Word: obeidallah
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Most ethnic groups get their own month to celebrate their culture. What do Arab-Americans get? "Orange alert," jokes comedian Dean Obeidallah. An American born in New Jersey to a Palestinian father and Italian-American mother, Obeidallah turned to comedy to fight the suspicion and ignorance he encountered in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. In 2003 he co-founded the New York Arab-American Comedy Festival, which runs this week in Manhattan. Obeidallah spoke with TIME about bridging cultures, the fading "siege" against Arab-Americans and taking stand-up to the Middle East. (See pictures of the history...
...Jihad is not the first show to tackle fundamental Islam. Since 9/11, Muslim comedians have increasingly satirized the subject to slay suspicion and stereotypes, managing to dodge the controversy faced by Jihad. For Dean Obeidallah, co-founder of the New York Arab-American Comedy Festival, that comes down to identity. "The difference between us and the Jihad musical is that it's us - the people being negatively stereotyped - trying to break the stereotype ourselves." In the eyes of protesters, that may be what distinguishes a critical success from a bomb...
...creating and breaking tension, has been one of the main means for minorities to confront America and get away with it. And after 9/11, comedians like the guys in Axis of Evil were politically relevant--whether they liked it or not. For months after the attacks, comedian Dean Obeidallah performed in clubs in New York City as Dean Joseph, using his middle name at the suggestion of a friend and club manager...
...just that 9/11 made Americans notice Middle Easterners; in a sense, Obeidallah said, it made Middle Easterners notice themselves. "Before 9/11," he says, "I was white." In his stage act, he makes fun of a pundit's line that "Arabs are the new blacks." ("Oh, my God. We're cool!" he jokes, imagining white suburban kids wearing headdresses and saying "What up, Mustafa?") But there's something to the theory--just look at Barack Obama. His biggest problems with bigotry--besides being called "not black enough"--have been insinuations about his Muslim father, rumors that he attended a madrasah, jokes...
| 1 |