filipino comedian

Why I Don’t Think Vice Ganda is Funny

“May nag text, insert insult here!” That’s pretty much the formula that Vice Ganda and most run-of-the-mill gay comedians use in their routines. It kinda reminds me of the sketch on Saturday Night Live way back when, where two guys who I think were from Jersey (or could be New York) would just hang out on the street and just make insults by saying, “Hey, Oprah just called, she wants her weight back!” Or how about, “Hey, Donald Trump called, he wants his toupee back!” Which makes me wonder if Vice Ganda actually stole her routine from that sketch and just made it Tagalog.

There’s really nothing original here. In fact, it’s very easy. All you need to do is pick on a physical defect and just milk it. So why is it that Vice Ganda and similar comedians get so much praise for low-brow cheap shot comedy? I’m not sure but I think it has to a lot to do with the media machinery that proliferates and perpetuates this type of insult humor that maybe amusing but doesn’t really enlighten or uplift the type of comedy that Filipinos are known for. But I guess there’s a market for this since people watch this type of crap and consider it stand up comedy.

Call me a hater, which I’m really not because I’m not jealous of Vice’s success. Shit, I wouldn’t want to be successful on those terms doing lousy jokes that require no wit. I could easily do it that way if I wanted to sell out, but I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. I have what a lot of these gay comics don’t have – integrity. Now, I’m not gay bashing, in fact, can I even be accused of that since gays are not really a minority in this field of entertainment? I’m gay comic bashing. There is a difference because Pokwang falls under this category even though she’s a woman.

So what am I driving at? Well, I just wish that the powers in the media would give real stand up comedy a chance. It is out there. The Comedy Cartel does it: observational, point of view comedy with actual writing to back it up. But what’s the incentive for these big networks to gamble on this new type of comedy? Why try something new when this old formula of putting a gay comic in drag or maybe a female comic who looks like a gay comic in drag works? I guess there is no incentive until they realize that this next wave of comedy is the next big thing. And mark my words, it is about to explode.

So if you’re tired of the same old insult, shock, mindless comedy, there is an alternative. There is a point-of-view stand up comedy out there that will entertain you without disparaging the audience. On Mondays, there is Spicy Fingers in Greenbelt 2 @8:30pm and on Thursdays there is the Votre Bar near ABS-CBN above East St. Louis that starts at 930pm. Give it a chance, you won’t regret it. And I dare the big networks to have the balls to push and promote this type of comedy.