Writes Clare Malone, in "Hasan Minhaj’s 'Emotional Truths'/In his standup specials, the former 'Patriot Act' host often recounts harrowing experiences he’s faced as an Asian American and Muslim American. Does it matter that much of it never happened to him?" (The New Yorker).
There’s a palpable discomfort among comedians when they are asked to comment on another person’s art—a sort of code of omertà. But a number of writers and performers who spoke with me bristled at Minhaj’s moralizing posture. “He tonally presents himself as a person who was always taking down the despots and dictators of the world and always speaking truth to power,” one former “Patriot Act” employee said. “That’s grating.”
Minhaj is, we're told, the person most likely to replace Trevor Noah as the host of "The Daily Show."
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.’ ”...
The nature of storytelling, let alone comedic storytelling, is inventive; its primary aim is to make an impression, to amuse or to engage. But the stakes appear to change when entertainers fabricate anecdotes about current events and issues of social injustice....
[Minhaj] told me, “the emotional truth is first. The factual truth is secondary.”
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“The emotional truth is first. The factual truth is secondary.” Sounds like Joe Biden, most Democrats, and the Marxist media.
And not even secondary, but optional only if it helps the narrative.
“Emotional truth is first.” In other words, made up stuff to propel the narrative. Emotional truth is simply BS fortunately for the moment still better known as feelings. Feelings first, and truth is unimportant.
Objective truth brings communities together.
“The truth is personal” is tearing them apart.
Does it matter that much of it never happened to him?"
They're making fun of America and white people, so it's all good.
WAIT A MINUTE... you mean.. white people AREN'T all Assholes?
I’ve heard Jerry and a few others declare you say anything for the laugh. That’s how it works. No foul…
He doesn’t really want you to take his wife…
Chappelle's comment on Jussie Smollett: A noose? In Chicago?
But people DO go into standup shows expecting truths. Chappelle says things no one else will say aloud. Seinfeld notices things we all overlook. The "airtight" adjective is a weasel word.
As Sam Kinison famously said during the AIDS crisis, comedians don't go to Medical School to learn how to tell jokes.
I don't expect a person actually saw a Rabbi, Cleric, and Imam walk into a bar and then claim personal suffering from witnessing the event.
He's not doing comedy, he's doing fear indoctrination.
Some children like to laugh. Other children prefer to be afraid.
When most comedians do storytelling-style jokes, I think of the joke as a story, not the literal truth. (I don't believe Bob Newhart had all of those phone calls. I don't believe Bill Cosby's kids said all those precocious things.) Sure, there is a "kernel of emotional truth" - something happened to someone that gave them the idea for the joke, but that's it.
The problem comes when the jokes are presented as a memoir. Then I expect them to have more truth to them. It's especially a problem if the jokes are designed to portray specific people or groups as bad and the joke teller as a victim of those bad people.
I don’t expect the truth, but I do expect it to be funny. He’s not. Victimhood is not funny.
Of he’s telling a funny story, I don’t care if he plays with facts to make a better story, but if he’s teaching a lesson, then made up facts make the lesson a lie.
This creep ought to be on the receiving end of some emotional truth.
This all a part of the 2 + 2 = 5 narrative that is sweeping the Dems. Women can become men. Net zero will save the Planet.
We had a President that wrote a biography that turned out to be a work of fiction.
Cant invest any emotion with a standup act taking liberties with reality.
If it's a comedy act, then it's an act, in which case I can take it as seriously as its label suggests I ought to. But: I always start to examine things a little more closely when they start to bandy the big words around, like truth, and justice, and equity. Then it becomes a different kind of act.
Comedy fans don’t care if you exaggerate about airline food, but lying about finding white racists under the bed everyday is a huge problem.
The Koran explicitly gives Muslims permission to lie to non-believers in order to further the interests of Islam.
Emotionally-speaking, Jussie Smolett really was beat up by MAGA loving republicans in the middle of the night in downtown Chicago.
TheDopeFromHope: '"The emotional truth is first. The factual truth is secondary.” Sounds like Joe Biden, most Democrats, and the Marxist media.
And not even secondary, but optional only if it helps the narrative."
Pretty much fully summarizes every "contribution" offered up by the Althouse blog LLR's every day.
Randy Feltface has a skit where he tells a crazy story about him buying something from someone off of the Australian Craigslist site. States its the reason he no longer uses the site.
At the end of his story he states that he made the whole thing up. And asks if knowing that it was made up whether it was therefore less funny.
Donald Trump was exaggerating for humorous effect when he said that woman let celebrities grab them by the pussy, but it was also the truth as he felt it. That part of his act didn't go over very well. I don't think it was the delivery. It's just that humor should never be directed at woman and minorities.....There's also a "dynamic range" in jurisprudence. E. Jean Carroll felt violated by Donald Trump. That was her emotional truth. She felt that justified her calling him a rapist, and the jury supported her emotional truth. Some lawyer will soon get around to claiming Donald Trump is a class action rapist and seek damages for the women of America.
Is this guy funny? Or, is he telling stories for an effect? Funny is funny. If he makes me laugh, I am goo d with it. However, I don't get the constant identity shtick. I am also Asian, and it never occurred to me to be anything but American. Yes, I like math.
Handmade tales... The audacity. He's not a journalist.
He's a gay terrorist... not that there's anything wrong with that.
All performances are reflections of reality to one degree or another. The question is always how much the performer and/or author is grounding the material in facts, or at least in long established reflections of the human condition. Where it gets problematic is personal observation that isn't clearly defined as such.
Presenting five different incidents that happened to five different people as if they all happened to you is being done for a reason.
It's all about the narrative.
He is perfectly OK to pretend stuff happened, we'll pretend to pay attention.
When I found out that Rodney Dangerfield's wife and parents hadn't constantly disrespected him throughout his life, I was outraged!
Sure, comedians make up stories all the time. And the FBI information who wasn't at Minhaj's school isn't really going to be hurt by being a prop in Minhaj's act.
But he told a fabricated story about a girl in high school and her parents, and that led to them getting harassed, because he made them identifiable. That's a much bigger problem than making up scarcely believable stories about the powerful, or changing irrelevant details about something someone really did.
https://www.salon.com/2023/09/15/hasan-minhaj-emotional-truth/
He's also a huge asshole and abusive to his staff, but that's the norm in the entertainment industry and has been for a century.
If you cannot be funny, you can at least be dishonest.
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