Goodbye to Patriot Act, a comedy that was a different kind of anger

If you want to watch a TV show that recaps the latest news with a fair amount of jokes and comedic photoshops, you have a lot of choices. There is The daily show With Trevor Noah on Comedy Central, TBS’s Full frontal with Samantha Beeand HBO Last week tonight wwith John Oliver. This week, however, there is one less option: Netflix has canceled Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj, a show that on the surface didn’t seem that different from its competition, but with every half hour it turned out to be among the best.

In 2020, it can be difficult to watch these shows. As smart as the jokes may be, and as deep as they can dig to bring out hidden issues, current events have become incredibly dark, and the political response of the United States to them has been more terrible than our minds. the darkest satirists could have imagined it. This type of programming feels like a relic from another era, the young liberal response to Fox News, replacing racism and invective with smart humor and verified information. The ultimate goal, however, is the same: a receptacle for our collective anger, even if that anger was motivated by a desire for a more equitable world.

patriotic act felt different, however. patriotic act was already crazy, and he knew you were too. You didn’t care to get mad about something new, but all that shit you’ve ever been through to get through the day? The show wanted to break these things down into its disparate parts and tell you what could be done about it.

Elections, college, retirement, media streaming, public transportation, harassment in video games, drug prices, student loans – all topics that most viewers have. patriotic act already have to face and do not require any expertise to understand how broken they are. The June 28 episode of the show – its de facto finale – was titled “Why Taxing Is So Difficult,” and it serves as a good summary of what the show had to offer: a dive into something so completely messed up and so common that he had escaped scrutiny, presented by a boiling, energetic man with good comedic timing and an even better stylist. Plus, like the report it was based on, it had a lifespan: doing taxes sucks for a long time, and chances are that won’t change!

Minhaj and the patriotic act The team also worked to center non-white perspectives and in doing so validate non-white anger at a world clearly built to exclude them. This is a subtle thing, but in the space of late night news shows where the (white) subtext is often we shouldn’t even have to worry about it, The Minhaj show took the time to look at the children of immigrants and the hires of diversity in the eyes of a place of understanding: you know this stuff, so let’s find the cleanest way.

Photo by Cara Howe / Netflix

It also helped Minhaj – a ridiculously affable man who even in comedic performances like King back seemed to want nothing more than walking from one end of a giant stage to the other and talking about his five favorite sneakers – actually gone mad. That’s not to say his counterparts weren’t angry (anger is smut for laughs in this genre), but Minhaj’s stage character is one who seems thin as paper: he’s saying something, then you see what he thinks of that statement on his bright face.

This makes patriotic act feel a lot more conversational. The emotions of Minhaj followed with yours and the show modulated with them. It has helped that the show does not position him as a neutral host but as an individual. Minhaj has often made it clear that his identity influences his perspective, centering (or calling) the South Asian community whenever possible.

There doesn’t seem to be any savings patriotic act, at least at his current home. Talk shows don’t work on Netflix, and patriotic act has already secured an additional seven episodes beyond its initial order of 32 episodes. There is some solace, however, that he will live there, a collection of mostly evergreen stories that all begin with the same intro: Hip-hop-inspired horns resonate as the chaos of our modern world. circle around this skinny, baffled brunette dude that he has to explain it all, but about to do his best.