer today. I had told this in an earlier episode, but I was watching that... I mean, I don't know how this is for generations of kids now, Delirious, that was mine that I was probably like a fifth grader watching that. I don't know what it's like now for kids that are super protected with the parental controls because apparently we didn't have that growing up, so I watched all sorts of things.
Amena Brown:
I watched Comic Relief when Billy Crystal and Robin Williams were doing the Comic Relief series on HBO. I was watching that as a child. So of course there were some things I'm sure that were way too like, mm-mm (negative), a kid should be watching, but getting just getting to see that and being like, "Huh, you can have a job where you're standing there with a microphone and just captivating people for however long with your stories? Yeah, sign me up for that." So shout out to Eddie Murphy and for us being as exposed to Eddie Murphy as children before we were probably supposed to be.
Jenny Yang:
Yeah. I mean, I feel like if you're listening, think about when you discovered you were funny. You know what I mean? Or you discovered you can make someone laugh because I think for me making people laugh was not thought about in its own isolated way. It was more like, wait, I can make people laugh. That's powerful. That's power. I saw it as just one of the tools, you know what I mean, to be persuasive, to get people's attention, to get what I want. And so it wasn't until much later that I decided, yes, this could be a profession. But to me, I feel like it's important as women too to think about when did we decide that we had access to a tool that made us powerful.
Amena Brown:
I love that because you are sort of in control of the room there when you get up there and that's you on the microphone. Even as a comedic writer, you are the one coming up with these ideas that are going to make people laugh. These ideas that all of this crew has to sort of surround these ideas that you write. I mean, I think that is a fantastic observation that that is power, that we have the opportunity to do that.
Jenny Yang:
It is. Well, you're a poet and you perform as a poet. I actually used to perform poetry before I took comedy.
Amena Brown:
Nice.
Jenny Yang:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). And it was either really silly or really emotional, but I liked being able to get people to receive a message, think about things I want them to think about that I think they should care about, move them. And so to me doing comedy was just another way to do that.
Amena Brown:
What was your entry point? Was it an open mic? Did you start there as far as when you started making a foray into trying it out? Was the open mic your first, let me see how this is going?
Jenny Yang:
When I think about how I was able to play creatively and be funny in general, it was definitely school. That was like the socially sanctioned arena to use humor to excel and be creative. So I'm doing extra credit projects. But it wasn't until I was working for a number of years, moving up very quickly to becoming a director in the labor movement. We used to represent 85,000 public service workers in Southern California. And I was making six figures. I was making a good living, but I was so burnt out. I was a director, but the people I looked up to, I no longer admired them. I no longer respected them; the people that I worked for. And so I was like, "This can last only so long." So I had my own sort of come to Jesus moment, so to speak, but come to comedy moment where I was like, "I need to just accept that I'm an artist."
Jenny Yang:
It was literally a night where I got so emotional and I never took on the label of a writer, a poet, even though around Los Angeles, I was actually known to perform. So it was that night that I was like, "Okay, Jenny, you need to stop putting up these blocks, accept this identity of being a creative and being open to creative opportunities, and other people who have been reflecting back to you that you are someone who is this type of person." So it was because of that, that I finally heard the message many times from before, Jenny, you're so funny, you're like a comedian. And I was like, "Oh, okay."
Jenny Yang:
Finally, the 25th time I heard that I said I'm going to go do open mic, standup comedy. That's how you start. You just go to an open mic where no one had to book you, you just show up and try to do something that moves people. And that's where it started and I was going to poop my pants, but it was my first time in a long time that I felt like, wow, this made me really nervous. I really cared about this. Why do I care about this? And I know that if I can get good at this, it can be very powerful because it's very freeing and creative. So that's what happened.
Jenny Yang:
I went to a very familiar space in LA called Tuesday Night Project where I was an associate artist as a poet. And I said, "Guess what guys, I'm going to try to do standup comedy today, even though you usually see me do poetry." It was awful. I have tape of it somewhere. I don't know, but that's what happened. But yes, open mic, that was my first experience.
Amena Brown:
See, I was going to ask you, was your first time awful or did it go amazing because so far in interviewing and just talking with other comedians, to over-generalize, it's this divide down the middle where there were some comedians that their first time on stage they felt like they were flying, they did amazing, everyone clapped. And then that next time was when they bombed. They were like, "Oh, wait, no."
Jenny Yang:
For sure. I've heard that.
