Hasan Minhaj Neglected the Truth in His 'Emotional Truth'

This is what happens when you get attached.

Hi, my name is Alberto Cox, and as of 2023, I’m mostly a huge fan of Hasan Minhaj. HUGE. As much as you can be in a world where we don’t buy physical copies of stuff like comedy specials. I don’t know if that signals a specific type of basicness in me, but the guy is magnetic. He is very much the class clown who you actually like, who is talented, and who has a working brain over those shoulders. The one that excels among both the theater kids* and the Humanities subjects. I should know; I had plenty of those in my class … and yes, I would’ve really wanted to be one of those kids. Probably this is why I clicked with Hasan’s entire persona.

Technically, Hasan shouldn’t be cool. Like any theater kid, he is histrionic; he clearly revels in positive attention, and he tries. Very. Damn. Hard. I’m not surprised some people might find his persona grating, too hyper, too cheerful, too … American.

But his career broke out at the right time and place, and appealing to the right generation: The former guy’s era … one which won’t be over as long as that living earwax lives. We are living in a moment in time in which that very 90s-00s attitude of irony and being “so above it” doesn’t cut, sincere, post-modern apathy will not get us out of this social-cultural-politic hole, while trying hard, being overtly earnest, feeling the feels and just trying to max out on experiencing something visceral is perhaps one of the few ways we can counter the systemic way in which we are getting f**ked by… well, Boomers and the Xers on their way to become Boomers. And with his stint as a correspondent on The Daily Show, his hosting of the first White House Correspondent’s Dinner of the former guy’s presidency, with his comedy specials and, above all, with the much-too-short Patriot Act, he managed to somehow take that miasma of needing to understand what is going wrong with the World while not being clinical and falsely impartial about it, feeling the feels about structural injustice. Hasan can be hilarious, insightful, and approach complex issues in-depth while he can also convey sadness, anger, and frustration. Plus, he looked dope as hell.

Overall, what he has injected in his work is a unique mixture of Very American optimism with Global South Realism, a position for which he was very well equipped as the son of Muslim Indian immigrants, on the intersection of so many combinations of being otherized and oppressed that you could graph it as an endless spiral. At the same time, I guess Hasan’s audience also placed him at the intersection of spiraling expectations of what he could do for immigrants in general, Muslim people in “Western” countries, South Asians, Millennials, and those in the US who don’t want it to go the way of the GOP.

But then came an exposé by The New Yorker, two weeks ago, which fact-checked the claims made in his specials Homecoming King and The King’s Jester, claims about being rejected by his High School sweetheart because of his racist parents’ objections, claims about the scope of threats that he received because of his criticism of the Saudi Royalty and Narendra Modi’s government, claims about him becoming acquainted with an infamous FBI mole at his mosque; and perhaps the worst lie of all, a story about him opening an envelope that contained a suspicious powder, which splashed his baby daughter. He has admitted to embellishing and exaggerating the stories, which are pivotal to the narrative he builds on both specials, as being “emotional truths,” which…

Come on man! “Emotional truths”?

That’s not an excuse; that’s what you expect to hear from a white influencer apologizing for wearing an Indian headdress to Coachella. That’s some “sorry you felt offended” crap.

Because the problem is not about making up or exaggerating a story for narrative purposes. That’s not a problem, that’s how we tell stories, and more importantly, that’s how you develop the comedic. The problem is that you’re playing fast and loose with the “truth” part of the “emotional truth” because Hasan underpins the entire payoff of his specials on the emotional part.

When John Mulaney tells us about his drug-fueled escapades, or Patton Oswalt tells us about how he and the late Michelle McNamara ran into an L.A. orgy while going to an open house, or when Dave Chappelle tells us about the times he met O.J. Simpson, or when Iliza Schlesinger tells us about that shady ex-boyfriend of hers. All of these stories probably contain exaggerations or a remixing of the facts, but that doesn’t matter because the stakes are contained at some point within the comedian’s own experience. But Hasan was trying to do something more than just tell a story; he was positioning himself in a position that would transcend him being just a comedian. In Homecoming King, as him being an example of a new, diverse American experience, and in The King’s Jester, as his journey into becoming a leader of opinion, a truth-teller risking it al l… and then realizing he went too far for recognition. The tragicomic thing is … he is aware of it and makes it explicit during the specials; he laughs at himself for trying. So. Damn. Hard. for clout; he laughs at his own ego trips. But at the very same time, in that same performance, he was falling prey to his worst instincts. The worst part of the charismatic class clown/theater kid: That goddamn need for validation.

And hey! Being self-centered and having a narcissistic streak is not just inevitable for those who want to become performers, be they comedians, actors, singers, etc. In fact, it’s necessary; it helps fuel tolerance to rejection, and it helps break through insecurity. The problem is that Hasan has been aiming to be something more than a performer. Recently, I wrote that being the host of The Daily Show is one of the most prestigious positions in American journalism today. I say without a trace of irony and with all the extraness conferred to me by being a Millennial. Hasan, as someone who grew up watching Jon Stewart, who would then create his own take on this new tradition of mixing comedy and journalism, and as someone who was clearly angling to succeed Stewart and Noah, failed at realizing that you need to respect and commit to the journalist part of the equation. That you owe your audience a commitment to the truth, an enhanced one at that.

As the quality of establishment journalism in the US keeps dropping and as it keeps making compromises with those in power, comedy journalism is one of the final lines of defense. If you’re going to do this, you have a reputation to uphold. It doesn’t need to be a clean-cut one; you can be as openly flawed and extra as you want, but you cannot allow yourself to become a joke.

Overall, this is all very low-stakes, almost petty assholery compared to what other comedians get up to. But it has been crushingly disappointing. Because Hasan didn’t need to make up any stories to prove a heroic narrative about himself. He already did enough by calling out Jared Kushner to his face, while the establishment media tiptoed around him. Hasan only needs to try less hard next time. And yes, I want to use the future forms, hoping he gives us more of his Patriot Act self and less of the class clown.

But in reality, if he ever does a standup special, Alberto Cox will definitely embellish the story of that time he was arrested during a protest in 2011.