In his new stand-up special ‘More Feelings,’ comedian Ramy Youssef refuses to be told how to feel about Gaza—or anything else.
, Ramy Youssef is the kind of comedian who can’t help but follow his wired mind wherever it leads him. As, Youssef has been processing what he described in the latter as a life that, because he is a young, practicing Muslim living in post-9/11 America, has been defined by things over which he has no control. For audiences used to seeing Youssef idle in his indecisiveness, his new special, available Saturday on Max, will undoubtedly register as a surprise. Youssef isn’t processing anymore.
But it’s not the plea that makes the moment so powerful, it’s the punchline. “You think I’m like Hamas?” Youssef asks again. “Bro, I’m a Taliban guy.” The joke proves a similar point thathas strived to make throughout their career: Just because you can’t convince someone of your dignity doesn’t mean you have to insult yourself to get a laugh. You can—as Youssef masterfully does here—mock the idiot who insulted you instead.
“I got to cover everything?” Youssef asks, recalling how he got “cooked in the inbox by the Muslims” after he raised money for victims of the earthquakes in Syria and Turkey but not the victims of the floods in Pakistan. “I got to be, like, the mayor of Muslim disaster?”. He resists, almost reflexively, the idea that his comedy gives voice to a universal Muslim American experience, in part because there’s no such thing as a universal Muslim experience.
“My sessions don't even make sense,” Youssef says. ‘My therapist is like, ‘How's work going? I’m like, ‘It’s good, but what do you do when your children leave?’” It’s a refreshing spin on what’s become a go-to topic for millennial comedians.
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