The Art of Camouflage: Stand-up Comedy, Gender, and Public Sphere in China

Abstract

This thesis is an analysis of tuokouxiu (脱口秀, stand-up comedy), but notice, it is not an analysis of joke. This thesis aims to examine the rise and fall of tuokouxiu in China, form its early emergence in the 2010s to its collapse in 2023. As a heated cultural phenomenon, tuokouxiu represented audience aspirations for a neoliberal reimagining of modernity while simultaneously risking conflict with state censorship and traditional cultural doctrines of affective discipline. The central research question explores how tuokouxiu made to co-exist with the increasingly tightening state surveillance, and what disrupted this subtle balance. The analysis focuses on two critical periods: the rise of tuokouxiu through gender controversy and feminist comedy in 2020, and its subsequent collapse amid nationalist discourse in 2023, unfolding the underlying political, cultural, and economic dynamics that shaped the transformation on the surface. This research contributes to scholarly discussions on the public sphere by examining how it functions with the mediation of digital sphere in contemporary China. Building on theoretical frameworks established by Habermas, McLuhan and Jing Wang, the study explores the complex entanglement of consumerism, capitalist autonomy, and state regulatory initiatives.