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By Lisa Boone

Feb. 14, 2025

At a Los Angeles comedy club recently, Jenny Yang was working through some new material, including calling out some surprising trends among Gen Z. Her humor was in full swing as she engaged the audience. “Why aren’t you having sex?” she asked an unsuspecting 22-year-old woman, prompting howls of laughter. “Will you do me a favor? Please, have sex!”

In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.

Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment, the leading film and television industry organization for Asian and Pacific Islanders, on Monday night presented its second annual Radiance Gala, celebrating the achievements of Asian and Pacific Islander Women and Non-Binary artists, artisans, and leaders in entertainment, presenting honors to actress Sandra Oh, the teams behind Lionsgate‘s Joy Ride and Hulu’s Black Cake, and more.

Hosted by actor and comedian Jenny Yang, the ceremony also featured a special musical performance from artist, writer, producer, and social change artist MILCK.

The comedian tells all about her path to Netflix’s ‘The Brothers Sun.”

Four years ago, Jenny Yang reached a plateau in her career. She’d achieved many of her goals — she was a successful stand-up comedian, she’d launched her own comedy festival focused on platforming Asian American talent, she’d worked as a staff writer on Busy Tonight — so she sat down to chart something new. Yang decided that what she really wanted to do was become an action comedy star. She trained for a half-marathon and took up kickboxing training. But then a casting director for a new Netflix show about a Taiwanese crime family was scouring the internet during a late-in-the-game search and came across one of her viral stand-up videos. “All they told me was that it was a gang drama and I wouldn’t have to do any accents,” Yang says.

An elixir of crime drama and comedy, “The Brothers Sun” shakes up the formulaic way Hollywood has often portrayed Asian immigrant families. The genre-bending show aims to be a vehicle for fresh faces like Li and comedian Jenny Yang, a practice that doesn’t always feel like the norm when it comes to actors of Asian descent.

Mostly known for stand-up and sketch comedy, Yang is making her television acting debut as the assassin Xing.

“I had heard about the project before any casting notice was seen and I was jealous. ... Why am I not involved in this?” Yang recalls.

She credits casting director Jenny Jue with making “the extra effort to scour the internet and scour her networks to look for talent that might not have been previously seen.”

They say to never meet your heroes, but no one ever said anything about choking them onscreen, and Jenny Yang just got to check that off her bucket list. In Netflix’s The Brothers Sun (out now), Yang’s Xing, an assassin, goes up against Michelle Yeoh, who stars as Eileen “Mama” Sun, the matriarch of two brothers who have to reunite to beat a rival gang and keep the Sun family empire in place. “Fighting Michelle Yeoh was something I didn’t even think was a possibility for me to dream of,” Yang said at the show’s premiere in Los Angeles on Thursday.

Even with comedians who don’t identify as political, the existential pressure cooker of today bakes their politics into their material. Jenny Yang doesn’t want any label other than “comedian,” but because she comes from a background as a political organizer, you can expect jokes about racism, patriarchy, and capitalism to find their way into her sets. Ironically, she got out of politics and into comedy just so she could be more personal and vulnerable with what she wanted to talk about (i.e., anything other than politics). The police shooting murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., brought her activist roots back into the forefront in her daily life, which is when she decided to actually bring her politics into her comedy….

BY JAKE KROEGER, OCT. 4, 2023 5 AM PT

‘Self Help Me’

Aug. 12 at 7:30 p.m. at the Bell House, 149 Seventh Street, Brooklyn; thebellhouseny.com.

During the pandemic, Jenny Yang helped soothe thousands of anxious people by inviting them to join comedians at a virtual comedy club she created within the video game Animal Crossing.

Three years later, Yang continues to promote the healing, only now she has turned well-being into a competitive sport with her live game show, “Self Help Me.” On Saturday at the Bell House, competing comedians will not only be quizzed on how much they know about the latest trends and practices in self-care, but they will also be dared to reveal what they are doing to stay sane themselves. Amber Ruffin from Peacock’s “The Amber Ruffin Show,” Jo Firestone and Jay Jurden will show off their wellness wonkiness, while Alex Kumin will perform a stand-up set.

Tickets are $25 at Eventbrite. SEAN L. McCARTHY

The Swarthmore grad cracked jokes and raised awareness during her recent Underground Arts Show.

Los Angeles-based comedian Jenny Yang voiced support for the Save Chinatown Coalition protesting the proposed $1.3 billion 76ers arena during her show at Underground Arts on Aug. 3. Yang, who recently voice-acted in The Great North and will appear opposite Michelle Yeoh in the upcoming Netflix show The Brothers Sun, is a Swarthmore alum who studied urban planning and Chinatowns in graduate school at UCLA.

“Philadelphia Chinatown has been an incredible part of my development as a human. Not just as, like, a cool place to get dim sum,” Yang said in a phone call with The Inquirer. The area and the Asian Arts Initiative in particular were “the source of so much enrichment for me [in college], as a budding political activist, a budding poet.”

The Swarthmore grad, who was recently cast in a Michelle Yeoh movie, added her voice to Chinatown activists’ fight.

