Monthly Archives: March 2019

In the “Saudi Arabia” episode of Patriot Act, host Hassan Minaj clarifies the coverage of the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Using humor and his own personal background as Muslim, Minaj is able to simplify the coverage surrounding this event for a broader audience. This is an excellent example of what Stuart Hall describes as the “encoding/decoding process”. Through Minaj’s knowledge of this topic and through his background as Muslim, he is able to comment not only the events, but also how they’re broadcasted on the news. He notes the convenient blind eye that many politicians have- where they tend to pick and choose which atrocities deserve their attention. For example, when considering how to address this issue, their can be little doubt that the Saudi Crown Prince’s relations with the western world came into play.

Muhammad Bin Salman’s (or MBS) previous praise from the West as a result of him lifting the ban against women driving no doubt came into play. Previous favoritism from the west and money seem to play a large role in the encoding and decoding process for many politicians. As a result of the money and influence the Saudi royal family wields, they have enough power to change the encoding process for many people in power.

This was a process which, until the recent murder of Jamal Khashoggi, remained unchanged. Salman’s previous willingness to embrace parts of western culture was granting a free pass for any other atrocities committed. Now that the Saudi Arabian monarchy has finally admitted that they did kill Khashoggi, there has been little in the way of ramifications. Despite newfound media criticism, the power that MBS holds has managed to steer away the consequences. This shows that the money and resources in Saudi Arabia are enough to influence government action around the world. The power that the Saudi Arabians hold was enough to change the encoding process of people in power.

The show Patriot Act is able to simplify this sort of coverage for broader audiences through the use of humor. Through the lighthearted exchanges that Minaj provides, he is able to open the minds of his audience and make a larger statement. His background as Muslim grants him authority from the perspective of western audiences. This combination allows for Minaj to make political statements to more receptive audiences as a means to spread awareness.

Hasan Minhaj engaged with several of the common Islamic tropes throughout this episode of the Patriot Act. Towards the beginning of his talk, he brought up how Muhammad bin Salman was thought to “save the Arab world” as he lifted the law that prohibited women to drive. This moment in history was a big step for Muslim women in Saudi Arabia as Islam is known to fill the criteria of the uniquely sexist trope although, his humorous commentary downplayed it’s seriousness and showed how it really panned out. The video consisted of a Muslim woman rapping about knowing how to drive a car even though she was never physically driving it. He showed how this act is still frowned upon in their country and that Saudi women went so far as to protest the release of this legislation. Minhaj goes on to explain the war between Saudi Arabia and Yemen. He reveals that the praised reformer, Muhammad bin Salman, has been in fact funding the bombings on Yemen that have killed thousands, including those in schools and hospitals, and has driven Yemen’s famine to a level of crisis. Minhaj describes Salman to fit the trope that Islam is inherently violent very obviously, especially with his exaggerated facial expressions and body language when he makes jokes about how people could ever praise this scheming man. This dramatized way of telling the news is, in my opinion, effective as it keeps the audience engaged and also constantly rethinking since this casual approach allows the storyteller to say the things that others tend to shy away from on high profile news channels.

After saying his piece on Salman, he brings up several other unethical Indian individuals that are in a position of power in the United States. The description of these Muslim men plays on the idea of the trope that the “Muslim mind” is irrational. Minhaj sheds light on John Kapur, Dinesh D’Souza, and Bobby Jindal’s “psychopathic” tendencies as political figures in a hysterical manner. The way that Minhaj makes jokes about these Muslim men and how he ended with a comedic video showing Muslim children with tainted minds because of the actions of these figures gets a message across in a deceiving fashion. These men can have an impact on the lives of our youth through their irrational actions on broadcast TV, which can sometimes be disguised by mainstream news channels. Hasan Minhaj’s comedic news broadcasting provided evidence for these tropes through his speech as a way to communicate withi his audience. These tropes are common knowledge and when they are brought to life in a comedic way it can be easier for people to digest and discover the real issues through their laughter.

