Ali Wong Pushes the Envelope

Comedian Ali Wong’s performance at the Granada Theatre last Saturday night didn’t just push the envelope, but rather ripped it to shreds with jokes about race, gender, and the misconceptions of being a stay at home mom. The fearless comic drew a rambunctious crowd, eager to see her first performance since her 2016 Netflix special debut, Baby Cobra. “My life has changed dramatically in the past year. I had no intention of being famous,” she confessed to the audience. “All I wanted was to make more money with less effort.”

Fame, however, comes at a price. “Anonymity is a luxury; to look like shit and be shitty to others,” Wong said. Luckily for her, it hasn’t affected her marriage in the way one with patriarchal beliefs would think. “I make more money than my husband,” she said. “My mom is concerned he’ll leave me, but the only man who gets intimidated by a woman who makes more money than him is a man who doesn’t like free money.” She still, however, uses her sister-in-law’s Netflix account, attesting to the idea that some people never change.

Her raunchy jokes ranged in nature from cunnilingus to dating a man with a micro penis, yet her act was unapologetically feminist. She boasted of her triumphs and defeats with breastfeeding, the need for maternity leave (for women to hide and heal their postpartum bodies), and the perfect nanny: a young, decent looking male who is good with her daughter and says yes to every chore with a positive attitude. Unfortunately for Wong, her nanny is a 62-year-old Ukrainian woman.

Wong’s comedic style is still as unapologetically inappropriate as it was pre-motherhood but pokes fun at different subjects as she becomes older. Or, as she put it, there are fewer dick jokes.