TMR's publisher offers a sampling of the funniest and most politically engaged comics of our day.
I began thinking about stand-up comedy as political performance right after 9/11. In those days, like today, it seemed the world was on fire, and empire was at the heart of our troubles. In Los Angeles and New York in the early 2000s, new young comedians of Arab and Iranian heritage began performing, often in response to the attacks of 9/11, in their own defense, but also relating to the immigration experiences of their families and themselves, and to the none too subtle Islamophobia that had been peddled by hasbara, legacy media, and politicians since at least the first Gulf war, in the early ‘90s. It is difficult to imagine that any comedian of Arab, Iranian, or Muslim heritage wouldn’t be politicized; would not be writing material that pushed back against the demonization, and the lies.
In fact, I found these young comic voices speaking out of what we then called the greater Middle East to be an irreducible force—they were the iconoclasts giving expression to the emotions and fears many of us were feeling, and they were funny, many inspired by and following in the footsteps of Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, and Eddie Murphy. From 2005 to 2016, I produced a monthly stand-up comedy show called the Sultans of Satire, mostly in Los Angeles, but sometimes traveling across the country to Washington, D.C., where we presented shows to celebrate Barack Obama’s first term. Among the show’s performers—many of whom are still working today—were Ahmed Ahmed, Amir K., Max Amini, Fahim Anwar, Ara Basil, Omar Elba, Elham Jazab, Maz Jobrani, Aron Kader, Ronnie Khalil, Sammy Obeid, Peter Shahriari, Mona Shaikh, Maria Shehata, Melissa Shoshahi, Angelo Tsarouchas, Ramy Youssef, and the late Marie-Thérèse Abou-Daoud and Mike Batayeh.
Arab, Iranian, and Muslim comedy now has a twenty-plus year history, and has expanded internationally, with young comics coming up in France, Lebanon, Egypt, the Gulf countries and Australia. It goes back to the Arab American Comedy Festival, founded by Dean Obeidallah and Maysoon Zayid in New York, in 2003. The following year Bryant “Preacher” Moss, Azhar Usman, and Azeem Muhammad launched the international Allah Made Me Funny comedy tour, which was soon joined by Mohammed “Mo” Amer. The Axis of Evil comedy tour, featuring Ahmed Ahmed, Maz Jobrani, and Aron Kader followed in 2005, the same year that the Sultans of Satire shows took off. Since then many similar group shows have followed, among them Mona Shaikh’s Minority Report out of Los Angeles.
It would be difficult to imagine the world today without such SWANA comedy luminaries as Bassem Youssef, Omid Djalili, Mo Amer, or Gad Elmaleh, who are, respectively, Egyptian, Iranian, Palestinian, and Moroccan. Not to mention the extremely funny and cogent Maysoon Zayid, Iman El-Husseini, Fatiha El-Gorri, Shazia Mirza, Nawell Madani, and Meryem Benoua (the latter two perform in French).
What all of these comedians have in common is original writing, comic timing, and reflections on what it means to be from the SWANA region.
Here, in no particular order, are a selection of short comedy clips:
Khaled Khallafalla on genocide and saying the wrong thing:
Mo Amer on the name Mohammed:
Aamer Rahman on Israel “as the only democracy in the Middle East”:
Nawell Madani on Ramadan:
Meryem Benoua on Moroccan sexual harrassment:
Maysoon Zayid on being a disabled Palestinian American stand-up comedian:
Shazia Mirza on growing up as a Pakistani British kid in Birmingham:
Maz Jobrani on immigrant parents and Iranian cousins:
Nemr on being Lebanese and American:
Sammy Obeid on October 7th and the Hannibal Directive:
This post is dedicated to the memory of Jordanian American comedian Mike Batayeh, 1970-2023, whose absence still weighs on those of us who knew him. Whether Mike died of a broken heart or his own hand, the result is the same: the world is bereft without him.