Hasan Minhaj’s Patriot Act show has taken over really well in terms of spreading accurate facts. His episode, “Saudi Arabia” was an eye-opener to me personally as I wasn’t aware of this information, and his explanation to such controversial topics was really easy in understanding. In the first act, we see Minhaj introducing the Khashoggi murder case which happened in Saudi Arabia. He explains the whole issue of how Saudi Arabia acted in denial and later accepted it. It kind of created havoc for journalists in America. Later, he moves on in setting up an introduction of Muslims specifically focusing on Saudi Arabia, and explains why Saudi in particular since it is the “homes of two of the holies cities in the Islamic world: Mecca & Medina”. And throughout the first act, he continued explaining about Saudi Arabia and their methods of trying to portray it as progress in being a “modern country” which is completely false.

In the second act, he speaks about Indian American Muslims and explains due to a one particular country of Muslims the entire Muslim community is questioned and treated unfairly and similarly is shown in the novel “The Reluctant Fundamentalist”, we see how Changez and all the Muslim communities were treated in America after the 9/11 attack. Minhaj expresses that he has been told by people to “probably lean into the Indian side of your identity” since Muslims are taken and treated differently. He also talks about how people look up to Indians as “doctors, lawyers, engineers” which is an old stereotype and addresses a few names of Indian Americans as examples- John Kapoor (who was arrested for being involved with racketeering, frauds regarding medical), Raj Gupta (who was involved in inside trading), Dinesh D’souza (who talks and shares opinions which make zero sense), and a few more.

Overall I feel his main aim to introduce the topic on Indian Americans especially Muslims as he wanted to explain in the first segment why Muslims have a hatred.

Under the “Saudi Arabia” episode under the show Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj, Hasan Minhaj has discussed the news coverage about Saudi Arabia and the crown prince Mohammad bin Salman, or MBS, concerning the murder of a Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Minhaj begins the ‘story’ with MBS’s representations before and after he’s claimed to take responsibility for Khashoggi murder in which it’s significantly altered. In this case, American politicians promptly inverted their standpoints toward MBS despite their profound relationship with Saudi Arabia and the fact that American had commended him as a reformer of the Arab region.
Minhaj isn’t surprised about this. Instead, he uses it to introduces the ways American have seen Arab people as terrorists which I would refer to the ‘West spreads democracy while Islam spreads terrorism’ trope. Not only giving the terrorists passports, he said, “Saudi Arabia was basically the boy band manager of 9/11,” added with the alienation of Saudi people in American official military document. Likewise, Minhaj adds on with the ‘Islam is inherently violent’ trope by explaining Saudi political dominance that has been under control of the ‘Saud’ royal family for 87 years along with how MBS came to his power by arresting ones who potentially resist on his way. Minhaj also talked about BMS’s political convicts, the coming up exaction of more than 2,000 people due to MBS’s Vision 2030 and his influences over the Yemen War.
In the same manner, Minhaj illustrates that MBS has uplifted the ban for women driving in Saudi Arabia and arrested the woman activists standing against him. This suggests the idea of uniquely sexist in Muslim culture and the difference of basic women rights between Western and Muslim communities. Minhaj uses the music video of a woman driving to note his standing for women rights, meanwhile, he picks off the poor-quality of the MV that could infer to the illusive gender equality the country tries to promote.
Despite the critical commentary on Saudi Arabia and the crown prince, I deem that Minhaj uses comedy concept and his storytelling techniques to compromise the contents that seemingly violate the individuals and organizations mentioned in his show. Minhaj casually responds to these harmful tropes as if he’s making fun of it. His ironic, yet entertaining show challenges how American think about Islam as a whole by only looking at Saudi Arabia. At the same time, as a Muslim, his actions and critiques against the tropes have proved that not every Muslim fits in those stereotypes.

