Can Hasan Minhaj Win Back His Audience”s Trust?

Comedian Hasan Minhaj’s greatest offense as a storyteller was not the one he committed against his audience by telling a few lies. That’s even if it counts as an offense.

Nuance is required to address revelations in The New Yorker about Minhaj crafting details in his two Homecoming King And The King’s Jester Netflix specials to amplify the wow factor of some of its stories.

To be honest, most comedians will cut up their personal revelations with fillers and hyperbole to better fit their stories into certain narrative boxes and themes. Some will also play with the audience’s assumption of who they are and how. Exaggerated characters and statements are a tool. I don’t think Sam Kinnison was still screaming in the 90s or that Bo Burnham spent the pandemic alone and hermitic, isn’t it?

Doing what Minhaj did: making up a story that his daughter had to be rushed to the hospital because he and his wife believed the child had been exposed to anthrax at a time when threats of death against him were increasingly worrying? It’s over-the-top on steroids, but is it all fair in the name of art and storytelling if the goal is to land on the emotional truth of this moment (to borrow part of Minhaj’s phrasing from his interview in the New Yorker article)? I’m not sure, but also, was that the only goal?

There is a sad irony in the moral of his latest special (The King’s Jester) was that Minhaj wanted to place family above the race for influence. He expressed this when we spoke at the time.

“Honestly, when my marriage was going through these really difficult times, I realized this and I talked about it with my wife, and it was like, ‘What really matters here?’ » And I care so much more about Beena [his wife] than I do the Deadline articles.

We now know that some of those “hard times” weren’t quite as they were portrayed (like the anthrax scare), but I believe the general sentiment. I also still like the special, again, because I’ll believe in the overall theme. The thing is, it would be easy not to, and that’s because of this unforced error.

Hasan Minhaj is a really great visual and comedic storyteller, and not just because some of his iconic stories are rooted in these fantastical things where he’s right at the turn of the story or in the line of fire. Personal moments in The King’s Jester about trying to have a child and dealing with the polluting effects of fame are masterful, humane, hilarious and thought-provoking. But were they enough?

You could open up a whole other part of this article by examining whether it was a lack of confidence in the material, in himself, or in the market that led Minhaj to think he had to inflate his stories or himself to make this special really pop and help it. career goals. By the way, it doesn’t matter. Everyone is supposed to act humbly and #blessed when good things happen in their career and they get what they want, like it’s all accidental, but it takes planning, ambition and choices . Minhaj just made a few questionable ones, although I suppose it’s a matter of perspective.

It’s easy to sit here and say that the same impact would have been felt if, when he talked about death threats, he had done so without the twists involving his daughter. Ditto for the danger felt during his meeting with the Saudis at the embassy. Will the story work if this happens a month after the news of the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi instead of the same day? Yes, but would either of these stories have blown up the way they did without these details? This is not justification, it is understanding the motive. The fact, however, is that in choosing to amplify or evoke stories, Minhaj was always looking for influence…in the special about how he didn’t see as much value in the hunt for ‘influence.

Listen, Hasan Minhaj is going to be fine. More … than. His profile always seems to be rising. Cancellation is a widely coined term that describes what happens when a sex pest has to play sold-out clubs instead of sold-out arenas for a few months. It’s not comparable. Minhaj will find work, maybe not Daily show job (rumored to be the favorite to replace Trevor Noah as permanent host after a wonderful guest host stay), but it works.

Maybe his next special will be about that moment, a double take on his response in the New Yorker, his hubris, his ambition and what he learned from it all. Comedy fans and critics (myself included) have been clamoring for this kind of personal storytelling and vulnerability (as evidenced by the response to Minhaj’s previous specials from critics, myself included), so in a way, it almost feels like a call and an action. We’re always begging for more interesting, unique and revealing comedy, and now we’ll get exactly that.

Hasan Minhaj: the storyteller

Hasan Minhaj: Trust me

Hasan Minhaj: telling the truth

Again, no justification. There are deserved consequences here. No matter what Minhaj says and how powerfully and effectively he says it, everything is going to play out a little differently with a lingering vapor barrier of doubt over everything, making us question whether he’s real with us or not for a long time moment. And that’s what’s the worst thing about all of this.

Of all Hasan Minhaj’s skills as a comedian, it’s his ability to connect with an audience that has always been the most supernatural. Great storytellers don’t necessarily need great stories, they are great storytellers because they can read the back of a cereal box convincingly. But that doesn’t matter if they can’t get an audience to connect with them because people don’t trust them.

One final question with all of the above in mind: If someone receives praise/rewards/attention for something they later get in trouble for, but the consequences pale in comparison to the rewards, is it all worth it? I guess it all depends on what you were looking for: influence or connection.