Should Hasan Minhaj Still Be a Contender to Host 'The Daily Show'?

On Friday, the New Yorker published a long read on comedian Hasan Minhaj’s tendency to exaggerate, extrapolate, and sometimes outright lie in his standup specials. Minhaj, who discussed his creative process with writer Clare Malone, explained that his “comedy Arnold Palmer is 70% emotional truth—this happened—and then 30% hyperbole, exaggeration, fiction.”

As it stands right now, Minhaj reportedly is on the shortlist to be the next host of The Daily Show, a program he worked on as a senior correspondent from 2014 to 2018, under both Jon Stewart and Trevor Noah. We have yet to learn if the revelations from the New Yorker piece will affect his standing. And while Minhaj will clearly need to reckon with his embellished storytelling in order to take the slot, I don’t think he alone is to blame for his penchant for pretense.

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As I read the New Yorker piece and watched the natural lifecycle of backlash play out on Twitter, I felt a need for accountability. And not just accountability in terms of truthfulness from Minhaj about where he’ll draw the line between fact and fiction, but from the white, liberal, and affluent audiences who were hungry for stories like the exaggerated ones he shared. In a post-Obama, Trumpian era, these types of folks (many of whom I am related to!!) became obsessed with bearing witness to tragic tales of racism, sexism, and bigotry as a way to distinguish themselves as “one of the good ones.” I imagine Minhaj may have felt incentivized—as subconscious as it might have been—to embellish his standup or conflate his experiences with other ethnic minorities so that it made a bigger impact on these white liberal types, who have historically made up a huge percentage of the fan base of The Daily Show, where Minhaj got his start. Or, perhaps there was no animus on his part, but those stories were what would quickly help him rise in popularity above the “white-male middle aged hosts” like the Peabody Awards described. It feels irresponsible to assess a fish’s health without considering the aquarium he swims around in.

The New Yorker also detailed allegedly poor working environment at the Patriot Act, revealing that three women staffers on the show threatened legal action against Netflix and the show’s production company “alleging gender discrimination, sex-based harassment, and retaliation.” Ultimately, they settled outside of court. It does not seem as if formal complaints were made about the show’s factual credibility. Additionally, in 2020, some women of color staffers tweeted about the “mental anguish” they said they experienced working on the show. In my opinion, these allegations and reports are more damning than his comedic embellishments.

From the accounts I’ve read in the news and through social media, Muslim Americans were acutely aware of the “emotional truths” of living in a post-9/11 America. While there certainly is value in having those truths reflected back at them, I doubt they needed Minhaj’s exaggeration to recognize them. I imagine many white folks, like myself, did, though. Now, I feel some convenient compartmentalizing is at play as I witness white folks who are now shocked by Minhaj’s narrative fabrications fail to acknowledge how their own desire to have their white guilt appeased might be fueling those exact fabrications.

I’m not convinced that Minhaj’s “comedy Arnold Palmer” alone should prevent him from getting the Daily Show gig, but it’s certainly something that cannot go overlooked should he be tapped to make comedic commentary about the news. In the meantime, liberal white audiences would benefit from reflecting on their participation in an entertainment ecosystem that rewards heightened stories of ethnic minorities’ pain.

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