Amena Brown:
There are some comedians I talk with that are like, "Well, I went out there and the first time went terrible, but it also inspired me to keep going, to keep writing." So it's interesting to hear you say that it felt awful. You will look back on it now anyway, and think this was awful, but it inspired you enough to keep going.
Jenny Yang:
Yeah. I feel like it's like one of those things. I feel like we need to learn how to read our own instrument, if that makes sense. Sometimes something might feel bad, but that word is so blunt to describe a whole host of signals in our bodies. It felt awful. I felt like I was going to throw up from the nervousness, but there was something behind it that I sensed that was deeper. That wasn't just my nervous system, that was like, "Oh man, if I could get past this nervous part, I could really like this." You know what I mean?
Amena Brown:
Yeah.
Jenny Yang:
I could be very gratified by this. And so just thankfully I somehow saw through it. You know what I'm saying?
Amena Brown:
Yeah, no, that makes perfect sense. I've actually never thought about this for what my first time was doing poetry at an open mic, but I would venture to say it was also awful. But I think the terrible part is that I thought I was amazing. I thought I was going to blow those people away. I was like, "Ooh, they are going to be so glad I came here tonight. They're going to be, woo! They're going to be ready to hear more from me." It's one of those things where you sign up on the list, then you're there listening to everyone else until the MC calls you. And so I think as the night wore on and I was hearing more and more amazing poetry, then it was like...
Amena Brown:
I don't know. That may have been my first time really having a collective of other people to compare my work to, whereas where I was from, I was mostly the only poet or one of a small number of poets that people knew. So to go from that to, I'm in this room where most people here are poets and they were so amazing. I was like, "Oh no, I don't know if I should have signed up. I don't know if I'm going to be as good as I thought." And there was no way to get off the list. The MC would not let you remove your name. And so I went and I did my little things and it did not go well. It did not go well. It was actually a pretty embarrassing experience.
Amena Brown:
But to your point, Jenny, I remember leaving and more than I felt embarrassed, I felt like I can get better. If I keep coming to a space like this, I can get better. I can learn how to write better, not to be like what I saw, but to be better as me, as whatever I would sound like, whatever my voice would be. That was inspiring enough to go back and obviously get embarrassed a bunch more times.
Jenny Yang:
But what a gift. There's something about people who are performers or who are artists. It's like, what is it about you that makes feel like you can push through the embarrassment or the mortification or the not doing great the first time.
Amena Brown:
It's wild. It's a wild thing. I don't know if it's the other side of the ego that's there or what, but it's like, wow, that just went terrible. Do you guys do this again next week because I'd love to come back-
Jenny Yang:
Suffer yet again.
Amena Brown:
Yeah. And just be utterly embarrassed again. I'd love to do that until one day I'm not. But then it's like the payoff of eventually continuing to go, continuing to go and then getting to the point where you get in front of the audience and you're like, "Oh, that worked. That thing I wrote, it worked on stage." I mean, that gratification to me is worth a bunch of times of being embarrassed.
Jenny Yang:
Well, then that's what makes you you because other people would not like that.
Amena Brown:
Okay. Jenny, this is what I need to talk to you about because y'all know that the algorithms on Instagram are terrible, so sometimes you miss out on all the amazing things people are doing. But let me tell y'all, Jenny Yang was coming up in all my algorithms on Instagram, honey. And I was like, "Jenny, you better figure out some ways to engage the people in comedy when we can't be in person." And it was so inspiring to me to watch what you were doing because obviously there's a lot about this time of the pandemic that has just been horrible and terrible. And I don't want to ignore those things at all. I want to also say, and there have been some things about a lot of us having a collective experience of the quarantine and this collective experience of being away from our loved ones or having to be cautious about how we visit our loved ones.
Amena Brown:
There were some things about that collective experience that I think brought us together, but also brought some opportunities to innovate, to think of new ways to do things. And if we weren't in a pandemic, then we all probably would have been gathered in different venues performing. A lot of us that are on the road would have been doing that. And when I started seeing the... First of all, there was two things that you were doing that I was like, "Jenny. Yes, honey."
Amena Brown:
Okay. Number one. When I tell y'all between Twitter and Instagram, Jenny is not here for the games. There was some commentary on your social media that I was like, "Jenny, I live for the commentary. I'm here for everything about this." The threads. There were some threads Jenny was doing on Twitter that I was like, "Jenny, I live for this."
