Hasan Minhaj as Philosopher: Navigating the Struggles of Identity

Abstract

Hasan Minhaj uses his craft of comedy both for the laughs and for his takes, points, messages, claims, and arguments. The comedy is driven by his conviction that great comedy routines, in their essence, are great philosophical positions. This, we might say, is his philosophy of humor. When doing comedy, he often attempts to slip in social messages by combining his comedy with arguments, thus presenting his viewpoints (and countering those of others) on several topics through various formats of his work. Drawing his arguments from his own experience of being an Indian-American Muslim, he uses his comedy to forward his arguments about immigrants’ struggles and stories, and has also been particularly vocal about issues related to identity. This chapter primarily focuses on highlighting Hasan’s philosophy, ideas, claims, and arguments on various identities, from national and ethnic identities to personal identity; however, the chapter will also briefly present and comment on a few other philosophical concepts that can be found in Hasan’s work. In the end, we shall see that Hasan provides us with a prime example of how the words of a comedian can also contain deep philosophical insights and messages.