Humor exists in our society in many different shapes and forms. People react to these different forms of humor in many different ways as well. When we think of comedy, a lot of us tend to just think about jokes with great punchlines. But as learned by going more in depth, comedy is truth and pain. It is talking about the realities of life that all of us face in a way that is more receptive to the general public. We have all experienced humor as a form of deflection in some form or another, whether we’re the ones deflecting or we’re on the other side of the deflection. But it can be a pretty efficient way of communicating problems we deal with without having to deal with all the heavy baggage and emotions attached to it.
One comedian who does this really well is Kevin Hart. As a child, Hart’s father struggled with a cocaine addiction and therefore wasn’t in his life growing up. Hart used humor as a coping mechanism to get himself through the tougher parts of his childhood. Now, he is known for his self-deprecating humor mainly targeted towards his interactions with his family. All of his comedy comes from truth, whether he’s making fun of his height (he’s 5’4”) or his supposed lack of masculinity while explaining dynamics with his wife. During his stand-up routines, Hart makes use of quippy anecdotes poking fun at how he dealt with certain conflicts while taking care of his kids or arguing with his wife. He is able to paint a picture of a lot of common family issues many people deal with in a comedic way that almost says, “no matter how bad you were, you couldn’t have been worse than this guy.” He stated his influences as Chris Tucker, a stand-up comedian known for his high-pitched and fast-paced performances, and J.B. Smoove, an actor who acted in many comedy TV shows. While many comedians succeed by bring out truth and pain in their own everyday lives, others use political satire to bring out the insanity of certain political structures as well as the pain of the fact that it is, in fact, a reality.
Hasan Minhaj is essentially a politician that communicates his ideals via political satire. He is a first generation Indian Muslim who grew up in Davis, California and studied political science in college. He then became inspired to start comedy after watching Chris Rock’s stand-up performance, “Never Scared.” He lists his influences to be Kevin Shea, W. Kamau Bell, and Arj Barker. Minhaj became more well known when he joined the Daily Show as a correspondent and became even more popular after he hosted the White House Correspondents Dinner. He recently also got his own Netflix show, Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj, which explores modern culture and the political landscape with humor. He plays around a lot with caricature and exaggerism in his humor, which mainly comes from mocking people in power. In the episode “Indian Elections” on his show Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj, he would over exaggerate the characteristics of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as to compare him to Trump and emphasize the effects of nationalism. A lot of his material is also rooting in defusing anxiety because along with politics comes heavy material. For example, going back to “Indian Elections,” Minhaj poked fun at India’s bombing of Pakistan, during which Pakistan claimed they only bombed a bunch of trees and so filed a complaint with the UN on the grounds of ecoterrorism. Minhaj’s commentary on both American and Indian politics highlights the satirical nature of politics in general which is the painful part about understanding the truth in our nation.
Kevin Hart and Hasan Minhaj are, on the surface, two very different comedians. Hart sticks to his personal experience and finds anecdotes from his own life that he performs with his humorous, self-deprecating lense. Minhaj ventures to the controversial world of politics where he finds humor in exaggerating the tendencies and actions of politicians and explains to the audience serious political events with the comedic technique of defusing anxiety to explain the heavy stuff without the emotional baggage. However, bottom line is they both convey the hard truths in life, albeit different truths, and the pain that comes along with them in an effectively comedic way that reaches their audience and keeps them captivated.
In my opinion, what makes Kevin Hart stand-up acts so comical is his use of anecdotes. Hart’s style is piecing together different stories from his life and performing them through a lense where he heavily criticizes himself and his interactions with others. Telling these anecdotes helps provide us with the background information we need to understand the humor of the situations as well as provides a build up to the punch line. My favorite anecdote of his was in his stand-up act “Parenting my Kids” when he talks about how his daughter. He starts by explaining how his daughter asks him for a cookie and so he takes her into the kitchen. Since he prefaced this anecdote with the fact that his daughter has him wrapped around her finger, we know something is about to happen so this is the build up. Then, he hears a voice yell at him, “Don’t give her no cookie!” Now we’re approaching the climax of the anecdote because at that point he reveals how his daughter has him wrapped around her finger when she says, “Dad, I thought you were the man of the house.” And so Hart gets all riled up and puts an end to the “cookie operation” by putting the cookies on top of the fridge and hiding the ladder. Hart’s use of a quick three act structure in his anecdotes make them easy to follow and provides just the right amount of context and opportunities for dramatic effect for him to get the most out of his audience.
While I think Kevin Hart stand-up acts are hilarious, I prefer Hasan Minhaj’s political satire. In his performance at the 2017 White House Correspondents Dinner, I admired his effective use of pauses and comedic timing. For example, he would slow down and emphasize certain sentences and thoughts to really get the message through to the audience and often end those with quippy one liners that really ties the whole message together. It gets his audience laughing as well as gets them to think about the point he was trying to get across. I also admire the fact that all of his jokes are extremely introspective. In the Correspondents Dinner performance, he essentially criticized every part of the American government, from the president to the cabinet to the media. He was able to effectively use political satire to clearly lay out all their flaws and shortcomings. Minhaj also does incorporate jokes although not as often. My favorite from the Correspondents Dinner was when he said, “I get why Donald Trump didn’t want to be roasted tonight. From the looks of it, he’s been roasting nonstop for the last 70 years.”
For my humor project, I definitely want to take what I’ve learned from the styles of both of these comedians. I want to be able to implement the anecdotal style of Kevin Hart as well as the hard-hitting style of political satire performed by Hasan Minhaj, and combine them to form a comedic narrative that also acts as a social commentary on how much people’s perspectives and values have changed throughout history.