Joking about her abusive husband launched this Chinese comedian to stardom. The authorities aren’t laughing

With her short hair and unshowy clothing, Fan Chunli looks every bit the middle-aged woman from rural China. Among a crowd of youngsters vying to become the next breakout star in one of China’s most popular stand-up comedy contests, she stands out.

But when the 50-year-old takes the mic, she beams with life and drips sarcasm, unloading jokes about her abusive ex-husband that bring the audience into a mix of laughter and tears.

Hailing from a place where simply knowing how to use the internet “makes me the Elon Musk of my village,” Fan is the latest sensation in China’s booming scene for stand-up comedy, an artform that offers an outlet for pent-up grievances in a country that often stifles open discussion of politics or society.

But Fan’s acerbic takes on patriarchy and domestic abuse have alarmed some officials in China, where women’s rights remain a sensitive issue. Trying to boost birth rates and thwart a looming demographic crisis, the ruling Communist Party is urging women to embrace traditional gender roles. It has cracked down hard on the country’s nascent feminist movement, which it deems a malicious Western influence.

During the performance that shot her to fame earlier this month, Fan laid bare the absurdity facing many victims of domestic violence in the country.

She said she was beaten by her ex-husband. But when she told her parents she wanted a divorce, her father warned her not to bring disgrace to the family.

“When men are involved in domestic violence, it’s not shameful. When women demand a divorce, it’s shameful,” she said, drawing cheers during her performance at The King of Stand-up Comedy, a popular contest streamed by online platform iQiyi.

Fan’s performance appears to have chagrined at least one local government.

As footage of her routine went viral last week, officials in the eastern province of Zhejiang issued a warning saying such jokes are “catalysts that provoke” gender conflict.

The statement didn’t directly name Fan, or the show in question, alluding only to a newcomer dubbed an “industry gem” – the nickname given to her by the show’s judges.

“The content of some talk shows is gradually deviating from its nature of humor, simplifying gender issues and repeatedly making a fuss about the ‘opposition between men and women,’” the local government’s publicity department wrote on Chinese social media platform WeChat. The province has no specific link to Fan or the TV show, but the department occasionally posts commentaries on recent trends.

Any discussion of gender issues, it said, should be “rational.”

Not your average female comedian

China’s government has cracked down on feminist activism over the past decade. Most notably, a group of women who became known as the “Feminist Five” were arrested after planning protests on public transport against sexual harassment in 2015.

Authorities have, however, allowed some mild-mannered discussion on social media, while movies featuring feminist themes continue to screen without a problem – as long as they do not amount to a call for action, experts say.

But Fan’s background – provincial, not well off or highly educated – may be contributing to official disquiet over her popularity, adding an extra layer of scrutiny.

“She’s a middle-aged woman who comes from a rural background, not one of those typical urban liberal elite feminists,” said Meng Bingchun, a communications professor who researches feminism at the London School of Economics (LSE).

“And this seems to indicate that this kind of discontent and grievance related to gender issues and the traditional Confucian, patriarchal values is probably more widespread than they (the authorities) are willing to acknowledge,” she told CNN.

Traditional social codes can sometimes prove as strict as any government diktat. Late last year, Chinese e-commerce giant JD faced a boycott by customers infuriated by its casting of trailblazing woman comedian Yang Li in a promotional live stream.

Those leading the action were apparently still stung by Yang’s signature quip from five years ago, chiding mediocre men: “How come he looks so average, yet still so confident?”

Bowing to the online backlash, the company apologized and severed ties with Yang.

‘Trapped’

Fan has never openly identified herself as a feminist. But in a post on the online platform Weibo, she wrote that she believes leaving behind the social constraints of rural life can lead to “the awakening of women.”

“For example, when I say I want a divorce in my village, I’m seen as an unpardonable villain,” she wrote.

“But when I talk about my divorce outside, the audience applauds.”

