Editor’s Note: This article contains spoilers from Episode 1 & 2 of “Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj”.
Daily Show alum, Hasan Minhaj’s weekly show, Patriot Act, has finally been released on Netflix, with two new episodes tackling the murder of Washington Post columnist, Jamal Khashoggi, and the Affirmative Action case against Harvard University.
And this is exactly what we’ve needed.
The past few years have been amazing for Minhaj. He released Homecoming King, his first Netflix comedy special, which was met with amazing reviews and praise, and even won him a Peabody award. Moreover, he did the job that many people didn’t want to even go near: The White House Correspondents Dinner, the one that Trump and nearly all of his administration boycotted. Minhaj has been a breakout star, performing his “woke TED Talks” on tours across the US, and soaring to hang with the big names in comedy.
In the realm of comedy on Netflix, many people haven’t been completely successful with weekly shows, but Minhaj could definitely change that. He’s not so overly focused on the daily happenings in the presidential circus, aka The White House. He’s more about tackling overarching long dilemmas and focusing on things like the controversy with Mohammed Bin Salman and the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi, and the case that could possibly end Affirmative Action as we know it. Now Trump and Co. aren’t completely ignored, but they’re not always in the spotlight.
In the first episode, with the main “article” being Affirmative Action, Hasan approaches it through the lens of being Asian-American himself, and calls out the court case for being “bullsh-t”. He delves into how Edward Blum, President of Students for Fair Admissions (an organization consisting mainly of scorned Asian-American and White kids), is essentially using Asian-Americans to completely take down Affirmative action, rather than fixing the damn thing. The Asian-American students are props for Blum to use to take his vendetta against Affirmative Action to the Supreme Court. This is a pretty heavy and important topic, and it’s hard to think of how someone could make it the topic of a comedy segment. But Minhaj does this beautifully. He had me laughing the entire time.
Ever wondered why affirmative action is important? Just look at the NBA in the 1950s. pic.twitter.com/3k7HfqK0e6
— Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj (@patriotact) October 28, 2018
Next up, is the Khashoggi controversy episode. Hasan brought his A-game to this segment and there’s no doubt about it. He attacks the U.S.’s insane relationship with Saudi Arabia through the lens of an American Muslim and states how Mohammed Bin Salman is not the “great reformer” he’s supposed to be. In the second “article”, he talks about all the people of Indian descent that have “gone to the dark side”, aka the Trump administration. He roasts the hell out of Nikki Haley, Dinesh De Souza and more, and it’s hilarious.
Hasan Minhaj could very well be incredibly successful with Patriot Act. He’s the first South Asian person to host a show like this and he’s hilarious and he’s woke. He’s not centering on the daily actions coming out of Capitol Hill, and instead, he likes having longer segments on things that people can rewatch a few days afterwards. I’m definitely recommending Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj to virtually everyone. It’s a political satire not coming from behind some desk but instead from a stage. It’s unique in its own way, and I’d love to see it break ground when it comes to weekly Netlifx shows.