In the Saudi Arabia episode of the Patriot Act, Hasan Minhaj discusses many common tropes about Islam. The episode focussed on how Saudi Arabia admitted to killing Washington post Journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, and how it inherently affected how Saudi Arabia was viewed by the United States.He even went as far to say that the portrayal of Khashoggi’s murder was “the most bizarre cover story since Blake Shelton won sexiest man alive”. The tropes include many tropes although Minhaj heavily discussed topics that portrayed Islam as uniquely sexist and Islam as a Monolithic religion. Minhaj’s use of comedy brings a sense of lightness to an otherwise not so easy discussion of acts racism and stereotyping against Muslims.

Muhammad Bin Salman (MBS), the Saudi crown prince, was seen by the Western World as a “reformer” of the Islamic world. MBS is known for lifting the ban against females being able to drive. Minhaj went on to show a video of a Saudi Arabian women rapping while driving her car after the ban was lifted—she was clearly happy about the change in legislation. The western world praised MBS for this because Islam has long been viewed as inherently sexist. Although the murder of Khashoggi quickly altered American opinion of MBS, as he was the one that ordered the killing.

It is often that Islam is portrayed as a monolithic religion, one that all believers think and act the same. This idea creates a generalization of millions as if they were one single individual with one opinion and one view on the world, although that is clearly not the case. Minhaj discussed that “Saudi Arabia is home to two of the holiest cities in the Islamic world, Mecca and Medina”. He referenced this as an issue of the portrayal of those who follow the religion, and how it is inherently harmful to Muslims. Minhaj went on to say that “Saudi Arabia was basically the boyband of 9/11, they didn’t write the songs, but they helped get the group together”. He was attempting to bring light to the control and power that Saudi Arabia has over how individuals view the religion, again in an extremely monolithic manner.

Minhaj, as a Muslim himself was able to discuss the tropes through an effective satirical approach. In my opinion, he was successful in depicting Saudi Arabia in the way that Muslims view the country, unlike how it is portrayed in Western media.

The controversial episode of Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj, succinctly titled Saudi Arabia, is filled with questions about the media’s representation of Islam and common stereotypes associated with Islamophobia. The focus of the episode is on Mohammad Bin Salman, or MBS, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia and his suspected involvement in the killing of the journalist, Jamal Khashoggi. Minhaj tells the events like a narrative with a backstory of the ‘character’, MBS, followed by the change in the media’s depictions of him, from his rise to power up until Khashoggi’s murder. It seems as if the media’s positive outlook on the prince is largely due to his appearance of being a progressive leader with more democratic values than his predecessors.

One instance where this is evident is in MBS’ decision to remove the ban on women’s freedom to drive. His actions appear to disprove the trope of Islam being a sexist religion, thus winning America’s approval. Minhaj devotes part of his segment to this story, using it to show the perspective adopted by Western media of MBS being “the reformer the Arab world needed” (Minhaj). Directly after mentioning MBS’ removal of the ban, Minhaj plays a clip of a Saudi woman rapping about her newly regained freedom to drive. He uses this video mainly to joke about its low quality, but he takes the opportunity to state his support for women’s rights, even if just in passing. His comment is undoubtedly there to make a statement against the notion that all Muslims are sexist. This is another way Minhaj addresses the trope. Additionally, the inclusion of the video might serve to comment on the absurdity of the ban in the first place. Later on, Minhaj mentions how MBS is responsible for the imprisonment of female activists who fought against the driving ban and remain in prison even after the lifting of the ban. This exposes an interesting contrast. While on the surface it appears that MBS is breaking the stereotype, upon closer inspection he is actually reinforcing it. Minhaj concludes by explaining that because Saudi Arabia is central to the Islamic faith, Muslims across the world become unjustly associated with the country’s actions.

