Hasan Minhaj greets excited attendees backstage in Jorgensen after his family weekend show Saturday night. Minhaj’s comedy entertained a large crowd and shed light on many nuanced social issues. Photos by Kevin Lindstrom / The Daily Campus.
Famous standup comedian and host of “Patriot Act,” Hasan Minhaj visited the Jorgensen Center Saturday for a sold out Family Weekend show. Many students and their families were eager to see Minhaj. When asked why he was seeing Minhaj, Nabeel Jawaid, a seventh-semester finance major replied, “Because he’s brown and I love him.”
“I’ve been watching him for a while, ever since he was a correspondent on ‘The Daily Show’ and I also watch his ‘Patriot Act’ show on Netflix every week so I’m a big fan,” Luis Encinas, an eighth-semester business management major, said.
Jorgensen Director Rodney Rock spoke on the reasoning behind booking Minhaj for Family Weekend.
“Well we have been hosting a Family Weekend comedy special for probably the last 10 years,” Rock said. “I’m always looking for very talented comedians because comedians are pretty easy to get up on stage production-wise right? So I saw Hasan Minhaj about a year ago and I thought, this guy would be phenomenal for Family Weekend.”
Opening for Minhaj was James Austin Jones, a comedian from Nashville, Tennessee whose jokes ranged from growing up in a religious household to fights at Panera.
“I was watching ‘Inception’ with my mom and my mom asked, ‘Are you gay?’” Johnson joked, getting a huge reaction from the audience. He also asked the audience “Who thinks I don’t have a lot of money?” While Jones did get a few laughs during his set, he did not seem to get the same reception as Minhaj.
When Minhaj came on stage, the audience greeted him with a roaring welcome. Some of the topics he covered during his set included being a father and running his Netflix show “Patriot Act.” One story that received great praise from the audience was about the time Minhaj set up a Groupon hot air balloon proposal for his wife, which ended in the actual proposal happening at Applebees.
Once Minhaj was finished with his standup routine, he opened up the floor for questions in the style of “Deep Cuts,” a segment on “Patriot Act” in which he allows audience members to ask him questions.
Some of the issues that were brought up ranged from student debt and Saudi Arabia to Dick Gregory and the process of stories becoming episodes on “Patriot Act.” A notable question was about the next recession.
“You know what, I’ve been freaking out about that too, I’m like I got a family just like Wall Street Journal, let me know, when are we going to be screwed,” Minhaj responded.
The final question for Minhaj was from a 10-year-old named Vihan who asked about his favorite Marvel superhero. Minhaj said his favorite hero is Black Panther.
After the show was let out, students and parents seemed to have had a positive experience with Minhaj’s set. Two students, Kunal Kartaria, a seventh-semester business major, and Neha Kartaria, a first-semester political science major, both enjoyed the show.
“I’m a brown American, I’ve never seen anyone in the media do this well,” Kunal stated.
“He makes politics funny,” Neha said.
Ian Ward is a campus correspondent for The Daily Campus. He can be reached via email at ian.ward@uconn.edu
