Comedian Hasan Minhaj has come under some fire lately for admitting that a number of stories built into his stand-up sets aren’t entirely based on fact. As the comedian put it, “Every story in my style is built around a seed of truth…My comedy Arnold Palmer is 70% emotional truth — this happened — and then 30% hyperbole, exaggeration, fiction.” This should seem fairly obvious, shouldn’t it? We may not consciously think of it while the performance is going on, but we can’t reasonably expect each and every sentence and story in a stand-up comedian’s act to be completely factual, right? Well, as it turns out, some do.
On Monday’s episode of The View, Whoopi Goldberg came to Hasan Minhaj’s defense, saying that’s just part of what comedians do. “We tell stories and we embellish them.” She continued, “If you’re going to hold a comic to the point where you’re going to check up on stories, you have to understand, a lot of it is not the exact thing that happened because why would we tell exactly what happened? It’s not that interesting. There’s information that we will give you as comics that will have grains of truth, but don’t take it to the bank. That’s our job, a seed of truth: sometimes truth and sometimes total B.S.”
The controversy surrounding Hasan Minhaj does bring up an interesting topic. How much of a comedian’s routine has to be complete and utter truth? Does it really matter if the points they are making have a greater purpose and, more importantly to most, the jokes are funny? Would a false claim of Islamophobia work to hurt the wider, more important cause or does it help bring attention to it in a more comfortable setting?
Hasan Minhaj – who broke through on The Daily Show – has had a strong few years, winning two Peabody Awards, two Webby Awards and even being named by Time as one of the Most Influential People in 2019. He also voiced The Riddler on the podcast Batman Unburied.
Do you think it’s a big deal that Hasan Minhaj embellished stories in his stand-up routines? Or is that, like Whoopi Goldberg says, just part of the DNA of a comedian? Give us your take on the issue in the comments section below.