Summary
Jimmy O. Yang: Good Deal is funny, ironic and endearing — the comedian effectively and routinely sticks to his roots as the butt of the joke.
Amazon original stand-up Jimmy O. Yang: Good Deal will be released on the streaming platform on May 6, 2020.
Jimmy is the type of comedian that effectively uses his background as the butt of his joke. The repeated ploy is that he is an immigrant turned American-Asian, which comes with contradictory moments in his life. The ironies that he faces and the embracing of his culture is the selling point of Jimmy O. Yang: Good Deal. It’s a comedy where Jimmy opts for the straight-talking to an all-consuming audience.
In Jimmy O. Yang: Good Deal, the comedian opens up with his queries on Matt Damon being the lead character in The Great Wall. He says with certainty that Matt Damon has never had anyone congratulating him for representing white people, yet Asians have to benchmark and congratulate each other for representation. The joke moves to penis size; how one time a woman confusingly told him that it’s not true what they say about Chinese people. It’s an obvious yet easy joke, leading to how he feels he is representing an entire nation when having sex with women. Jimmy O. Yang is superb at situational comedy but he knows how to land those punchy one-liners.
But while similar stand-ups before him prefer to iron out the key differences between their origin culture and American life, Jimmy O. Yang: Good Deal sticks to his roots. His message is flagrantly, “Yes I am American now but I am also Chinese”. He delves into his family life for large periods — how excruciating it can be to explain everything that’s happening on TV to his father. Jimmy O. Yang treats his stand-up with an abundance of who he is. He does not seem Americanised by his life changes but strengthed by it to bring forth particular jokes.
It’s safe to say I am impressed by Jimmy O. Yang: Good Deal — as an audience member who has only just become aware of the comedian, I won’t grumble to watch him again. Jimmy O. Yang’s Amazon stand-up is funny, ironic and endearing.
