黃阿麗,一個媽媽笑匠的段子人生

LOS ANGELES — When Ali Wong’s debut special, “Baby Cobra,” had its premiere on Mother’s Day in 2016, very few people outside of the comedy world knew who Wong was, and there was little reason to think this hour or so of jokes would change that. She had trouble selling out shows, and no one submitted the special for Emmy consideration because what would be the point? And while Netflix had an impressive track record of showcasing stand-up stars, it had never made one — until Ali Wong.

洛杉磯——2016年母親節，黃阿麗(Ali Wong)的單口喜劇專場處女作《小眼鏡蛇》(Baby Cobra)在Netflix上線，那時候喜劇圈之外沒幾個人知道黃阿麗是誰，也沒什麼理由認爲這一小時左右的段子集會改變這個狀況。她的演出不太賣得動，也沒人把這個專場節目送去評艾美獎，何必白費功夫呢？Netflix此前作過的單口喜劇節目羣星璀璨，不過還從沒造出過自己的明星——直到有了黃阿麗。

“Baby Cobra” presented something new, a pregnant woman in her third trimester delivering a deliriously filthy and funny hour of comedy woven into a sneakily feminist assault on the double standards of parenting. Pioneers like Joan Rivers, who had also performed pregnant, and Roseanne Barr paved the way with biting jokes about motherhood and domesticity, but Wong made maternal comedy seem more glamorous, sexual and overtly political.

《小眼鏡蛇》呈現了一種新意，一個第三孕期孕婦，說上一個小時粗口橫飛的搞笑段子，暗中夾帶對育兒中的雙重標準發起的女性主義攻擊。喜劇前輩如瓊·裏弗斯(Joan Rivers)挺着肚子表演過，羅珊·巴爾(Roseanne Barr)那些有關當媽持家的辛辣笑話也是在鋪路，但黃阿麗把孕產婦笑話講得更撩人，更多性意味，而且明顯政治化。

She alternated jokes about the injustice of how little is expected of fathers with lustful tributes to the sex appeal of Asian men. “They got no body hair from the neck down,” she says in the special. “It’s like making love to a dolphin.”

她的段子嘲笑人們對當爸爸的要求之低，隨即又充滿慾望地讚頌亞洲男人的性魅力。“他們從脖子往下就沒毛了，”她在專場裏說。“就像跟海豚做愛似的。”

Much of the special involves raw descriptions of the nitty-gritty of having a baby, whether it’s the workaday sex to try to get pregnant or a pregnant wife’s peculiar resentment of her husband. When he asks her to help with household chores, her response is: “I’m busy making an eyeball, OK? Are you making a foot? I didn’t think so.”

她對生孩子的真相進行了毫無粉飾的描述，無論是以懷孕爲目的的無趣性愛，還是懷孕妻子獨有的那種對丈夫的怨恨。丈夫要她幫手做家務，她的回答是：“我正忙着造一個眼球呢好嗎？你是在造腳丫麼？我看沒有吧。”

This hit a nerve with an untapped market, becoming the first breakthrough hit special about parenting from the perspective of a woman, paving the way for a spate of mom comedians and earning Wong a new fan base.

這些段子擊中了一塊市場空白，《小眼鏡蛇》成爲第一個通過從女性視角講述育兒話題一炮而紅的喜劇專場，爲一大批媽媽喜劇演員開闢出道路，也爲黃阿麗贏得新的粉絲羣。

“I can’t tell you how many selfies I’ve gotten asked for at the gynecologist and pediatrician office,” she said. “I should sell tickets there.”

“在醫院婦科和兒科診室，我都說不上來有多少人過來要跟我自拍，”她說。“我應該在那兒賣票。”

In “Hard Knock Wife,” her follow-up special, which Netflix will release once again on Mother’s Day, she performs pregnant again, with her second child. “It’s very much like a sequel to ‘Baby Cobra,'” she told me in her toy-strewn house, not long after giving birth. “When Chappelle asked me if I was doing another one, he said that’s so cool” that each baby had a special.

今年母親節，Netflix上線了她的第二部單口專場作品《鐵娘子》(Hard Knock Wife)，她再次懷着身孕上臺，她的第二胎。“這個作品很像是《小眼鏡蛇》的續集，”生完第一個孩子不久，她在到處是玩具的家裏告訴我。“夏佩爾問我是不是在做另一個節目，”他說每個孩子各有一場秀“實在太酷了”。

But the expectations are different this time, now that she has become the kind of comic who refers to Dave Chappelle as a friendly colleague. With a romantic comedy co-starring Randall Park in the works and a memoir structured as a series of letters to her daughters being published by Random House next year, Wong is about to join the A-list, a club that few women or Asian-American stand-ups are let into. And she’s being very strategic even as she has to deal with child-care and family issues that male superstars in the club don’t have to deal with. It’s a lot to juggle.