I think that Minhaj’s case goes beyond questioning MBS and whether Islam is sexist and is actually meant to respond to another trope: the idea of Islam as a monolithic religion. By simply sharing his perspective as someone within the Muslim community, Minhaj does effectively challenge this trope as he makes it clear that many Muslims feel Saudi Arabia “does not reflect” their “values” (Minhaj).

Minhaj, Hasan, and Prashanth Venkataramanujam. “Saudi Arabia.” Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj, season 1, episode 1, Netflix, 28 Oct. 2018.

Question 2:

In the episode Saudi Arabia from The Patriot Act, Hasan Minhaj discusses certain truths about Saudi Arabia. One moment in the episode that stood out to me was the time where he discusses when Muhammad bin Salman lifted the ban on women driving. This moment in the episode really speaks to the trope “Islam is uniquely sexist.” The wayMinhaj describes this new lift on the ban goes to show how controversial the whole event really is. He shows a news report where the reporter announces that a female singer in Saudi Arabia released a music video of her rapping in a car to demonstrate her freedom of now being able to legally drive. Despite this, Minhaj does make this whole scenario comedic of some sorts. While he does it very subtly, the audience does catch on to what he is trying to communicate. He brings up this major event by bringing back the discussion to Muhammad bin Salman. He starts by reminding the audience that “he was known as the reformer who was gonna change the Arab world.” At first, his statement sounds rather serious and direct. However, when he elaborates it seems as if he starts to show some sarcasm. He explains how “people in the West voted for MBS because they bought his sales pitch” which is a valid statement. But as he continues, the audience realizes that this statement begins to sound humorous when he uses a sarcastic tone when saying that “he lifted the ban on women driving.” The way in which he looks straight at the audience while shaking his hands in front of him and saying “I mean come on! He lifted the ban on women driving!” One could understand this expression as something serious, but the way I understood it when watching the episode was that he was possibly mocking the “people in the West” for using this action of MBS as a way of justifying why they voted for him.

As the episode continued, and Minhaj shows the news report of the female singer who released her music video to express her newly found freedom of being able to drive, we then can conclude that Minhaj is really mocking this whole event. As we see in the clips and after being pointed towards the strange aspects of the music video posted online by the female singer, we can understand how this situation speaks to the trope “Islam is uniquely sexist.” We see this through the way he criticises the video for showing a woman in a car but not avidly driving it. He also makes negative comments on the make and model of the car which also could downplay this whole scenario. So while Islam seems to be evolving to become less sexist, in reality, it is only creating new opportunities for people to make nasty comments and open new doors to other forms of sexism.

Saudi Arabia changed the official version of the death of Washington post journalist Jamal Khashoggi several times. After weeks of denial, Saudi finally admitted that Khashoggi dead inside their consulate in Turkey. The cover-up of the truth aroused public indignation that people are angry, including Hasan Minhaj who’s the host of the television show Patriot Act. By telling the murder case of Jamal Khashoggi, Minhaj analyzed the role of Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman. He joked that “this is the most unbelievable story since Blake Shelton won sexiest man alive”, which clearly showed his attitudes towards the cover-up story that it’s incredible and absurd to protect MBS by covering up the truth. Thus, I believe MBS played a really significant role in the main cause of the murder and the subsequent incidents.

Minhaj engaged with several common tropes about Islam. First of all, when talking about Saudi Arabia and 9/11, Minhaj uses the trope that “they didn’t write the song, but they have got the group together” to show the extremism of Saudi. Muslims are commonly described as extremists, while Minhaj mentioned that “Saudi Arabia is only 2% of the entire Muslims population”. Consequently, I would call it “overgeneralization” that people judge the whole Islam with a one-sided stereotype. “whenever Saudi does something wrong, Muslims around the world have to live with the consequences”, said by Minhaj.

Secondly, the U.S still use the offensive word “negro blood” on the official military document to describe Saudi Arabian which was a direct and powerful way to show the common trope about Islam. Muslims are still discriminated by countries like America.

