When comic Dean Obeidallah took the stage not long after the September 11th terrorist attacks, he did something he had never done before: He called himself “Dean Joseph,” using his middle name instead of his Palestinian last name because of the racial discrimination articles flowing throughout the U.S.
The new name stuck for only a few shows before Obeidallah realized he could use his ethnic heritage — and humor — to combat stereotypes. That story and more from four other comedians, comes out in a PBS documentary, “Stand Up: Muslim American Comics Come of Age,” that first aired in May 2009.
In an interview, Obeidallah says he only identified as an Arab American comedian after 9/11.
“I started to use comedy as I got more and more tired of hearing what I knew were incorrect descriptions of Arabs and Muslims,” says Obeidallah, whose father was Palestinian, his mother is Italian, and he was raised in New Jersey. “As I became more in touch with my heritage it became a bigger part of me as a person and a bigger part of my comedy.”
Director and producer Glenn Baker, says part of his goal with the film was to show the diversity within the Muslim community — the comics are from Egypt, Iran, India, and Palestine.
“I wanted to show how diverse they are both in terms of the culture they come from, the language they speak, and their own practice of Islam,” he said. And notes, they’re funny.
At one point, the film shows comedian Ahmed Ahmed joking about a girl hitting on him because he looks “mysterious.” He adopts a dippy voice and coos: “She said, ‘Make me your Egyptian princess.’ He waits a beat and says, “So I threw a sheet over her head and told her to be quiet.”
In another scene, Tissa Hami does a stand-up set for a Boston Islamic center to celebrate the end of Ramadan. She riffs on how Americans think it is sexist for women to pray in the back of the mosque.
“We just like the view,” she says. Some women in the audience laugh; others look uncomfortable. “We’re praying for a piece of that.”
Comic Azhar Usman, who wears a thick beard and skullcap, jokes in the film that he can’t understand why fellow airline passengers are afraid of him.
“If I were a crazy Muslim fundamentalist terrorist about to hijack the plane,” he says, “this is probably not the disguise I’d go with.”
In an interview, Usman says there is always a risk that joking about stereotypes only confirms them.
“It’s an art, and that’s practically the point that it’s going to be subject to numerous interpretations,” he says. But more likely, using comedy can humanize Muslims in a way like no other, he argues.
“There is this image of these dour, unhappy, pissed off Muslims,” he says. “It is categorically dehumanizing to think of people as humorless.”
Baker says many minority racial groups have long used comedy to make inroads with the dominant culture.
“You look at what Richard Pryor did to open up black culture to white or mainstream audiences,” he says. “I think Muslim American comedians are doing the same thing. Something unknown is feared. If you open up the door and let people metaphorically into your house, people start to realize that there are great commonalities. They have the same problem with their mother-in-law as we do.”
Indeed, humor in America has long been race-based, says historian Mel Watkins who wrote “On The Real Side: A History of African American Comedy,” and teaches courses on African American humor. In the early 19th Century, humor in the U.S. was about the dominant white culture mocking other races and ethnicities. In contrast, European humor has long focused on class instead of race.
Eventually, minorities started using their own race as fodder for comedy and some black-faced minstrels were actually black, Watkins says. Comedy, he says, makes the unknown less threatening.
“Whether you like it or not, something happens to you subconsciously, you accept the humanity of the person once you laugh at them,” he says. “You only laugh at something if you understand it to a certain extent.”
Because African American comedians have been talking about race for so long, Watkins says some can focus less on race in their acts, citing Wanda Sykes as an example.
“Her comedy is human comedy, you’ll never forget she’s an African American but if you listen to her comedy it is seldom about race,” he says. "Muslim comics are just beginning a journey black comics began in the 1960’s,"
“It’s reached a point where you need comedians who can come out and joke about being Arabic and it will work the way comedy has always worked to humanize a group of people,” he says.
In the film, the comics say they often walk a difficult line with both Muslim and non-Muslim audiences. In one scene, Hami talks about leaving a Muslim-dominated show where she quips, “Let's just say I was just really happy there were other people around.”
In an interview, Hami says Muslim audiences tend to have the most extreme reactions, either loving her act or hating it.
“The vast majority love it, it’s only a small group that has a problem,” says Hami, who wears a headscarf, was born in Iran but immigrated with her family as a girl. Hami, who has two Ivy League degrees, says she thinks about leaving comedy every day.
“Someone should be talking about these things,” Hami says. “As long as I have something to say… I think we need our voices out there.”
With all audiences, Obeidallah says anything having to do with the September 11th terrorist attacks required special care, especially in the early days.
“As we’ve gotten further away from 9/11, we have more freedom to talk about certain things because I think the audience is ready,” he says. "The humor has never been about making light of the tragedy, but rather looking at how the Muslim American world has changed because of it." Beyond that, Obeidallah says, a good way to deal with one of the most horrific times in the country’s history is through humor.
“I think it helps you deal with the darkest things,” he says.
For his next documentary project, Baker wants to continue exploring race and comedy, possibly doing a film on the so-called “Curry Belt” comedians — those from south Asian countries. He’s also interested in looking at comedians who perform both in the U.S. and in Middle Eastern nations.
“I want to look more globally about how comedy can overcome differences,” he says.
Usman’s parents were born in India but he was raised in Chicago. He performs worldwide with a comedy show called Allah Made Me Funny, appearing on stages in 12 countries and 5 continents. He has been heartened to realize that audiences worldwide laugh at the same jokes.
“Muslims worldwide need to hear from a Muslim in America, I’m a Muslim like you but I’m also an American, and I love my country and I’m not going to apologize about that,” he says. “I’m a Muslim and I’m an American and I’m proud of both sides of my identity.”