不過這一次觀衆的期望值就不一樣了，現在戴夫·夏佩爾(Dave Chappelle)這樣的名角在她口中像是個友好的同事。她和藍道爾·樸(Randall Park)合演的愛情喜劇片正在製作中，明年蘭登書屋要出版她的回憶錄，全書由她寫給女兒的一封封信件構成。黃阿麗眼看就要邁入一線明星行列，這個級別很少有女性或亞裔單口喜劇藝人能擠進去。而且她很有策略，儘管還要帶孩子、料理家事——這些都是這個級別的男性超級明星不需要面對的。她要兼顧的事很多。

So perhaps it’s no surprise that anxiety about success is also a theme of her new work. This is part of the reason she returned to the stage early this year, five weeks after giving birth, against the advice of her doctor. She’s terrified of becoming unfunny. “I’ve seen it happen to people who got famous and seduced by it,” she said. “I don’t know if it’s work ethic or if they’re delusional because the audience loves them so much.”

所以也許並不意外，在新作品裏她調侃了成功焦慮。2016年初她產後五週就不顧醫生勸阻重新登臺，多少就因爲這種焦慮。她害怕自己變得不好笑了。“我見過有人是這樣，得到了名氣也愛上了名氣的人，”她說，“我也不知道是因爲職業道德還是他們產生了什麼錯覺，因爲觀衆太愛他們了。”

Two months after giving birth, she slipped out of the house and drove to the Upright Citizens Brigade here to make an unannounced appearance, walking onstage in sweatpants and a puffy jacket to roaring applause. She told a new joke about #MeToo and got a laugh, though she wasn’t sure she could trust it. UCB crowds are notoriously generous. Only after experimenting with that joke 25 more times, she said, would she know if it works.

產後兩個月，她從家裏溜出來，開車去著名喜劇團體正直公民旅(Upright Citizens Brigade)在當地的演出場所，穿着寬鬆的居家褲和夾克，在熱烈的掌聲中做了一場臨時演出。她說了個有關 #MeToo（我也是）運動的新段子，大家笑了，但她還覺得靠不住。UCB的觀衆是出了名的好心腸。她說，那個段子她要再試25次才能知道效果如何。

While she comes off as cerebral and soft-spoken offstage, her jaunty stand-up alter ego has the strutting charisma of a rock star. When she was growing up, her favorite comic was Eddie Murphy and, like him, she isn’t afraid to swagger, preen or grab her crotch.

在臺下她是知性而溫和的，但一上臺就大搖大擺如同搖滾明星。年少時她最愛的喜劇演員是艾迪·墨菲(Eddie Murphy)，她像他一樣不憚於趾高氣揚，精心打扮，或者抓住自己的褲襠。

Wong, who majored in Asian-American studies at UCLA and considered a career in academia before trying and falling in love with stand-up after college, held off for nearly a decade before producing a special. Now 36, she has done two late-night television sets but considers them a bad form for her brand of comedy, so she won’t return. Hard to pigeonhole, her comedy begins with a strong, dynamic stage presence and arguments that take some time to build.

黃阿麗在加州大學洛杉磯分校(UCLA)學的是亞裔美國研究，本來是打算做學者的，直到畢業後嘗試並愛上了單口喜劇表演。默默無聞地演了近十年後，她才製作了專場秀。現在她36了，已經有過兩次電視深夜秀演出的經歷，但覺得對她的風格而言，那是個糟糕的形式，所以不會再上了。黃阿麗的喜劇很難歸類，她一上來會有一種強悍、有力的颱風，但她想說的東西則是慢慢堆積成形的。

At the UCB, she alternated between a forceful declarative voice and a croaking whisper that reminded Hilary Swank, who was in the audience that night, of her “Million Dollar Baby” co-star Clint Eastwood. Wong talked about being a mother. But she bristled when describing a fellow comic who said pregnancy was becoming her trademark. “Pregnancy is not rainbow suspenders,” she said, exasperated.

