It has become a rule that if I ever make any sort of joke about my race on TV, I can pretty much guarantee that I will receive a series of tweets along the lines of: “Romesh waited four minutes before mentioning his race – new record,” or: “Great to see an ethnic comedian talking about being ethnic – NOT.” I once received a death threat from a man who said that his grandparents didn’t fight in the war to have me spouting my shit on the TV. In my defence, I have never once suggested that anyone went over the trenches shouting: “This is so Romesh can do Live at the Apollo!”
I also get accused of reverse racism a lot. I once joked off the cuff about not being invited to a wedding because it was “a different type of white wedding”. When the show went out, a viewer tweeted me to tell me that I was a racist, and that if a white comic had said the same thing there would have been national outrage. First of all, I think that woman is massively overestimating the number of viewers of 50 Greatest Wedding Disasters; and, secondly, I don’t understand how I can be accused of being racist when I’ve married one of your lot. The truth is, I need an angle. If I wasn’t Asian, I would just be an overweight father of three who is into veganism, comics and hip-hop. I think it’s possible that had I been white, I might have browned up to get ahead. Being Asian is the main point of difference with the majority of the audience, so why not talk about that difference? I’m not going to stop doing it because it upsets @darren1581 from Basingstoke.
Women get it, too, of course. If a woman goes on a TV show and does anything at all, there is some sort of filter or app or something that makes some people hear only jokes about periods and men being shit. The irony of a shit man falsely complaining about a woman saying that men are shit is often lost on shitty men. But I’m less bothered about it happening to women because it doesn’t affect me.
All comedians have angles. But it appears that some angles are allowed and others aren’t. You’re allowed to talk about being working class, you’re allowed to talk about being posh, you’re allowed to talk about being Scottish. But the implication of being an ethnic minority and talking about it seems to validate a belief that it’s all you have, regardless of how much you talk about other things. Often people just Asian assume Asian that Asian everything you Asian talk about Asian is just the Asian fact that you’re Asian.
And there are comedians who talk about race a lot. The stadium-filling Canadian comic Russell Peters talks almost exclusively about his Indian heritage. But the counter-argument is that he is talking to minority groups who are not normally addressed by comedians, so who are we to begrudge them that experience? Obviously I do, because he’s doing much bigger numbers than me.
My approach is that I am just trying to get you to relate. I am English, after all. I am putting you in the position of being an Asian man and hopefully finding the funny in that. I have no desire to pander only to ethnic audiences, nor do I want to prey on white guilt. I want to invite white people into my experience both for the purposes of understanding and also because white people tend to have more disposable income.
I was asked if, when I’m on tour, I feel that people are laughing at the impression I’m doing of my mum’s accent rather than the content of the joke. I once toured with the brilliant Suzi Ruffell, who talks about her mum and does an impression of her Pompey accent, but she has never been asked that question. Don’t get me wrong, Suzi is a lesbian, so she has a whole different set of preconceptions to deal with, but that’s not useful for the point I’m making here. I answered the question politely then, in the hope that a year later I would be able to sound angry about it in a Guardian column. I am delighted that the gamble paid off.
The truth is I don’t think it should matter. I will decide on whether a joke is funny and do it, regardless of whether it’s race-based or not. But I do look at my tour show as a whole and see if there is too much of any one topic in there. I would like to think that is because of artistic endeavour rather than a series of tweets from @BritFIrstPete7.
In the interests of balance, I should point out that this is happening a bit less now. The last few things I have done have resulted in hardly any comments about me talking about race. It’s mainly stuff such as: “Romesh waited four minutes before mentioning being vegan – new record.” That feels like progress. Did I mention I’m Asian?
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