Amena Brown:
So first of all, let's talk about comedy as resistance, which I think you coming from a labor organizer background, I feel like that seems to be something that was inherent in your work anyway. But in particular that we're in the middle of a pandemic, that's also a global uprising that we're watching everyone... I can't say everyone. We're watching a lot of people fighting for justice in the streets, protesting, getting arrested, putting their lives at risk. That's how important justice was to them. And to see also that your voice as a comedian can be a part of speaking up can be a part of the uprising. So talk to me about, is that a part of your comedic process or just you as a person in general, that you see the comedic voice also being a part of justice? And then what was that like now having to use a different microphone on social media, maybe not having events and different things that we were used to? Talk to me about what that process was like for you.
Jenny Yang:
Yeah. First of all, thank you. That is such a nice way of describing what I've been doing. To me it's just me trying to delight people. But obviously to meet to me also, I want people to think about things that I want them to think about, that I care about, that I think the world should care about. And so I think every comedian will tell you, the bottom line is, can you make people laugh? Can you entertain them? If you can do that, then great. Then you're a comedian. But beyond that, there's just so many ways that you could be. It's like Hari Kondabolu, another comedian that I really love. He says, "You never say, do you love comedy? Of course you love comedy. You love to laugh." But it's just like saying, do you like music? Of course you like music. Do you like heavy metal? Do you like speed metal? Do you like hip hop? You know what I'm saying?
Jenny Yang:
So there's just different ways to be a comedian. And for me, my preferred form of comedy is one where there's some thinking behind it in terms of what the social consequences are, because that's what I care about. I care about trying to push things more toward the side of justice rather than not. Whether that's through a tiny tweet or whatever. Sometimes it's just a silly thing about me missing eating bread. I don't know. But to me it's kind of like that spoonful of sugar that makes the medicine go down. If you have that sugar which is the sweetness of laughter, sometimes the things that are really tough that are important to talk about can be received. And so that's what I think is beautiful about comedy as a form of resistance. It cuts through the clutter.
Jenny Yang:
I feel like when you're able to get to people's physical response, visceral response of laughter, it cuts through the logic. It gets right to the heart of something. And so that's what's really powerful to me about comedy. Now, I don't know what Twitter threads you were talking about, but I personally felt it was very important to highlight the true absurdity of racism or inequality that became even more urgent and apparent during the pandemic. It's not that these issues weren't there before, it's just all eyes were on social media once everyone was at home. There was no other way to engage in real life and we were all just socked away. What else could we do but communicate online. And one of the things I wanted to do was just offer up a perspective where if the shit was racist, maybe we talk about it. If the pandemic was happening and it originated in China and you're out here calling it the kung flu China flu, maybe we need to correct that. If you're using only stock photos of Asian people for your coronavirus article, maybe you shouldn't do that. Maybe you should change it up.
Jenny Yang:
There's just all these tiny things that I just wanted to highlight. And it's just my little part, let's be honest. It's just one little drop. But at least I feel like I can control that. So that's just simply the speaking out part. And then you asked about not being able to perform live, basically, and needing to pivot. Doing standup comedy inherently is standing up in front of humans and having that back and forth. It doesn't exist without it. And it was so bleak y'all. I don't know if any of you checked out a comedy show during the pandemic, especially at the beginning of it. But Instagram Live, when you have those two people on Instagram is not a way to do it. There's no audience. Who are you doing it to? Who are you telling a joke to? Just one person who's barely laughing? No, that is not standup comedy.
Jenny Yang:
It is the saddest part of... It's like going back to open mics. It's like a hell hole of a sadness cave when you say something into the void and your voice just dies. That's the point of comedy; you want that feedback. And so luckily or not, a Zoom meeting ended up being the best platform for being able to have people un-muted and being able to laugh as if you're in the same room with them. And that's what I did. I kind of tried different things for a month or so. And then just out of nowhere, decided to combine the desire to continue doing comedy with the thing that was saving me, which was a lot of other people between March and April of 2020, which is playing Animal Crossing the cutest little Japanese game from Nintendo where you could actually invite your friends' little avatars. It's like Sims but with cute Japanese characters onto your little island that you get to decorate and farm.