The white-and-red posters declaring “No Arena In Chinatown” fit right in amid the dimly lit graffiti art, sculptures, and mini murals adorning the staircase down to Underground Arts’ subterranean space in Callowhill, where comedian and actress Jenny Yang was preparing to perform in an Aug. 3 stop of her “Fiancé Energy” tour.

In some ways, the signs and large table staffed by Chinatown activists with petitions and T-shirts were the real opening act to Yang’s show, before the stage performances by three up-and-coming comics — and before Yang herself incorporated the anti-arena message into a nearly seven-minute portion of her set.

Jenny’s twitter mega-thread of great picket signs was featured on this New York Times piece about the Writers Guild of America (WGA) Writer’s Strike.

Hot dogs for Fourth of July. Ham at Christmas. We’ve long associated certain dishes with our favorite holidays, and no federal day off lends itself to that sentiment more than Thanksgiving. Turkey with stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, mac and cheese, cranberry sauce, and green beans. But for many Americans, the fourth Thursday of November isn’t always Turkey Day, just ask comedian Jenny Yang by Melissah Yang.

Yang's latest collaborative food education campaign, held in conjunction with MSG-producing company Ajinomoto, redefines "clean eating" and constructively calls Goop, Gwyneth Paltrow's wellness platform, to action. by Evan Nicole Brown

Comedian Jenny Yang says the ingredient has long been misunderstood—with no help from Goop.

Clean eating may have its benefits—like added vitamins and minerals, or an energy or mood boost—but who gets to decide which ingredients are “clean”? That’s the question activist and comedian Jenny Yang is tackling in her recently launched #DinnerWithGoop campaign By CAITLIN RAUX GUNTHER

The work of one of Jenny’s comedy mentors and inspirations, Lizz Winstead, was featured in The New York Times coverage of the recent abortion battles. Lizz was the co-creator of The Daily Show on Comedy Central and brings together comedians and abortion providers to provide fundraising, morale and support for the pro-choice movement.

“Abortion Access Front performances feature sketch comedy; music; standups like Sarah Silverman, Michelle Buteau, Jenny Yang, Aida Rodriguez and Negin Farsad and notables like the writer Dan Savage and filmmaker Mark Duplass; and on the road, conversations with local abortion providers, to highlight their needs. Even pro-abortion-rights crowds are often edified and galvanized, according to audience surveys collected by a researcher from the University of California, Los Angeles.”

DEADLINE: HBO Acquires ’38 At The Garden,’ A Documentary About Jeremy Lin’s Historic New York Knicks Spree In 2012

DEADLINE: ‘38 At The Garden’ Short On Trailblazing NBA Player Jeremy Lin Gets New Trailer – Update

38 AT THE GARDEN TRAILER ON TWITTER

“Even as A-list comics sell out arenas, a full recovery is stalled by a fiercely competitive market for venues, international travel restrictions and the pandemic that won’t end: "The spectrum is so wild right now."“ BY KIRSTEN CHUBA

“The Good Ones is a new series from Mic about celebrities who are living their values through their art. These are the actors, artists, musicians, and creatives who let the world know exactly who they are, and are paving the way for the next generation.” BY ESTHER WANG

“Jane Fonda and Zazie Beetz will be honored Wednesday during Women in Film’s WIF Honors gala while Jenny Yang has also joined the program to host. Billed as “Trailblazers of the New Normal,” the event will be held at the newly opened Academy Museum.” BY CHRIS GARDNER

“On Thursday, CAA kicked off the month of April with the CAA Amplify Town Hall to address the surge of violence against Asians and Asian Americans. These acts of violence and harassment have been at the forefront in the past week with the Atlanta shootings and the most most recent attack in New York City, where a man brutally beat 65-year-old Vilma Kari while saying racist remarks. The graphic attack can be seen in video footage — but what’s even worse is that the footage shows people witnessing the attack and not doing anything to help her.” BY DINO-RAY RAMOS

“We’re highlighting 20 talented writers and performers for Vulture’s annual list “Comedians You Should and Will Know.” Our goal is to introduce a wider audience to the talent that has the comedy community and industry buzzing. This year, for the first time, we asked the comedians on this list to answer a series of questions about their work and comedy under quarantine. Last but not least is Jenny Yang.”

August 2020 — Variety has selected Jenny Yang as one of their “10 Comics to Watch” for 2020.

This year’s honorees will be profiled in the September 29 issue of Variety and take part in a live virtual panel at this year’s Just for Laughs Digital Festival. Traditionally held every year in Montreal, the festival will going digital this year due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and held Oct. 9-10.

Part of the “Comedy Queens of Quarantine” series, Jenny was interviewed by her good friend poet and writer Jenny Zhang and shot photos with Tyler Joe for Harper’s Bazaar.

Jenny is featured in New York Magazine Vulture’s “Good One Podcast” with Jesse Fox talking about making comedy during quarantine and creating Comedy Crossing, her popular online standup comedy show. August 2020.

New York Magazine’s Vulture team review Jenny’s pandemic-ready standup comedy show, Comedy Crossing. July 2020.