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Humor and Bodybuilding: The Affective Economy of Asian American Comedy

  • The Journal of Korean drama and theatre
  • 2025, (84), pp.197~241
  • DOI : 10.17938/tjkdat.2025..84.197
  • Publisher : The Learned Society Of Korean Drama And Theatre
  • Research Area : Arts and Kinesiology > Other Arts and Kinesiology
  • Received : March 12, 2025
  • Accepted : April 13, 2025
  • Published : April 30, 2025

Doohyun Kwon 1

1동아대학교 젠더어펙트연구소

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This study analyzes Asian American stand-up comedy as a site of affective bodily practice and examines how racial and gender hierarchies are constructed and negotiated through it. Stand-up comedy is not merely a form of humor but a performative practice that regulates sensation and affect through the mediation of the body, operating within the affective dynamics between performers and audiences. To explore the affective structure of Asian American stand-up comedy, this study focuses on three analytical axes: the choreopolitics of sound and stance, affective bodybuilding as a process of bodily construction, and the multi-contextual affective geography in which affect circulates through global platforms. Based on these frameworks, this study examines the stand-up performances of Ali Wong and Margaret Cho to illuminate the bodily expressions and affective practices of Asian American women. Additionally, it analyzes the cases of Johnny Yune and Psick Univ to investigate how American comedic sensibilities are transmitted to Korean society and how whiteness is embodied through this process. This study argues that stand-up comedy is not merely entertainment but a process of affective bodily construction and a mechanism that reveals how whiteness operates within the politics of empathy. Furthermore, it examines how the transnational affective industry distributes and transforms affect, reinforcing a specific sensory structure under the guise of “universal affect.” In response, it considers the possibilities of counter-affective practices. By doing so, this study seeks to elucidate how bodily “building” and “dwelling” are affectively arranged and how sensory hierarchies are either reinforced or dismantled in this process.

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This paper was written with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea.
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