Jenny Yang:
And it was a tiny thing. It is a video game, but it was a saving grace for being able to stay connected with people. And I thought, wow, they sell little cartoon microphones and amps and you can put up a red brick wallpaper on my basement. Let's make a comedy club and let's see what this looks like. It all was happening right around the time that George Floyd Jr was murdered. We was going to be a free show anyway and I said, "Well, the best thing we could do right now is let's make this a free show, but we're going to solicit donations where the majority of it goes to Black Lives Matter related causes." And you all remember every GoFundMe, every other bailout fund was happening at that time. And to me, just as a creator and as a producer, it felt empowering to just do my tiny part. You know what I mean?
Amena Brown:
Yeah.
Jenny Yang:
To not feel helpless because you're just sitting there watching this wallpaper of news wash over you. And it was just a tiny way to use the tools that I had control of in order to offer something back.
Amena Brown:
I love that. When I saw that you were doing a comedy show inside of Animal Crossing, I was like, "Jenny, yes, honey. Yes." Because you know there's a bunch of comedians at home just chomping at the bit to talk to somebody somewhere.
Jenny Yang:
Yes.
Amena Brown:
And a bunch of people needing to access their joy in a time that was really hard, still is for a lot of people, really, really hard stuff going on. And we can only take in all that hard stuff so long before we're going to just lose our resilience. We need to access our joy. We need to sort of feel that sense of camaraderie with other human beings and I loved that, Jenny. I just think it's so freaking innovative what you're doing.
Jenny Yang:
Thank you. And I didn't know how long it would last or what the response was going to be, but the response was tremendous. But we started at the beginning of June, we did two shows every month, ended it in late November. And we raised about $35,000 for Black Lives Matter related funds. And average 250 to 700 people watching a Zoom meeting. You know what I mean, twice a month. And I think what this says to me is, people have such a hunger, if you just tap into it, to support live comedy for one, but also feel like they can do something about racial justice and anti-Black issues. So, yeah. It was very inspiring to me to get that energy during a time when we weren't able to feed off of the social energy in real life.
Amena Brown:
Yeah. I was talking to a woman. I'm trying to think. You know how all the time I'm like, was it days? Was it months? Was it years ago?
Jenny Yang:
Time is elastic now. We don't know when it is.
Amena Brown:
In another time before the television was invented, I was talking to someone, but anyway, I was actually hosting a virtual event and this woman I know was there talking. She's a community organizer, and she said something that I thought was really profound. She was talking about how normally in community organizing, you have this staggered approach as to how long organizers stay on the front line of the fight, because you will inevitably burnout because you're just facing so much violence and aggression and different things. And I really appreciated her sharing that with us, because she was basically saying how sometimes one person will have to go on the frontline for a while and then their time will come, that they have to go and rest and replenish and then another person's time will come where a team of people, they'll be on the frontline together.
Amena Brown:
And I think we, in some many ways some, some small tiny ways like you put it, I feel like we were seeing that happen where there were some people that were just like, "I got too much grief going on. I can't." And they had to take time to rest and replenish. And there were other people that could say, "Okay, here's a thing I can do." And I think that's powerful, just the collective of community we can have that way together.
Jenny Yang:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). I think in the end to me, when I pivoted from politics to comedy and entertainment, it's all the same thing. We're in the business of organizing people. And so how I saw it was, whenever I have been a part of something where we are able to recognize our collective power, that it's not about just an individual, that we are stronger together, that applies to building my career in comedy. Obviously it's to benefit me, but in the end that's why I organized standup comedy tours and comedy festivals, because I knew that number one, the morale boost of having peers with you to walk alongside you is helpful, but also that's how you develop, that's how you grow. That's how you grow your own audience.
Jenny Yang:
I mean, it's all the same. The way people use marketing terms to me it's somewhat different, but it's very similar to if you do community organizing or political organizing. It's about how do we get as many people together as possible to recognize a common interest and have a roadmap to a place of hope. I've just used that technology, if you want to put it that way, you know what I mean, as a way of living and as a way of doing my work in anything I do. And so I would recommend it for most people. I hate marketing and business jargon, you know what I'm saying?
Amena Brown:
Yeah, same. Oh my gosh, please. I want to ask you about this too. One of the reasons why I'm just enjoying interviewing Women of Color like yourself that are working in comedy is because Women of Color are doing so many things in comedy. Right?
Jenny Yang:
Yes.
Amena Brown:
So I would love for you to talk about how does comedy show itself for you in your career? You have stand up, I know you also write as a comedian. Tell the people, what does that look like for you, the different facets of your career where you are working in comedy but you have these different ways you may enter the space?
