By Kaki Bedal
Is making jokes a tough task?
Depends on what you say, i think. And, judging by the reaction to Singaporean turn American comedian, Jocelyn Chia’s, joke about Malaysia and MH370, hers certainly backfired.
Quite a few people has chimed in to support her and her jokes while a lot more others vociferously condemned them.
It reminds me of what a few media colleagues from a neighbouring country told me not too long ago when Malaysia and their country were bickering with each other, either about the origins of batik or some food recipes or originality of a traditional song.
“You know, bro, the issue between our countries is not a big one. We apologise but really for us, we give it a big coverage for a very simple reason – controversy sells. Just give it a few days, this will blow over,” they said.
Those days print was king.
If you can sell on average 100,000 copies a day, such controversy can help increase sale double or even triple the average, an easy way to make money. Give it a five days stretch, an equivalent of over RM1 million is a cool return, right?
So, adjust that setting to social media, Chia probably welcome the publicity her controversial remarks generated, in Malaysia, Singapore – hell, even the Singaporean Ambassador apologised – and America.
If just Malaysia, Singapore and US, perhaps even more than a million people noticed and partake in the discussion about her so-called jokes, some say they’re funny, others say no, not funny at all.
As a Malaysian, i am with the crowd who say Chia’s making jokes in bad taste. I’m sure some may even want to do a Will Smith on her. But, let us calm down and think rationally.
The best way to deal with such nonsense, that Malaysia is still developing compared to Singapore and that airplanes have’nt arrived, is for us to just shrugged it off and move on.
I think Chia just want to be noticed. And, we, because of our reaction, provided that. This is predictable stuff. We always do that once certain things were said about us. Yes, react by all means but be smart about it.
How, you say?
Well, for one, just respond to what she says about us being a developing country.
Okay, we’re not yet a developed country, still developing. Nothing wrong with that.
A lot of foreigners who come to Malaysia praise us and our progress.
They enjoy travelling in our cities, like our diverse food culture and testify to our safe environment.
We don’t have major issues like riots every now and then or water or electricity problems and everybody goes about their business easily.
Does a develop nation faces major problems or issues?
Yes, they do. The United States, for one, experiences mass shooting every now and then. Racial incidents happen once in a while and crime is still a problem.
Develop country is not perfect.
Same as us. Don’t let people like Chia belittle us.
Her mindset shows how tiny she is that she had to resort to utter that kind of jokes. It shows her childishness about Malaysia.
Maybe something in Malaysia offends her or maybe her ex Malaysian boyfriend dumped her.
Who knows, right? So, let’s just move on.
Nothing to gain from listening to such petty things and not just from her. From anybody like that for that matter.
- The writer is a media practitioner for over 30 years and an observer of socio-economics and people’s well-being in the country
