The Joke's on Everybody

Gady Epstein and Linda Robertson, both '07 Fellows, reunite in Beijing.
Photo by: Gady Epstein

The most surprising question I heard from some friends after my brief turn in front of the camera on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart was, essentially, were you in on the joke?

Believe me, by the time Daily Show correspondent Rob Riggle walks into your house and asks you whether China will be cruel masters or benevolent overlords when they take over the world, you’re long past being in on the joke. The real question is, did the audience get the punchline?

About three weeks before the Olympics began, a friend of mine in Beijing who had been contacted by The Daily Show asked me if I wanted to participate. I’d be interviewed as a “China expert” for a Riggle sketch on how China will soon be ruling the planet. Riggle would think this is great for all of us (“authoritawesome!” as he would say on the show), and my job would be to point out why the prospect is not necessarily so awesome.

In the end, there were no surprises, except maybe how little they ended up using in the show. We taped the interview at my house in central Beijing for about 2-1/2 hours, going through repeated takes on multiple questions. When the show aired on August 13th, almost all the jokes were left on the cutting room floor. That included the bit when Riggle brushed aside my concerns about China by pointing to himself and saying, “You see this shirt? 99 cents,” and when he looked around nervously and said loudly to the rooftops, “I’m not with him! I’m not with him!” You know, just in case I might be under surveillance.

In deciding to cooperate with a comedy show about China, I was concerned that I wouldn’t be giving due respect to important issues, especially to the dissidents, activists and ordinary citizens whose human rights are routinely trampled on here. But just as the show cleverly exposes the absurdities of American politics, Riggle’s sketches from Beijing probably raised awareness about the dark side of China in a way that NBC’s Olympics coverage would never dare.

When Riggle stood in Tiananmen Square, put on his best ignoramus face and told Stewart he had no idea that anything important ever happened there, and when he dismissed a litany of complaints about China by yawning with indifference, the joke is not on me or on him – it’s on everybody.

That’s the serious logic behind the show’s take on China: The Tiananmen massacre is a distant memory at best for many, and most of the world does yawn at China’s ongoing human rights abuses, or just doesn’t bother to think about them. They’re too busy buying 99-cent shirts to care.

At the same time, some of those same people, whether in the U.S. or elsewhere, have a vague feeling of nervousness about China’s rise, and the show’s humor pinpoints that anxiety, too. So when China rules the world, will they be cruel masters or benevolent overlords? You’ll have to watch The Daily Show to get your answer.