Press Room

Must Read News

Just a little innocent comedy

By David Zurawik
Baltimore Sun
Posted on Sunday March 4, 2007

In a new television special, these American performers are taking on Middle Eastern stereotypes

Before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, Dean Obeidallah, a Palestinian-American comedian, rarely mentioned his ethnicity onstage.

Now it’s almost all he talks about.

In fact, the Fordham University Law School graduate, who in 2002 co-created the New York Arab Comedy Festival, is finding himself in increasingly high demand. In the past year, he has performed his one-man show, I Come in Peace, in clubs and colleges from coast to coast as well as in Ramallah, West Bank; Beirut, Lebanon; and Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

This week, he and three other performers who specialize in ethnic humor will appear on cable channel Comedy Central in The Axis of Evil Comedy Special. And pop culture analysts see their arrival on national television – the medium through which American pop culture images are most quickly made and altered – as a major step into the mainstream for the burgeoning genre of humor they have created.

“Before 9/11 – and I had been doing comedy seven years – I did probably one or two jokes about my Arab heritage, and they were just little ethnic jokes. Now, even though my first job is still to be funny, the humor comes from the real framework of my life as an Arab American,” Obeidallah says.

As unlikely as it may seem, he and other performers say that the horrifying events of Sept. 11 have catalyzed incremental positive changes in how Arab-, Muslim- and Iranian-Americans are portrayed in popular culture. Those changes, however small, have in turn created more performance opportunities.

A decade ago, there was little demand for Arab-, Muslim- and Iranian-American actors or humor. And if there were dominant images of Middle Eastern identity in American pop culture, they likely were stereotypic: Think Iron Sheik, a cartoonish World Wrestling Federation character from the 1980s and ‘90s who wore a kaffiyeh and brandished a sword.

“The old trend was always bad guys,” says Maz Jobrani, a 35-year-old Iranian-American comedian who is also featured in the Axis of Evil television show.

“But after Sept. 11th, I started seeing a new trend. Suddenly, there were more roles for people of Middle Eastern descent – even if the roles were limited.”

Indeed though progress has been made, more is needed, says Evelyn Alsultany, a University of Michigan professor who since 2001 has tracked TV portrayals of Arab- and Muslim-Americans. Most television roles that call for a person of Middle Eastern ethnicity, she says, fall into one of two “types.”

In the first, Alsultany says, an Arab character is unjustly suspected of illegal activity.

In the second type, the character is “good”: an Arab or Muslim who aides the U.S. government in its fight against “bad” Arabs and Muslims. In these roles, goodness nearly always is defined as serving the U.S government, the professor adds.

Examples of these characterizations include that of Nadia (Marisol Nichols) a Muslim agent in the Counter Terrorism Unit on Fox TV’s 24, and Darwyn (Michael Ealy), an African-American Muslim FBI agent on Showtime’s Sleeper Cell.

Comedian and actor Jobrani, who lives in Los Angeles, is experiencing first-hand this post-Sept. 11 evolution.

In 2003, for example, on the CBS crime drama Without a Trace, he played an imam who initially is suspected by the FBI of terrorist activities – but is proven innocent. By the end of the episode, Jobrani’s character is lecturing FBI agent Jack Malone (Anthony LaPaglia) about the dangers of trampling on the civil rights of Muslim-Americans.

To date, Jobrani says, his favorite role has been that of a U.S. Secret Service agent of Arabic descent in the 2005 feature film The Interpreter: “His name was Mohammed, but they called him Mo throughout. I spoke like this [with an American accent], and my ethnicity never came into play once.”

‘Context of terrorism’

One particularly troubling aspect of these roles, however, is that though generally positive depictions, they always exist in the “context of terrorism,” points out George Washington University professor Melani McAlister.

That reinforces a connection between Arab identity and danger to America, says McAlister, the author of Epic Encounters: Culture, Media and U.S. Interests in the Middle East (University of California Press, 2005).

As grateful as he is for the increased job opportunities, Jobrani asks: “Where are the Arab, Muslim or Iranian medical doctors saving lives and curing people on TV? Go in any hospital, and you will see them, but not on television.”

For every positive role he has played in the last five years, “There are still 10 ‘let’s do the terrorist thing’ roles,” he says ruefully.

What’s needed to change these images, say pop culture analysts, are more shows such as the Comedy Central special that have the potential to offer, through humor, observations and insights about Arab-Americans to millions of viewers.

“This comedy tour does a kind of educational work which other things that seem didactic or threatening can’t do. And going on television, these performers could do wonderful work – providing information and possibly changing many minds,” says McAlister. “We haven’t had anything like it on TV.”

When the comics first went on tour in 2002, they were known as the Arabian Knights. But, as Iranian-American audience members continually pointed out, Iranians are not Arabs, says Jobrani.

They’re Persians – primarily Aryans, not Semites, who moved onto the Persian plateau in the 17th century B.C.

The comedian riffs on those distinctions in his TV performance: “I’m the Iranian of the group,” Jobrani says after walking through a metal detector and being searched by an intimidating security guard to get onstage.

Not dangerous

“I tell my American friends I’m Iranian, and they go, ‘Oh, so you’re an Arab?’ And I say, ’ No, we’re actually different. I mean, we’re similar to Arabs – we’re all getting shot at. But actually we’re Aryan. We’re white, we’re white, so stop shooting. ... We’re Persian like the cat, not dangerous. Persian like the rug, not dangerous.”

Obeidallah’s boyish good looks and friendly on-stage persona belie the political bite of his satire. Coming across as a Palestinian-American Chris Rock, he gets fast laughs satirizing President Bush for his pronunciation of al-Qaida.

“He makes it into three syllables – el kiii-eee-dah. It’s gone from a Middle East terrorist group to a Mexican restaurant.”

But the New Jersey-born, former defense attorney also offers humor that touches on much more profound issues. “Do you know what it’s like being of Arabic heritage with a Muslim last name living in America the last few years?”

Before Sept. 11, he says, “I’m just a white guy, living a typical white guy’s life with white-guy friends named Monica, Chandler, Joey and Ross. ... I go to bed Sept. 10 white, and wake up Sept. 11, I’m an Arab.”

He explains via e-mail his inspiration: “One of the biggest differences between the way I view the world today, as opposed to pre-9/11, is that I no longer view myself as part of the white majority – I now view the world as a member of a minority group.”

In America, he says, only minority groups suffer as a whole when a few people of their race or ethnic group do something bad. “As I mention in my act, Arabs are the new blacks, because we know now what it’s like to be viewed suspiciously simply because of our race.”

Just as comic Lenny Bruce battled the stifling conformity of the 1950s or Dick Gregory and Richard Pryor challenged racism in the ‘60s and ‘70s, these performers now are challenging mainstream notions about their ethnic, religious and racial groups.

“There’s a part of us that does comedy because we’re angry at several things – not only some of the policies of our government, but the way we’re portrayed to the world,” says Ahmed Ahmed, an Egyptian-American comic on the Axis of Evil tour.

“So, every time we go onstage, we say, ‘OK, here’s our 15 minutes to really tell the people we’re talking to who we are and what we’re about.’ And our message is, ‘Not only are we going to make you laugh, we’re going to educate you, too, and that will bring us closer together.’

“That’s the hope, and now on Comedy Central, we’ll be bringing that message to more people than ever.”