Comedian Hasan Minhaj has offered a response after he was criticized for various “fabrications” he’d told on stage during his act.
Partly known for his presence on The Daily Show, Minhaj has hosted two Netflix comedy specials: Homecoming King and The King’s Jester. A recently-published article from The New Yorker analyzes many of the anecdotes Minhaj had made onstage during the specials, all related to the challenges he faces as a Muslim and Asian American. As several stories told in the act were unable to be factually verified, Minhaj confirmed to the publication that he had exaggerated certain bits for comedic effect, though he noted that they were still all stemming from true events.
“Every story in my style is built around a seed of truth,” the Haunted Mansion actor is quoted as saying. “My comedy Arnold Palmer is seventy percent emotional truth—this happened—and then thirty percent hyperbole, exaggeration, fiction.”
Hasan Minhaj Says Every Anecdote Stems From True Stories
In Homecoming King, Minhaj told a story about arriving to his date’s home on prom night to discover she’d instead be going with a white boy, but the woman involved says she’d actually turned him down days before. The comedian confirmed this, but said the story as told onstage resonates better with audiences, as there are “so many other kids who have had a similar sort of doorstep experience.” Minhaj also verified exaggerating an anecdote about his daughter getting exposed to what he believed was anthrax, along with a story about a white FBI informant infiltrating his mosque, among others.
However, Minhaj noted that, with comedy, the “punchline is worth the fictionalized premise.” He said that people who watch stand-up comedy aren’t expecting to hear stories that are completely factual, but intend to come along for an “emotional roller coaster ride.” The comedic stories, even if exaggerated to a certain degree, still bring more attention to the very real difficulties that Minhaj had dealt with over the years as a Muslim living in modern America.
“All my stand-up stories are based on events that happened to me,” the funnyman explained in a statement about the article given to Vanity Fair. “Yes, I was rejected from going to prom because of my race. Yes, a letter with powder was sent to my apartment that almost harmed my daughter. Yes, I had an interaction with law enforcement during the war on terror. Yes, I had varicocele repair surgery, so we could get pregnant. Yes, I roasted Jared Kushner to his face.”
Minhaj, who voices the Riddler in the audio series Batman Unburied, concluded, “I use the tools of stand-up comedy — hyperbole, changing names and locations, and compressing timelines to tell entertaining stories. That’s inherent to the art form. You wouldn’t go to a haunted house and say, ‘Why are these people lying to me?’ The point is the ride. Stand-up is the same.”
Homecoming King and The King’s Jester are streaming on Netflix.
Source: The New Yorker, Vanity Fair