Moreover, Muslims usually give the world an impression of sexism which is a cliché stereotype. Sexual discrimination can be told through the rap video that women can finally legally driving cars. In the rap video, the woman happily sang the rap as the end of the female driving ban, “she sits in the car, she sits on the car, she stands in the sunroof, she does everything but drives that car”, ridiculed by Minhaj. This is a trope about gender issues exist in Islam.

The whole show hosted by Hasan Minhaj had a humorous atmosphere. It is definitely an effective way to respond to these ironic tropes by using comedies which turns  Islam topics more attractive. The topics of Islam are supposed to be sensitive that people are unwilling to talk about them. By telling the common tropes of Islam in a humorous way, Minhaj raises the public awareness of common tropes of Islam in Saudi Arabia. The most amazing thing about Minhaj’s show is that he told a serious problem in an entertaining way.

Hasan Minhaj’s Patriot Act episode on Saudi Arabia discusses the United States’ relationship with Saudi Arabia, following the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and the crime’s possible connection to Saudi crown prince Mohammad bin Salam. In a witty yet comedic way, Hasan manages to bring about some common Islamic tropes and also joke about it in the audience as a way to reach out to them. The trope about Islam being a monolithic religion was highlighted the most followed by the religion’s ‘need’ to be sexist and excursionist.

When we talk about Islam being a monolithic religion, we automatically make an assumption that all those belonging to this religion think,act and behave in the same manner i.e. the actions of a certain subgroup within this religion is a representation of what the whole of Islam stands for. Minhaj rightly points out of how in reality Saudi Arabia is only two percent of the entire Muslim population, but whenever Saudi does something wrong, Muslims around the world have to live with the consequences. On the other hand, if something good happens, people like Mohammad Bin Salam get to speak with Oprah. Similarly, he made a comment about how ‘Muslims feel about dogs’, which generalizes the opinion of all Muslims further emphasizing on the monolithic aspect of the religion by almost saying that something as personal as opinions on dogs is fixed under Islam. What i noticed was that while all these instances were made in a humorous manner, he did address this seriously when he spoke of the relationship between Saudi Arabia and America.

Hasan Minhaj also talks about how Saudi in a way idolized MBS because he was one of the very few people in power who actually stood in support of women being able to drive, which is why it was so tough for people to actually antagonize him and blame him for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. This also points towards how normalized and generalized these tropes have become in our everyday lives, so much so that we are ready to believe and follow something as negative as sexism, in the name of religion.

In the “Saudi Arabia” episode of The Patriot Act, hosted by the Muslim American-Indian  Hasan Minhaj, appeared to portray the deeper methods of the encoding/decoding process as given by Stuart Hall, its usage and its relation to how many US politicians employ it within their interactions with Saudi Arabia. Mihnaj firstly addressed the gruesome killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi and tied it to the diplomatic crisis that the US had with Saudi Arabia. He admitted that it ‘blew his mind’ that people only realized that the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed Bin Salman was not true reformist after this killing. He then went on to explain why this might have been the case, he stated that the Saudi Arabian royal family held around 1 trillion dollars in total wealth and that the US politicians always tended to be wary and overlooking when it came to unwanted actions by Saudi Arabia. The violence committed by Saudi Arabian officials in Yemen is clearly an example of this and it showcases how the encoding/decoding process in journalism sources in America can be biased towards individuals that are financially and politically beneficial towards the United States. The significance this holds for Minhaj is that he is Muslim and that he tends to get judged upon the doings of Saudi Arabia even if he has nothing to do with it, he tries to communicate that this is not acceptable by expressing how the Saudi influence is increasing in North America.

As for the Patriot Act, the show and the host encode their messages in the purpose of creating humor-related material, this is not only a great way of conveying information off to viewers since humor has been shown to increase information retention and wonder levels, but this type of message encoding provides viewers with their own ability to interpret and decode the message in their own ways without guiding them towards an intended message. Which ultimately is the way any platform of objective news outlets should be following.