• Corpus ID: 243666313

Comedy as Counter-narrative: Examining Patriot Act and its Reception By Hafsa Maqsood A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF ARTS IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF BA HONOURS IN COMMUNICATIONS

@inproceedings{Shepherd2021ComedyAC,
  title={Comedy as Counter-narrative: Examining Patriot Act and its Reception By Hafsa Maqsood A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF ARTS IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF BA HONOURS IN COMMUNICATIONS},
  author={Tamara Shepherd and Matthew Croombs and Samantha C. Thrift},
  year={2021}
}

• T. Shepherd, Matthew Croombs, Samantha C. Thrift
• Published 2021
• Sociology

Comedy can convey political, economic or social commentary through humour. Yet, jokes in mainstream comedy have typically been made at the expense of marginalized communities by people of privileged social, economic, and racial standpoints. In recent decades, this has begun to change with comedians from racialized minority groups using stand-up comedy as a medium to combat negative stereotypes, represent their intersectional identities and experiences, as well as critique society. Yet, Muslim responses to Islamophobia or public responses to the representations of Muslim identities, particularly in comedy, has been a topic left relatively unexplored. This honours research thesis examines the political comedy show Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj alongside comments under the program’s YouTube videos using critical discourse analysis. It incorporates theoretical frameworks such as intersectionality, orientalism, and hegemony to explore the discourses both the text and audience commentary reproduce, maintain, or challenge. Audience reception of the show varies from comments revealing a discomfort with the decentering of whiteness, comments maintaining Islamophobic discourses, negative and positive responses to Minhaj’s representation of his intersectional identity, and comments indicating an acceptance of Minhaj’s proposing of counter-hegemonic discourses. Thus, this thesis ultimately argues that Minhaj’s work and portrayal of his identity as a Muslim, Indian American provides counter-narratives to Muslim stereotypes that are met with ambivalent audience reception, further indicating how he challenges negative public perceptions of Muslims in a North American society where Islamophobic sentiments are pervasive.