In Patriot Act, a Netflix original, Hasan Minhaj presents newsworthy topics through the use of a satirical and humorous script. Funny imagery and pop culture references allow Minhaj to discuss, often grim, news in a light-hearted manner, while giving stories from all over the world a refreshing sense of relatability. In the episode Saudi Arabia, Minhaj covers the death of a Washington Post journalist, the crown Prince of Saudi Arabia and several tropes about Islam, before he continues onto a segment on Indian Americans.
Minhaj, who identifies as both Muslim and Indian, starts the second half of his show by highlighting the contrasting public opinion of Indians compared to the Muslim community. He emphasizes the positive and “good” stereotype surrounding individuals of an Indian background, referencing the existing idea that “all” Indian Americans hold respectable professions. However, Minhaj contradicts this thought by mentioning the “bad” Indians in American media (eg. John Kapoor, Bobby Jindal, and Dinesh D’Souza, all known for criminal offenses, scandals or controversial opinions), before ending his segment with a comical skit suggesting these individuals are allowing Indian children to stray from stereotypes prominent in our society. Minhaj uses humour, such as the skit, to highlight the ridiculousness of the media’s (and society’s) attempt to place a large group of people into a single box. He criticizes the stereotypes constantly being reinforced within our communities by making the audience laugh, while also creating attention grabbing content to effectively make them aware of the old-fashioned news coverage still present in America.
By placing this segment after one regarding common tropes about Islam, Minhaj sheds light on the discriminatory coverage of immigrants by the American media landscape.The American media, arguably, has a tendency to reduce entire groups of people in to one stereotyped character. This tendency is made even more questionable when one looks at the actual difference in coverage of the Indian and Muslim community. Whereas Indians are painted to be hard-working, respected and generally helpful to the American society, Muslims are often haunted by a much more negative framing in the media. For instance, as mentioned by Minhaj earlier in the episode, the trope of Islam being inherently violent is often one being reinforced. Even though Saudi Arabia only make up 2 percent of the world’s Muslim population, the questionable actions performed by a miniscule minority taint the reputation of Muslims all across the globe.
In Patriot Act, Hasan Minhaj challenges the evidently unjust and stereotyped mentioning of minorities in American media, while utilising humour to inform the public of current events. Hopefully, Netflix will allow for shows similar to Patriot Act to appear on their site, to strengthen minorities, spread information and encourage a more educated coverage of immigrants within the media.