Jenny Yang:
Yeah. I mean, I feel like if we're talking brass tacks, first and foremost, I am a self-employed person. So I'm just here to have multiple income streams, I'm here trying to feed this little seed over here, this little seed over there to wait to see what might flower and grow. And I have no control over the timing of these things a lot of times. And so for me when I started, it was a matter of, okay, what can I do to use all of my gifts in order to be of service so that I may gain income? That's how I kind of see it. And so first of all, I used my leadership skills and producing skills that I had before; event organizing, facilitating, all of that to create standup comedy tours and comedy festivals, even when I was still learning my standup comedy craft. I also managed to then make money off of these live comedy shows. Then I was working on my own writing in order to possibly become a staff TV writer.
Jenny Yang:
But in the meantime, you put on your own table read, you work on that. You show people your writing, maybe you write shorter monologues versus longer TV shows. I eventually got on TV writing gigs. But also in addition to performing live, I did a lot of digital video. So around 2013 was when I got really into Buzzfeed video. I knew someone who just had started the four person department that was Buzzfeed video back then. And if you remember back then, that was actually when Buzzfeed... I used to call it the network television of the internet. And it was one of the few first times that people were hearing so many different types of identities talking about these identities. Whether you're LGBTQ+, if you're Asian-American, Latinx, et cetera.
Jenny Yang:
And so it was a very opportune moment for me to be able to do some of their initial viral videos, because then the college students who saw that recognized me, invited me out to do college touring. And I did that for a long time too. To me it was about how do I try to go where I am needed, and no matter what it is, I am format agnostic. You know what I mean? Is it a tweet? I'll give you a tweet. Is it a digital video? I'll give you a digital video. You want an essay? Here, try this. You know what I'm saying? This is to me my mentality for how to make a living doing what I do.
Jenny Yang:
But I would say the main thing though is my base of support from the beginning was my community, because that's what I was a part of. It's a community that I was invested in, an Asian-American, creative, progressive community that came to my early shows. You know what I mean? Who bought the tickets, who were underserved in the mainstream media, which is why they were hungry to show up to a live event where it was an Asian-American stand-up comedy tour. Does that make sense?
Amena Brown:
Yeah.
Jenny Yang:
So that to me is the foundation of all of this. And so now I'm fortunate enough to have been making a living in comedy, but it all goes back to, how do I maintain multiple hustles and multiple avenues to express myself and connect with people?
Amena Brown:
Oh, I love that. I especially love the rootedness of what you said. That yes, you have opportunity based on your talents and your skills to do all sorts of things in your career and that the rootedness of what you do comes from your community. Oh, I feel that, Jenny. I feel that.
Jenny Yang:
Thank you. I feel like we are such an individualistic culture in America that we often forget that how we rise is usually with, and sometimes on the shoulders of others. Right?
Amena Brown:
Yeah.
Jenny Yang:
And so I just think it's important to acknowledge that because obviously I couldn't do what I do if people didn't support me.
Amena Brown:
Yeah. And I find that to be true for a lot of Women of Color. It's like we're rooted in the people that we come from. We're rooted in the people who made it possible for us to do what we're doing. And I know for me that it is the Black women that raised me and those rooms I remember being in, with their hips and everything else that gives me the stuff to do what it is I'm doing. And I think it is important if you don't have that rootedness, to find that, whatever that looks like for you. But I find that a lot of women of color, we have that rootedness in our community. That's what gives us our wings.
Jenny Yang:
Yeah. That's the strength. And I love, by the way, seeing now a lot of other Asian-American comedians who, because of the racial justice organizing that had been happening through George Floyd Jr, through Black Lives Matter in 2020, didn't recognize that they were a part of a community before, until these issues confronted their own identity and it made them realize, okay, there are these issues that I care about and it has affected my life. This is how I connect with Black racial justice or anti-Blackness. And they're out here showing the Asian-American studies books that they're reading and talking to other Asian American comedians more directly about how identity informs who we are. And so, I don't know, I think to me to have a meaningful career, that's not just, oh, I just need to be out here making money. You know what I mean? That adds to it. It just adds layers to it. And the grounding, like you're saying, I think it helps me to remember what's important.
Amena Brown:
Yeah. Right. No, completely.
Jenny Yang:
I mean, I work in Hollywood.
