Between the White House Correspondents Dinner, his "Daily Show" gig and Netflix special, comedian Hasan Minjaj is having a good year. A playwriting workshop tries to help veterans connect with each other and society. And Spotify settles a class action lawsuit that was filed by songwriters claiming they weren’t being properly compensated by the steaming company.
Hasan Minhaj on being an Indian-American Muslim comedian in the Trump Era
UPDATE: Hasan Minhaj's Netflix special, "Homecoming King," has won a 2018 Peabody Award.
This interview originally aired in June 2017.
Comedian Hasan Minhaj is doing more with his stand-up act than just making people laugh. He’s representing a vision of America, "We're at this crazy turning point for the country. We're fighting, are we the nativist narrative or are we the immigrant narrative?"
In 2017, Minhaj has had a few big stages where he could discuss that question and make the case for the narrative he represents. He has his regular gig as a correspondent on "The Daily Show" and there was his performance at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. Then last month he released his comedy special “Homecoming King" on Netflix.
The special is about Minhaj's life as an Indian-American kid growing up in predominantly white Davis, California, and pursuing his dream of doing comedy, despite his parents wishes to the contrary.
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS:
On the competing narratives in America today:
The nativist narrative means there's certain iconic "American" ideals. We are Norman Rockwell, We are Coca-Cola, We're the Dallas Cowboys we're Support The Troops. We are these things that you don't mess with these foundational concepts. Or are we the immigrant narrative? Are we the great marketplace of ideas? Come one, come all. Come with your ideas and may the best idea win. We don't care what you look like, as long as you have the best idea and that's why we're America. The home of Apple, the home of Tesla, the home of, name whoever you want, who came from another part of the world, or another face or background, but bring your best ideas here, that's what makes America great.
So I feel like I'm part of this generation of people who look slightly different or who have slightly different names, but we're adding these amazing ideas to America. That to me is the narrative I'm fighting for. The things I'm fighting for are actually American ideals.
On what inspired him to make "Homecoming King":
On "The Daily Show," we get so caught up in the day-to-day news cycle. A story breaks and then the piranhas in late night, we all jump to the headline and we dissect it, and then we have to move on to the next day. And one of the things that I wanted to do was to work on something that’s a little bit more evergreen. The things that I talk about in the show – falling in love, not being able to be with somebody you care about because of variables that you can’t control – those themes are still so relevant in 2017. That’s what I wanted to do — have real, real stories that are based on events from my life. But then if you extrapolate them, that’s what 2017 Trump’s America is like.
On challenging the idea of a post-racial America
A lot of times, we as a country don’t want to talk about these things because we’re living our day-to-day lives. So when you read [about] something like the Muslim ban, or [that] we’re going to build a wall, people are like, Look, man, I’m just trying to go to work, drop my kids off at school, and live my life. The story that I’m telling in "Homecoming King" about falling in love, these are things that happened to me — that actually happen everyday in our backyards and in our communities. The reason why I think that the story is so powerful – and I think we’ve all experienced this, regardless of race, color, creed, or class or sexuality – [is] we’ve all dealt with these doorstep moments where we’ve put ourselves on the line and we weren’t accepted because of something we can’t control. Now, for me, it was the color of my skin. But for other people it’s a myriad of other reasons. It was the first We’re going to go in a different direction moment, where you put your heart on the line and people say, Hey, because of variables you can’t control, we just have to do something different because, you know, if you’re seen with our daughter at prom, we’re going to take photos, what are people going to think? And that moment in my life captured so much. And I think it speaks to a lot of moments people are having now.
On deciding to perform at the 2017 White House Correspondents' Dinner:
A lot of times in life, it's personal choices that you're making, actively, and then there's a myriad of forces and circumstances that are out of our control. And without even realizing it, you're riding a wave of events that you have no control of. So, I am who I am. I'm Hasan Minhaj. I'm this this Indian-American Muslim comedian in America during the Trump Administration. Now, a series of circumstances unfold where Donald Trump is the president, he pulls out of the event, the Administration has boycotted, all these variables happen. A bunch of comedians had passed on the gig because it's too contentious. There's just a lot of, Will the event still happen? Is the event going to implode on itself? And then I get asked three weeks before the gig: "Do you want to do the dinner?" And I felt, Wow! What amazing timing and circumstances that, given the current administration, I would be asked to be the comedian to comment. I thought, This is a hell of an opportunity.
To hear the full interview, click the blue player above.
How a theater workshop is bringing military veterans together to write plays
Kendrick Dial isn’t what you might picture when you think of a military veteran. He has long dreadlocks and a relaxed way about him.
We talked sitting in the La Jolla Playhouse library, in the San Diego suburb of the same name. Dial was there as a student in the Veterans’ Playwriting Workshop.
People used to look at me and they wouldn't know that I was in the military because I didn't carry myself like that. And when they meet me now, they're kind of actually shocked to even believe that I was ever in the military. My nature is, you know, go with the flow.
Dial was in the Navy, first as a radar technician and then as a substance abuse counselor. He wants to stress something about veterans: Do not stereotype us.
At the workshop, MFA candidates from UC San Diego lead five ex-military guys through writing exercises. Kurt Kalbfleisch, a former Navy engineer says:
I think it gives us a starting point to bond ... Kendrick is also a former Navy. We have that in common and that gives us a frame of reference from which we can then begin to relate to each other. Coming to see him as a writer and appreciate his work gives me an even deeper level of appreciation for him as a human being, and I think it helps us to find commonality and intersectionality.
Students explore different types of playwriting, from dramatic monologues to one-person shows. They don’t have to write about their military experience, but it does come up in different ways. Jamey Keeton, a former Marine, described several play ideas that weren’t about his personal life, but had military themes.
One is about “an Atlantian military scout [who] is caught and interrogated by the CIA, [seeking] to learn about the location of Atlantis, a technologically advanced civilization with abundant resources.” And another revisits Uncle Sam each year on the Fourth of July. The other veterans had a lot to say about Keeton’s ideas.
Veteran and playwright Maurice DeCaul started this workshop – and several other veterans' theater pilot programs around the country – with the help of a grant from Theater Communications Group — a support organization for theaters around the country. “Building the space that allows for people to meet and become friends and trust each other is important,” he said.
DeCaul returned from Iraq hoping to use his GI bill scholarship to study history and become a lawyer. But as he was waiting to apply for college, he came upon a writing workshop for veterans. It wasn’t part of his plan.
It was the first time I was writing about the war. And it was the first time that I had talked about it or wrote about it since I had come back — and I had come back six years prior.
DeCaul dropped his plans to become a lawyer. Instead he earned degrees in creative writing from Columbia and New York University, and now splits his time between NYU and Brown University, where he is an artist-in-residence.
Back at the La Jolla workshop, other veterans are also expanding their horizons. Veteran Armando De la Torre is a visual artist who came to the workshop to expand his work into theater.
I use the art to work through my traumas that I experienced during the military. Through art I got some tools to be able to work in society. Through that, I felt like I worked through my own issues of depression or lack of connection to how society works — all sorts of problems that occur when you're part of a militarized organization.
De la Torre was skeptical at first when he came to the workshop.
In general, I've seen some organizations that are not really addressing veterans’ needs because very few people really know what veterans need.
It turns out, at least for these veterans, they needed a chance to write some plays and bond in a theater overlooking the Pacific Ocean.