In Hasan Minhaj’s episode “Saudi Arabia” from his show, The Patriot Act, there are some sequences and jokes he makes that engage with common tropes about Islam. The use of tropes are subtle but seem to underly a majority of the jokes and points he makes to engage with his audience. There are times when he contradicts the tropes, plays with them in comparison to Western views, or uses stereotypes as punchlines. The two of the tropes found in Minhaj’s monologue are of Islam being monolithic and sexist.
It is a common stereotype and trope that all Muslims as the same and cut from the same cloth. This is something that Hasan Minhaj uses to his advantage with some of his jokes. The first thing he says on stage is a remark that the number of “brown people” in the audience reminds him of his cousin’s wedding. There are other times where he addresses certain topics as facts of being Muslim such as having a lota in “any brown person’s house” or how they feel about dogs. Minhaj’s dog comment, which is in response to the Saudi government investing money in a dog walking app, addresses the viewer saying: “you know how we feel about dogs,” implying that all Muslim people feel the same way about canines. Of course, these are meant to be funny and play into audience expectation. However, the trope is addressed seriously when he talks about America’s relationship with Saudi Arabia. Minhaj explains that for a place of such significance to their faith, Saudi Arabia doesn’t “represent [their] values”. The Muslim population in Saudi Arabia is on 2% and yet when they do something bad, it is pinned on the whole religion. On the other hand, when they do something good, Mohammad bin Salam speaks with Oprah.
A majority of the episode talks about Mohammad bin Salam, MBS for short, and his actions as the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, the main issue being the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Minhaj explains how the West fell for MBS because they “ bought his sales pitch”. The fact that he lifted the driving ban for women made people stand for him which reveals how we assume Islam is sexist. When a trope that we have in our heads is turned on us, we congratulate them and go wild, even when it is just a right people deserve. It proves that when western culture’s expectations are flipped, we back peddle and jump on board. Hasan Minhaj is able to use humour to expose tropes that we have normalized.