黃阿麗，一個(gè)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(jié)，黃阿麗(Ali Wong)的單口喜劇專(zhuān)場(chǎng)處女作《小眼鏡蛇》(Baby Cobra)在Netflix上線，那時(shí)候喜劇圈之外沒(méi)幾個(gè)人知道黃阿麗是誰(shuí)，也沒(méi)什么理由認(rèn)為這一小時(shí)左右的段子集會(huì)改變這個(gè)狀況。她的演出不太賣(mài)得動(dòng)，也沒(méi)人把這個(gè)專(zhuān)場(chǎng)節(jié)目送去評(píng)艾美獎(jiǎng)，何必白費(fèi)功夫呢?Netflix此前作過(guò)的單口喜劇節(jié)目群星璀璨，不過(guò)還從沒(méi)造出過(guò)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(xiàn)了一種新意，一個(gè)第三孕期孕婦，說(shuō)上一個(gè)小時(shí)粗口橫飛的搞笑段子，暗中夾帶對(duì)育兒中的雙重標(biāo)準(zhǔn)發(fā)起的女性主義攻擊。喜劇前輩如瓊·里弗斯(Joan Rivers)挺著肚子表演過(guò)，羅珊·巴爾(Roseanne Barr)那些有關(guān)當(dāng)媽持家的辛辣笑話也是在鋪路，但黃阿麗把孕產(chǎn)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(duì)當(dāng)爸爸的要求之低，隨即又充滿(mǎn)欲望地贊頌亞洲男人的性魅力。“他們從脖子往下就沒(méi)毛了，”她在專(zhuān)場(chǎng)里說(shuō)。“就像跟海豚做愛(ài)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(duì)生孩子的真相進(jìn)行了毫無(wú)粉飾的描述，無(wú)論是以懷孕為目的的無(wú)趣性愛(ài)，還是懷孕妻子獨(dú)有的那種對(duì)丈夫的怨恨。丈夫要她幫手做家務(wù)，她的回答是：“我正忙著造一個(gè)眼球呢好嗎?你是在造腳丫么?我看沒(méi)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(chǎng)空白，《小眼鏡蛇》成為第一個(gè)通過(guò)從女性視角講述育兒話題一炮而紅的喜劇專(zhuān)場(chǎng)，為一大批媽媽喜劇演員開(kāi)辟出道路，也為黃阿麗贏得新的粉絲群。

“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(yī)院婦科和兒科診室，我都說(shuō)不上來(lái)有多少人過(guò)來(lái)要跟我自拍，”她說(shuō)。“我應(yīng)該在那兒賣(mài)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(jié)，Netflix上線了她的第二部單口專(zhuān)場(chǎng)作品《鐵娘子》(Hard Knock Wife)，她再次懷著身孕上臺(tái)，她的第二胎。“這個(gè)作品很像是《小眼鏡蛇》的續(xù)集，”生完第一個(gè)孩子不久，她在到處是玩具的家里告訴我。“夏佩爾問(wèn)我是不是在做另一個(gè)節(jié)目，”他說(shuō)每個(gè)孩子各有一場(chǎng)秀“實(shí)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(guò)這一次觀眾的期望值就不一樣了，現(xiàn)在戴夫·夏佩爾(Dave Chappelle)這樣的名角在她口中像是個(gè)友好的同事。她和藍(lán)道爾·樸(Randall Park)合演的愛(ài)情喜劇片正在制作中，明年蘭登書(shū)屋要出版她的回憶錄，全書(shū)由她寫(xiě)給女兒的一封封信件構(gòu)成。黃阿麗眼看就要邁入一線明星行列，這個(gè)級(jí)別很少有女性或亞裔單口喜劇藝人能擠進(jìn)去。而且她很有策略，盡管還要帶孩子、料理家事——這些都是這個(gè)級(jí)別的男性超級(jí)明星不需要面對(duì)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.”

