Here’s a brief news story about an Iranian-American Muslim comedian Tissa Hami. In it, Hami describes her comedy as her way of helping combat stereotypes against Muslims. “‘Why aren’t we speaking out for ourselves?’ she said she would ask herself. ‘Why aren’t we doing something? To me this is something I could do. I know it’s comedy. I know it’s this much. But, if we all do this much, it’s something.’”
Hami’s comedy is meant to encourage viewers to look beyond appearances. She dresses in all black, from her shoes to her hejab, and then comes out with lines like: “I’ll be honest with you. I should have worn a long coat, but I was feeling kind of slutty tonight.”
Female Muslim comedians are few and far between, but slowly, they’re becoming more visible. Hami’s comedy reminds me of Shazia Mirza (pictured here), a Pakistani-British Muslim woman who has gained a fair amount of popularity ever since she appeared at a comedy club dressed in hejab and said, “My name is Shazia Mirza. At least, that’s what it says on my pilot’s license.” Since then, Mirza has been on tours in both Britain and the U.S., and won several awards for her comedy.
Unfortunately, there are a fair amount of people who disagree with this comedy, many of them Muslims. However, in my view, laughter is a good way to break boundaries. Obviously, it can’t be the only thing; we run the risk of becoming the stereotypes we poke fun at. But laughter is a great place to start, and though there are fewer female Muslim comedians than there are male Muslim comedians, enshallah all our funny sisters out there will stand up sooner or later.
Personally, I love a good laugh. There is a saying attributed to both the Holy Qur’an and the Prophet (pbuh), even though I can’t find the location: “Blessed is [she] who makes [her] companions laugh.” And if we can’t laugh at ourselves, we’re taking ourselves too seriously.
P.S. Remember to wear a pink scarf on Friday, Oct. 26th to create awareness for breast cancer!
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Shazia is one of those women who totally exploited the aftermath of 9/11 for her own benefit. Many non-Muslims can’t stand her either as she tends to base her acts on a generalisation of Muslims which was via her own experience as a Muslim Bengali living in Britain (unfortunately her background does not represent many of the educated Muslim families who are living here today). She used to wear hijab and then took it off – the hijab was out of cultural neccessity more than anything else – again, my point being that she doesn’t seem to differentiate between religion and her culture.There are other acts such as ‘Allah Made Me Funny’ who don’t exploit / manipulate the genuine suffering of many Muslim women in Britain today – by basing her acts on the oppression of women she does nothing for their plight and instead makes them out to be weak and insignificant nobodies. Quite frankly it is degrading.
PS: Forgot to add that her other non-religious comedy is good (or digestable) – I just wish people wouldn’t use religion to serve their own purpose (for personal gains)! At least the other guys are trying to promote a better image of Islam through their comedy (which is much needed in this day and age.Sorry about the rant honey… I’ve had some really bizarre experiences with this woman.
Salaam Alaikum,What I don’t like about either comedian’s act is that they both wear hijab as a type of stage garb, neither of them are muhijabat, which I find kind of demeaning. If they don’t wear it, that’s fine, just don’t turn it into a type of fancy dress to catch people’s attention.I gues that’s why I prefer the Allah made me funny and the Ummah films crew, as first and foremost, you can see they are practicing Muslims who love their deen, but point out the humour in everyday Muslim life. It would be marvelous to have female Muslim comedians like that. In fact didn’t a Muslim woman win a big comedy contest a while ago?
Freewriters – I just read your comments, after I posted mine. It’s good to know I’m not alone in this.
No, don’t apologize for the rant! Your opinion is important!I haven’t actually seen either women’s acts, but the interview with Tissa Hami made me laugh out loud.I know that Ms. Mirza has since taken off the hejab for her act because she felt it wasn’t necessary. I wrote the article to highlight female Muslim comedians–we need more of them, frankly. While I might not agree with Ms. Mirza’s methods, she identifies as Muslim, and she’s a comedian. So I included her. (shrug) I don’t know if I would agree with you about the Allah Made Me Funny tour–though I haven’t seen that either (I’ll YouTube it later), I’ve read some of the jokes: some of them deal with suicide bombing: “‘I’m an American. But I’m an American Muslim. In fact, I consider myself a very patriotic American Muslim, which means I would die for this country…’(Pause).’by blowing myself up…’(pause)’in a Dunkin’ Donuts.’While I might laugh if the delivery’s right, I would argue that this is just as detrimental to the image of Islam as Mirza’s comedy.
I just read my comments – not sure why it came up as “Freewriters” – very strange… It’s me, silentrant :S (but you might’ve guessed that!)
http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/2022/context/cover/
This is a great article, Melinda, thank you for sharing it! I can’t believe I forgot about Maysoon Zayid!!!
Gah, did my comment preceding the link disappear?
I guess so. I’ll make sure not to submit two comments at a time again. I had said something along the lines ofThe issue with Muslim comedians today is that it’s so easy to play off of stereotypes of Islam for humorous effect without actually refuting them. Shazia Mirza does this with jokes like her fear of dying a virgin and being given as one of 72 to a suicide bomber. Azhar Usman does this with jokes about blowing himself up. I don’t know if there are any Muslim comedians who haven’t fallen into this trap at some point.