This was all news to me.
Edit: NPR’s Eric Deggans does a much better review/commentary than I do here.
The New Yorker took a whack at Hasan Minhaj for embellishing stories in his comedy act. He sat down to go over all the issues at length with the New Yorker with his agent present and recording the interview. So there’s a lot of material presented here as far as the “they said/he said.”
He makes a pretty solid case here that the reporter received information refuting the angle they were set on doing, and ignored the evidence Hasan and his agent provided.
He is still coming under criticism as he admits he differentiates the poetic license he takes with his -comedy- standup act versus what he was doing on The Daily Show. But, he calls on reporters to measure the liberties he’s taken in standup specials with those of other comics.
He doesn’t mention what we already know: the outright thievery of jokes especially by established comics from up n comers, use of audience plants, faked spontaneity (a “slip of the tongue” that becomes funny until you see it flubbed exactly the same way at other performances), etc. But, to me, the existence of these behaviors support what Minhaj is saying.
Mostly, this is about how he conveyed experiences with racism and the terror of having his family threatened (and Netflix harassed) for his calling out the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. On demand of the Saudi regime, Netflix pulled Minhaj’s special, “Patriot Act” from streaming in Saudi Arabia.
