Truth is? Most standup is bullshit. Of course it is! The idea of taking a real feeling or a real scenario and creating a fake story with a beginning/middle/end is literally the gig. You pull from every part of you to try and make it genuine, but its usually not real.
Standup also choose the stories they tell. I’m Filipino, so as a stand up comedian, I talk about my experiences. But as middle class Filipino growing up in SoCal, I haven’t experienced the racism and discrimination that my past generations (or fellow Filipinos) have experienced. So I can’t just invent or take inspiration from other experiences of discrimination, and pass them off as my own.
That’s always been my standard personally as a comedian, because it also intersects with my political identity. Creating that type of distrust with an audience would hurt myself and my community, and my own personal success would not be worth that.
But I don’t think that’s as cut and dry as what Minhaj did though. The FBI story was the only one that didn’t happen directly to him (with the obvious additions that he called out). He was still involved and knew the guy that was impacted and has those FBI people at their mosque. Sure the cop car head slam didn’t happen. But I don’t think his intent was to make up a completely baseless story about something that he only heard about and harm others’ability to get help when they have those situations happen to them.
The FBI and Police won’t do anything more now than they did before to prevent racism, as the George Floyd murder and the subsequent police violence has shown.
Not justifying the decision, nor trying to de-legitimize how those that have had those things happen to them feel (which we know is a lot more common than reported).
I think the situation has a lot more nuance than the New Yorker cared to report on, which to me calls into question their intent.
But his stuff was based on what his generation experienced, and apparently based on people living in his neighborhood.
He may have embellished the fake anthrax story a bit, but I think the core important part of that is that he received it in the first place. Sure, it didn’t actually end up on his daughter, but as a parent that’s all you’d be thinking about in that situation anyway.
But his stuff was based on what his generation experienced, and apparently based on people living in his neighborhood.
This is what he call emotional truths in the story, and as a comic, I don’t believe it has any validity. Those type of lies are not in service to the joke, but talking about the struggles of your community. Which is an understandable goal, but given the controversy around his special, it definitely had consequences for his community and the discrimination they faced. For instance, imagine he had told the brother Eric joke, and then gave the punchline that brother Eric coerced a confession out of him, and he’s been in prison for the last twenty years. And then he could reveal that story is not about him. Brother Eric coerced the story about another Muslim that was the same age. Same jokes. Same laughs. More honest.
I personally think he made the wrong choice by centering his comedy around himself, rather than just being honest about the struggles of his community and it affecting other people.
As a former Daily show writer put it in the article:
A comedy writer who has worked for “The Daily Show” said that most comics’ acts wouldn’t pass a rigorous fact-check, but, if a show is built on sharing something personal that’s not necessarily laugh-out-loud funny, the invention of important details could make an audience feel justifiably cheated. “If he’s lying about real people and real events, that’s a problem,” the writer said. “So much of the appeal of those stories is ‘This really happened.’
I think it’s fair to say he made a mistake in it but I dont think it’s a fair to act like he was particularly malicious or deserves to lose TDS over it.
Standup also choose the stories they tell. I’m Filipino, so as a stand up comedian, I talk about my experiences. But as middle class Filipino growing up in SoCal, I haven’t experienced the racism and discrimination that my past generations (or fellow Filipinos) have experienced. So I can’t just invent or take inspiration from other experiences of discrimination, and pass them off as my own.
That’s always been my standard personally as a comedian, because it also intersects with my political identity. Creating that type of distrust with an audience would hurt myself and my community, and my own personal success would not be worth that.
Super great point
Your standard is exactly right.
But I don’t think that’s as cut and dry as what Minhaj did though. The FBI story was the only one that didn’t happen directly to him (with the obvious additions that he called out). He was still involved and knew the guy that was impacted and has those FBI people at their mosque. Sure the cop car head slam didn’t happen. But I don’t think his intent was to make up a completely baseless story about something that he only heard about and harm others’ability to get help when they have those situations happen to them.
The FBI and Police won’t do anything more now than they did before to prevent racism, as the George Floyd murder and the subsequent police violence has shown.
Not justifying the decision, nor trying to de-legitimize how those that have had those things happen to them feel (which we know is a lot more common than reported).
I think the situation has a lot more nuance than the New Yorker cared to report on, which to me calls into question their intent.
There’s more covered in the article. He left out a few embellishments from his defense.
But his stuff was based on what his generation experienced, and apparently based on people living in his neighborhood.
He may have embellished the fake anthrax story a bit, but I think the core important part of that is that he received it in the first place. Sure, it didn’t actually end up on his daughter, but as a parent that’s all you’d be thinking about in that situation anyway.
This is what he call emotional truths in the story, and as a comic, I don’t believe it has any validity. Those type of lies are not in service to the joke, but talking about the struggles of your community. Which is an understandable goal, but given the controversy around his special, it definitely had consequences for his community and the discrimination they faced. For instance, imagine he had told the brother Eric joke, and then gave the punchline that brother Eric coerced a confession out of him, and he’s been in prison for the last twenty years. And then he could reveal that story is not about him. Brother Eric coerced the story about another Muslim that was the same age. Same jokes. Same laughs. More honest.
I personally think he made the wrong choice by centering his comedy around himself, rather than just being honest about the struggles of his community and it affecting other people.
As a former Daily show writer put it in the article:
I think it’s fair to say he made a mistake in it but I dont think it’s a fair to act like he was particularly malicious or deserves to lose TDS over it.
Incredibly well put. You might appreciate this old article from Vulture - where deceiving the audience is destructive to someone’s public persona.