Comedian Hasan Minhaj has a huge popularity across the US and the world. The former Patriot Act host has also hosted a few episodes of The Daily Show which was previously hosted by Trevor Noah. Speaking at an interview with The New Yorker, Hasan admitted to fabricating facts to produce punchlines for his stand up specials.
In one of his stand up specials on Netflix, “The King’s Jester”, Hasan talked about how an envelope with white powder was sent to his home that accidentally spilled over his daughter sending her to the hospital. In the interview he admitted that the white powder was never exposed to her daughter and she was never hospitalized.
Speaking at the interview, Hasan said,”Every story in my style is built around a seed of truth.” He stressed that the letter with white powder was actually sent to his house and they joked about it being anthrax. He fabricated the rest of the story with hyperbole, a commonly used tool for comedy.
This has raised serious questions about how we perceive the stand up comedian whose acts largely revolve around issues like racism and xenophobia. Can we even take him seriously if the premise of his jokes are fictional. It also sparks a debate around the ethics of comedy and what is acceptable and what not when it comes to framing a joke. It’s essential to evaluate the cost at which it comes and if it does more harm to someone than the good it was intended for.
Even though he admitted to tweaking facts, he believed that he was not manipulating the audience who are in there for an experience. He stressed on his punchlines being based on ’emotional truth’.
