Corinna Burford of Paste Magazine (7/21/2017), talks about the recent surge in Mo Amer’s career, about his recent appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (available on YouTube), and along the way says a few things that should interest us.
Dishonesty
Amer is “a Kuwait-born refugee of Palestinian descent in Houston, Texas,” which gives him an uncommon point of view. However, after 9/11/2001, he began to back away from those topics. As Burford tells it,
His tour to Japan, Korea and Bahrain was canceled. He worried about performing his set in local clubs, due to its personal nature and references to his culture. “I was scared,” he says. “For six months I just pretended to be Italian so I could let things blow over.”
This interests me because it speaks to the idea of a persona that isn’t based on the comic’s “True,” real life, which probably happens a lot more than most comics admit. Many comic’s intent is to go for a laugh, which drives them to say whatever will make that happen and avoid anything that impedes it.
Honesty
However, Amer eventually comes back to his roots. Burford interprets it thusly,
But pretending became untenable. “I felt like I was losing myself,” he says. “Eventually I got so frustrated that I decided to go up at a comedy show and talk about who I was.” The experience was far from easy. “The audience went from laughter to complete shock,” he recalls, but eventually the crowd warmed up and he felt renewed worth in his more personal material. “You could feel that you were battling with these people’s emotions.”
I can completely relate to the feeling of frustration and “losing” yourself in the persona you think the audience wants you to be, and the urge to be something else.
However, the idea of “who I was” is problematic for me because it’s probably always a negotiation, if not, as Amer notes in his case “battle.” You’re not being all of who you are, let alone all of who you could be, but the funniest part of you that the audience will accept with a laugh. And we have to make a choice to be the victim or the butt, to allow them to laugh with us or laugh at us. More recently, Amer is acting as the former.
Truth to power
More recently, Amer blew up the interwebs when he Instagrammed out a photo of himself seated next to Eric Trump with the caption:
Hey guys heading to Scotland to start the U.K. Tour and I am “randomly” chosen to sit next to non other than Eric Trump. Good news guys Muslims will not have to check in and get IDs. That’s what I was told. I will be asking him a lot of questions on this trip to Glasgow, Scotland. Sometimes God just sends you the material. #Merica #UKTour #HumanAppeal #ThisisNotAnEndorsement #Trump2016ComedyTour
Burford notes,
CB: In hindsight, the run-in with Trump seems to have presaged a new phase in Amer’s career, one where he can finally speak truth to power on a larger scale than ever before.
MA: Now people look to me for commentary. What I’ve wanted from standup is to be able share my takes and ideas, and the Eric Trump thing has kind of fast-tracked that. It has given me platform that I’ve been wanting for a long time.
This idea of “speaking truth to power” is thus more Burford’s that Amer’s. Burford would make him as operating in a privileged, comic space where he is free to say what he pleases.
Amer’s view is more basic: simply “sharing my takes and ideas” on a particular stage or “platform.” He has no assumption that it’s Truth, that it’s reaching powerful people (other than, perhaps, the general audience) or that it will make an impact. It’s more that it’s his truths, which, as I described when talking about David Misch, are certain takes and ideas that fit with his persona to get a laugh.
While we know he’s trying to tell more of his story, he’s still gravitating towards the parts of his stories that he can make funny, that can get a laugh. In his appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, we laugh with him at Disneyland and Coke, who don’t include the most popular name in the world, Mohamed, in their campaigns, at soccer announcers who have to use it too much. We laugh with him as he passes for Hispanic because he was forced to take E.S.L. We laugh with him at his 20 year citizenship process (already “extreme vetting”), and his passport woes in the meantime.
Summary
These are stories with some truth to them, in that they’re his takes on his experiences – they’re his truths. Through them, Amer says things about our culture and politics to audience members who always have the potential to become politically active, and he’s getting to say them on a national stage, so even more people are potentially activated. But this activation is more subtle, more insidious and, for me, more interesting.
Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Additions?
