Laughing at the Margins: Intersectionality in Asian American Women’s Stand-Up

• In Event: Sociology of Culture Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): 20. Identity, Authenticity, and Humor

Abstract

This paper examines how Asian American women comedians engage racialized and gendered stereotypes in autobiographical stand-up performance. While stand-up comedy has increasingly become a site of sociological inquiry, much of the existing literature on marginal humor focuses on single-axis identities or discrete thematic cases such as pregnancy, vulgarity, or anti-racist reversal. Less attention has been paid to how Asian American women navigate intersecting racialized and gendered expectations within mainstream comedic spaces. Drawing on intersectionality and theories of marginal humor, I analyze how performers reference, narrate, and reinterpret dominant representations within their routines. I examine stand-up specials by Ali Wong (Single Lady), Margaret Cho (PsyCHO), and Atsuko Okatsuka (Father). Using qualitative multi-cycle coding of extended comedic sequences, I analyze how performers invoke identity positions and shift interpretive positioning in relation to stereotype. I investigate how interpretive authority is constructed through autobiographical humor and narrative framing. This study contributes to cultural sociology by specifying how marginal humor operates under intersectional conditions and by examining how racialized and gendered identity shapes both the possibilities and constraints of contemporary stand-up comedy.

Keywords
Intersectionality, Cultural Sociology, Stand-Up Comedy, Asian American, Marginal humor

Author

• Hyehyun Hwang, Chung Ang University