Growing up away from China’s major cities, she didn’t receive any formal education until the age of 8, she told Chinese state-owned Sanlian Lifeweek in an interview. But that soon ended after junior high.

Raised in an era when opportunities mostly went to men, she recalled picking up a job in a city before getting married, and her mother handing all the money she sent home to her brother.

“Girls growing up in rural villages have no rights to inherit anything. Not the house. Not the land,” she told Sanlian. “At the time… I just wanted to get married.”

But after getting married, she found out “family and marriage trapped women, making it impossible for them to make money.”

For Fan, life before stand-up was a cleaning job at an obscure village in her home province of Shandong, in China’s northeast.

Her path to stardom started with an unlikely twist.

In 2023, struggling to make ends meet, she recalled selling her jewelry to see a performance by her idol, a comedian named Li Bo, state-run media reported.

At the show, she was supposed to be roasted during an improv segment, but Fan’s quick-witted responses impressed the performer, who decided to introduce Fan to the trade, she said.

Drawing from life

Fan has plenty of experience to draw on when it comes to divorce, having contemplated her own for more than two decades.

“I was already thinking about getting a divorce when my eldest daughter was born,” she told Sanlian.

The mother of two described her ex-husband as a gambler, whose absence left her to look after her sick father-in-law alone. She also poked fun at his uncouth manners, saying he ate congee – a popular Chinese rice porridge – directly from the ladle.

One time her ex-husband and his father beat her up so badly that her face was covered in bruises, she alleged. She ran home to tell her parents that she wanted a divorce, only to be deterred by her mother, who told her to break up the relationship only if he was having an affair.

The last straw was a year or two ago when she caught her husband once again going ladle-to-mouth with the congee. “This time,” she recalled thinking, “I’m leaving without looking back.”

By then, Fan had already got a grounding in comedy performance, with slots at local comedy clubs. After leaving her husband – conceding both of their two houses to him, to get him to agree to a divorce – she decided to give stand-up a real shot, she said.

During her viral performance, she moved from innocent self-mockery to full-throttled roasting of her ex-husband, who she calls a “corgi” because of his diminutive stature.

“How tough is it for a rural auntie to come to the city for work for the first time?” she asks.

Then she considered her current, dire situation.

“I glanced at my husband beside me and thought, ‘I’m not scared of this challenge.’”

Apart from her marriage, she also opened up about other taboo topics for Chinese women, such as oft-marginalized biological realities.

Noting her newfound late-life stardom, she said that – unlike many women who retire when their periods stop – “my menopause will come with my debut.”

Moving on

Fans who CNN spoke to are rooting for the rising female comedy scene in China, pushing back against Zhejiang officials’ warning against “gender opposition.”

Zhang Yuanqi said she watched Fan’s show with her mother, who similarly left an abusive home, a decade ago.

She said comedians like Fan are “not trying to stir up ‘gender opposition’; they’re just turning their life experiences into jokes.”

“What we want to hear is our own lives,” she said.

“I started to wonder if my mom had similar worries that she kept to herself, thinking she had to handle them alone,” Huang Xueyao, a 21-year-old university student, said.

Fan touched on issues women encounter daily, she said, adding that she couldn’t understand the local government’s warnings. “They tell us to stop. What’s really behind the officials’ thinking?” added Huang, who said she hopes to take her mother to see Fan perform in person.

Meng, from LSE, said the Chinese government is grappling to understand this newly emerging form of entertainment, which may explain the cautious approach, though the warning from the Zhejiang authorities is unlikely to have further consequences on Fan.

As of Sunday, Fan’s Weibo account remains active (a deactivation would be one of the first signs a performer has fallen afoul of China’s censorship apparatus) – though some posts railing against the veiled official warning have been removed.

For the rising performer, comedy is more than just a newfound career, but also a way of getting catharsis.

“The biggest change in me since I’ve started doing stand-up comedy is that I no longer get angry at my ex-husband’s every move,” Fan told Sanlian.

“There is a feeling of reconciliation.”

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