“Sometimes truth and sometimes total BS.” That’s how Whoopi Goldberg defined standup comedy last week. “That’s what we do, we tell stories and we embellish them.” That’s one way of putting it. Goldberg was speaking in defence of her fellow standup Hasan Minhaj, a campaigning satirist who is among the frontrunners to succeed Trevor Noah as host of The Daily Show.
Minhaj was the subject of a New Yorker exposé that revealed several routines in his acclaimed Netflix specials Homecoming King and The King’s Jester – routines that detail his personal experience of racism and persecution – were based on lies.
