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.
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.