Amena Brown:
It's a fascinating place you all, a fascinating place, Hollywood. Here's my closing question. So I always love to close with this question when I'm talking to women of color comedians and I give Vanessa Fraction the credit for this. She is a wonderful Black woman comedian. And I had booked her for a show and I was like, hey... I get really nervous about if everyone's in the building. When we were doing live shows I would be like, "Oh, can you please get here by such and such time so I know you're here and I'm not freaked out." And so I think she was supposed to go on around 9:30 or something. And I was like, "Girl, can you get here at 8:00 just so I know you're here." And she was like, "Can I just get there at 9:00 because sitting around is not good for the funny."
Amena Brown:
So I wanted to ask you, what is good for the funny? What's good for the funny for Jenny Yang? What's the stuff that you need to keep you inspired? What's the stuff that you need maybe before you sit down to write, before you go on to perform? What's good for the funny for you?
Jenny Yang:
I'll tell you what's not good. A pandemic.
Amena Brown:
A pandemic is definitely not good for the funny, honey. No ma'am. No.
Jenny Yang:
Yeah. But in all seriousness, I love that quote and that story because it's true. To me, comedy is energy, it's movement. And so that's what I'm here for. To me, when something is funny it's because the energy is moving sideways. It's always sideways, it's never direct. And so I'll admit during the pandemic, it's been challenging to create, it's been challenging to write. And so I'm just sort of been getting back into creating that sense of movement in my life by having space for it. I think that's what it is. For me, it's really important to have either shows that I can do in order to try things out in terms of writing. For me, structure helps actually. To have time to kind of be in my own thoughts, get rid of the clutter and then eventually get at things.
Jenny Yang:
And then I'm also just a very social person. To me funny also happens just if you don't have a full audience in a bar or in a club, at least have one person you can talk to. You know what I mean? That you can kind of gauge reactions from. So that to me is sort of how I get at the funny.
Amena Brown:
Jenny Yang, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for all of this wonderful, inspiring work that you are doing. I'm going to tell the people all of your links, all of the things so they can go to there and watch these things. And maybe there will be a link where they can just also support with their wallets. We enjoy that kind of support as well, people. So you're going to go to the Jenny Yang links. You're also going to use the monies. If you have the monies, you're going to use the monies and put the monies there.
Jenny Yang:
Listen @jennyyangtv for everything. So yeah, I'm always online and I love talking to folks, so just hit me up.
Amena Brown:
Thank you, Jenny.
Amena Brown:
I hope y'all enjoyed my conversation with Jenny Yang as much as I enjoyed talking to her. I hope you enjoyed listening. Wasn't she an amazing guest into our living room? She's amazing. Make sure you check her out on her website jennyyang.tv or on Twitter and Instagram @jennyyangtv. Check her out there. And if you are looking for links to any of the things that we talked about in the episode, definitely check out the show notes. Show notes are amenabrown.com/herwithamena. You can go to there and get the notes from this episode or any of the episodes from the podcast. In case you're looking for a book we talked about, or a show we were talking about watching, links like that will be in the show notes. And I hope we are already friends on the interwebs, but if we're not, I would love for you to follow me on Instagram and Twitter @amenabee. Be my friend. Slide into my DMS. I would love to hear from you.
Amena Brown:
For this week's edition of Give Her a Crown, I want to give a crown to Whoopi Goldberg. When I was a kid, I watched Whoopi Goldberg's Broadway show on TV and I was mesmerized. It was just her and what looked a white towel or a white piece of fabric that she used as a prop to become different characters during the show. I was especially impacted by the character who was a little Black girl who wished she had blonde hair and blue eyes, reminiscent of Toni Morrison's, Pecola Breedlove in the Bluest Eye.
Amena Brown:
I too knew what it felt like to feel like my skin and my hair would never be beautiful because they would never fit into a White standard of beauty. Not only did Whoopi's character speak to the messages I was being given about my own blackness, but she also showed me the power of stage performance and what it meant to embody and love my blackness. How one Black woman could express many characters and transition so seamlessly through them all. Several years ago, my husband and I were in a record store and came upon Whoopi Goldberg's Broadway show on vinyl. We framed it and it's hanging up in our listening room to remind me how important Black voices are, how important Black women's voices are, how important it is for me to love my hair and my skin and why it matters that Black women tell our own stories. Whoopi Goldberg, Give Her a Crown.
Amena Brown:
HER with Amena Brown is produced by Matt Owen for Sol Graffiti Productions as a part of the Seneca Women Podcast Network and partnership with iHeart Radio. Thanks for listening and don't forget to subscribe, rate and review the podcast.