所以也許并不意外，在新作品里她調(diào)侃了成功焦慮。2016年初她產(chǎn)后五周就不顧醫(yī)生勸阻重新登臺(tái)，多少就因?yàn)檫@種焦慮。她害怕自己變得不好笑了。“我見(jiàn)過(guò)有人是這樣，得到了名氣也愛(ài)上了名氣的人，”她說(shuō)，“我也不知道是因?yàn)槁殬I(yè)道德還是他們產(chǎn)生了什么錯(cuò)覺(jué)，因?yàn)橛^眾太愛(ài)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(chǎn)后兩個(gè)月，她從家里溜出來(lái)，開(kāi)車(chē)去著名喜劇團(tuán)體正直公民旅(Upright Citizens Brigade)在當(dāng)?shù)氐难莩鰣?chǎng)所，穿著寬松的居家褲和夾克，在熱烈的掌聲中做了一場(chǎng)臨時(shí)演出。她說(shuō)了個(gè)有關(guān) #MeToo(我也是)運(yùn)動(dòng)的新段子，大家笑了，但她還覺(jué)得靠不住。UCB的觀眾是出了名的好心腸。她說(shuō)，那個(gè)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(tái)下她是知性而溫和的，但一上臺(tái)就大搖大擺如同搖滾明星。年少時(shí)她最?lèi)?ài)的喜劇演員是艾迪·墨菲(Eddie Murphy)，她像他一樣不憚?dòng)谥焊邭鈸P(yáng)，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(xué)洛杉磯分校(UCLA)學(xué)的是亞裔美國(guó)研究，本來(lái)是打算做學(xué)者的，直到畢業(yè)后嘗試并愛(ài)上了單口喜劇表演。默默無(wú)聞地演了近十年后，她才制作了專(zhuān)場(chǎng)秀?，F(xiàn)在她36了，已經(jīng)有過(guò)兩次電視深夜秀演出的經(jīng)歷，但覺(jué)得對(duì)她的風(fēng)格而言，那是個(gè)糟糕的形式，所以不會(huì)再上了。黃阿麗的喜劇很難歸類(lèi)，她一上來(lái)會(huì)有一種強(qiáng)悍、有力的臺(tái)風(fēng)，但她想說(shuō)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(shí)而用一種不容爭(zhēng)辯的宣言式腔調(diào)，時(shí)而又變成沙啞的低語(yǔ)，后者讓當(dāng)晚在觀眾席里的希拉里·斯旺克(Hilary Swank)想起在《百萬(wàn)美元寶貝》(Million Dollar Baby)里和她搭戲的克林特·伊斯特伍德(Clint Eastwood)。黃阿麗說(shuō)起怎樣當(dāng)媽。但講到有個(gè)喜劇同行說(shuō)懷孕已經(jīng)成了她的商標(biāo)，她怒了。“懷孕又不是彩虹吊褲帶，”她氣沖沖地說(shuō)。

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(jié)束了演出，黃阿麗開(kāi)車(chē)回家，用吸奶器吸了奶后上床睡覺(jué)，睡到早上7點(diǎn)，起來(lái)給孩子喂奶，丈夫賈斯汀·白田(Justin Hakuta)照顧他們兩歲半的女兒。在新的專(zhuān)場(chǎng)秀里，她提起兼顧工作和生活的問(wèn)題并道出她的秘訣。“我請(qǐng)了個(gè)保姆，”她說(shuō)。“就這么簡(jiǎn)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(shù)名人不承認(rèn)自己請(qǐng)保姆。“假裝你在家里追著孩子跑所以能保持特別好的身材，這對(duì)那些正兒八經(jīng)的全職媽媽不公平，”她對(duì)我說(shuō)。“我認(rèn)為單口演員最難說(shuō)的一件事就是自己有錢(qián)，因?yàn)闀?huì)讓人產(chǎn)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(xiàn)在她有了當(dāng)媽媽的經(jīng)驗(yàn)，在為人母這個(gè)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為什么都有，但最臟的段子可能還是講生產(chǎn)的。“生孩子很重口味的，”她在家里說(shuō)。“性愛(ài)不臟。剖腹產(chǎn)才臟。”

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(zhuān)場(chǎng)秀上，她開(kāi)玩笑說(shuō)媽媽問(wèn)她女人掙錢(qián)養(yǎng)家會(huì)不會(huì)讓丈夫覺(jué)得受到威脅，私下里她也這么說(shuō)。不過(guò)她又多透露了一點(diǎn)點(diǎn)。

“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(kāi)了很多玩笑，”她說(shuō)。“但其實(shí)他是一家價(jià)值億萬(wàn)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采訪。他說(shuō)了幾句話但沒(méi)有久留。等他出了門(mén)，黃阿麗說(shuō)，“顯然，他不愛(ài)跟記者說(shuō)話。”然后她沉默了一會(huì)。“挺奇怪的，”她說(shuō)。“這真是一種奇怪的轉(zhuǎn)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(shuō)對(duì)于她在臺(tái)上講家事，丈夫現(xiàn)在的態(tài)度更開(kāi)通了，不過(guò)隨著她名氣越來(lái)越大，他要求那些講到他的段子，在剛開(kāi)始創(chuàng)作的時(shí)候他就要聽(tīng)，而不是編完了才聽(tīng)，有時(shí)候他也否決過(guò)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.”

“他是亞洲人里的稀有品種;沒(méi)見(jiàn)過(guò)他這樣的，”在解釋完為什么有比單口喜劇更重要的東西之后，她夸起他來(lái)。“我那些段子必須得讓他過(guò)目，不然我的婚姻就完了。就為一個(gè)好段子，那可不值得。”