在UCB，她時而用一種不容爭辯的宣言式腔調，時而又變成沙啞的低語，後者讓當晚在觀衆席裏的希拉里·斯旺克(Hilary Swank)想起在《百萬美元寶貝》(Million Dollar Baby)裏和她搭戲的克林特·伊斯特伍德(Clint Eastwood)。黃阿麗說起怎樣當媽。但講到有個喜劇同行說懷孕已經成了她的商標，她怒了。“懷孕又不是彩虹吊褲帶，”她氣沖沖地說。

After she finished her set to loud applause, Wong drove home, pumped some milk for her baby, went to sleep and woke up at 7 a.m. to breast-feed, while her husband, Justin Hakuta, took care of their 2 1/2-year-old daughter. In her new special, she raises the question of work-life balance and explains her secret. “I have a nanny,” she said. “That’s it.”

在高聲喝彩中結束了演出，黃阿麗開車回家，用吸奶器吸了奶後上牀睡覺，睡到早上7點，起來給孩子餵奶，丈夫賈斯汀·白田(Justin Hakuta)照顧他們兩歲半的女兒。在新的專場秀裏，她提起兼顧工作和生活的問題並道出她的祕訣。“我請了個保姆，”她說。“就這麼簡單。”

It infuriates her that more celebrities do not acknowledge this. “It’s unfair to the hard-core stay-at-home moms to pretend you’re able to have an amazing body by chasing around your kids,” she told me. “I think one of the hardest things to talk about as a comic is having money because it’s so unrelatable. But this is such a big part of my life.”

讓她生氣的是，多數名人不承認自己請保姆。“假裝你在家裏追着孩子跑所以能保持特別好的身材，這對那些正兒八經的全職媽媽不公平，”她對我說。“我認爲單口演員最難說的一件事就是自己有錢，因爲會讓人產生距離。但這就是我生活的一大塊。”

Now that she’s had some experience as a mother, “Hard Knock Wife” digs deeper into the theme of motherhood than “Baby Cobra” did. But if you were expecting a mellow and mature evolution, think again. She makes jokes about farting, urinating and various sexual acts, but her dirtiest material might be about childbirth. “Giving birth is hard core,” she said at home. “Sex is not dirty. A C-section is dirty.”

現在她有了當媽媽的經驗，在爲人母這個主題上《鐵娘子》比《小眼鏡蛇》挖得更深。但要是你指望這是一次柔和、成熟的演變，那還是再想想吧。她的段子屎尿屁和各種性行爲什麼都有，但最髒的段子可能還是講生產的。“生孩子很重口味的，”她在家裏說。“性愛不髒。剖腹產才髒。”

In the new special, she pokes fun at her mother for asking if being the breadwinner would threaten her husband, and in person, she underlined the point. But she also allowed for more nuance.

在新的專場秀上，她開玩笑說媽媽問她女人掙錢養家會不會讓丈夫覺得受到威脅，私下裏她也這麼說。不過她又多透露了一點點。

“I make fun of him a lot,” she said, “but the truth is he’s a VP at a multimillion-dollar tech company.”

“我拿他開了很多玩笑，”她說。“但其實他是一家價值億萬美元的科技公司的副總。”

At one point, her husband interrupted the interview as he came downstairs. He made small talk but did not linger. After he left the house, Wong said, “Obviously, he doesn’t like talking to journalists.” Then she went quiet. “It’s strange,” she said. “It’s been a really strange transition.”

她的丈夫一度下樓打斷了採訪。他說了幾句話但沒有久留。等他出了門，黃阿麗說，“顯然，他不愛跟記者說話。”然後她沉默了一會。“挺奇怪的，”她說。“這真是一種奇怪的轉變。”

She said that he had become more open to her talking about their family onstage, but that with her growing profile he had asked to hear jokes that include him at the beginning of the process of working them out, not the end, and he had occasionally vetoed a bit.

她說對於她在臺上講家事，丈夫現在的態度更開通了，不過隨着她名氣越來越大，他要求那些講到他的段子，在剛開始創作的時候他就要聽，而不是編完了才聽，有時候他也否決過一些。

“He’s an Asian unicorn; there’s nobody like him,” she said, singing his praises after explaining why there are things more important than comedy. “I have to run jokes by him or I lose my marriage. That’s not worth a cool joke.”

“他是亞洲人裏的稀有品種；沒見過他這樣的，”在解釋完爲什麼有比單口喜劇更重要的東西之後，她誇起他來。“我那些段子必須得讓他過目，不然我的婚姻就完了。就爲一個好段子，那可不值得。”