Latest news with #MazJobrani
ABC News
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Comedian Maz Jobrani to ramp up Donald Trump jokes, after CBS cancels Stephen Colbert's Late Show
Iranian-American comedy veteran Maz Jobrani believes US President Donald Trump is trying to censor free speech in America, and he intends to hit back. With more jokes, that is. Jobrani's been a long-time guest of Stephen Colbert's top-rating The Late Show, which was axed by CBS last month. He believes the decision to end the show's three-decade run — which began with David Letterman in 1993 — was politically motivated. According to the network's parent company Paramount, Colbert's cancellation was "purely a financial decision", and the US president has denied he had anything to do with the popular show's cancellation. The axing came after Colbert criticised Paramount's controversial $US16 million legal settlement with Mr Trump over a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris. In the same week CBS announced Colbert's show would be cancelled, Paramount was in the final stages of a multi-billion-dollar merger with Skydance Media. In July, the deal was approved by the Trump administration. In Jobrani's mind, the axing of Colbert's show is no coincidence. "I love Colbert — I get my news from Colbert — he makes the news fun," he told ABC News in a Melbourne interview last month, after landing from Los Angeles for the start of his latest Australian tour. The tour across six Australian cities ended on Sunday, but Jobrani's been coming to Australia since 2008. He says Melbourne, as home of the annual International Comedy Festival, has "good comedy audiences". Colbert has vowed to continue speaking "unvarnished truth to power" and sharing "what I really think about Donald Trump". Jobrani, who also regularly speaks out against Trump in his comedy skits — most commonly against the administration's deportation policies — says he intends to do the same. "I thought Trump would maybe send the IRS out to audit them or something, just make their lives hard, because Trump unfortunately does not have a sense of humour, he doesn't know how to take a joke, which is what dictatorships usually are like." Since CBS announced the axing in June, there's been much talk in the US entertainment and media industry about how far the Trump administration might go in censoring free speech. Jobrani has united with some of the biggest names in entertainment and late-night television to show support for Colbert, and to fight for free speech. "The job of the comedian is to reveal the emperor has no clothes. I think we need to keep doing that — if we don't, we're going lose our democracy," he said. Jobrani has called on others in comedy and the wider entertainment and media industry to stand their ground. "I always say the whole point of America is, I can make fun of the president in America. I couldn't make fun of the president of Iran, that wouldn't work," he said. Jobrani's family left Iran for the US in 1978, when he was six years old. It was just a year before Iran's Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi fell to Islamist rulers, and his family, like many others at the time, made the decision to flee. In our interview he talks of how growing up as an Iranian in California at that time was a struggle. But he says it framed the backdrop to much of his comedy, which focuses on the weird and often hilarious events that occur as a child of immigrants. While his parents hoped the UC Berkeley graduate would become a doctor, lawyer, or engineer, he had other plans. And now he's among several Iranian-Americans showcasing Iranian culture on stages around the world, and making audiences laugh with Iranians, instead of at them. This was something Jobrani never envisaged back in November 1979 – when 52 Americans were taken hostage in the US Embassy in Tehran and held for 444 days. "For my entire life in America, I've had to explain Iran … I just try to find funny ways to explain to people what I'm feeling. Like I say, 'I wish I were Swedish' because if you're Swedish, you wouldn't have to explain anything, right? You just talk about IKEA, ABBA. "[Being Iranian] has been a challenge, but it also obviously is giving me plenty of material because I have been able to try and present people from Iran and other people from that part of the world, hopefully in a positive light versus what you see when they show us in the news." Jobrani's career took off in the post 9/11 era. He had first toured with other "brown comedians", including Ahmed Ahmed, Aron Kader and Sam Tripoli, on a show called the Arabian Nights, which was aimed at showcasing the voice of Muslim/Middle Eastern people a year before 9/11 happened. But as they toured under that name, they decided to change the title. At that time, then-US president George Bush had called Iran, Iraq, and North Korea an "Axis of Evil". So the trio settled on "Axis of Evil Comedy Tour" as the show's name. Since then, Jobrani has gained worldwide fame and in many ways paved the way for a new generation of comedians from Iranian backgrounds to make it to the world stage. On his Australian tour, Jobrani was joined by another rising star, Iranian-African American comedian Tehran Ghasri. "Comedy is part of the Iranian heritage," Ghasri tells ABC News. Jobrani says when he started out, being a comedian was frowned upon by the Iranian diaspora, including his parents. "I was of the generation where I should have been a doctor, lawyer, engineer, but I fell in love with comedy and performing at a young age," Jobrani explains. He says he was an anomaly when he first started. "Now 20-some-odd years later, there's Tehran and there's Max Amini, and there's Amir K … there's Melissa Shoshahi, and there's Peter the Persian, and there's Omid Djalili — and it really does make me happy to see all of these people in this business now. "Once the next generations realise, 'Oh, you can make a living doing other things' or you should live your life doing what makes you happy, they start doing it. "It's really something that's just great for our community … because until we're telling the stories, no-one's going to tell our stories the way we want to tell them. They're just going to keep making us the bad guy." In recent years Jobrani's played a prominent role in diaspora activism against the Islamic Republic, particularly in the aftermath of the #Women, Life, Freedom protests spurred by the death in custody of Mahsa Jina Amini. "I grew up in America, so I always say that I'm not in Iran, but Iran is in me. I feel an affinity towards the country of Iran. I feel an affinity towards the soccer team when they play," he said. Jobrani says the various waves of massive protests inside Iran, the recent Israel-Iran war, and people's suffering under Iran's regime is "heartbreaking". He points to the forced veiling of women, "discrimination against women, the discrimination against the LGBTQ community, the discrimination against religious minorities like the Baha'i's and others" as examples of that. "I do feel that I want to support the people of Iran, and I do pray and hope for a day where Iran can become a functioning part of the world." Jobrani fears Trump's America is becoming more like Iran's repressive regime. He says comedy can be a unifying force and a way to fight rising anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. "I think that there's people out there that are waiting to pounce" he said. "Hate and hatred, it's easier to go that way and I think that comedy can counter that. "Like when I do a show, I have people from all backgrounds, all religions in the room, we're laughing together and we're humanising each other. What war does is it dehumanises. "You get a room where you have a Palestinian, and you have a Jew, and you have a Muslim — people from different backgrounds and we're laughing together — then people realise, 'Oh, he's human. I'm human.'"
Globe and Mail
21-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Globe and Mail
For Iranian-Americans, a potential U.S. attack on the regime brings complex feelings
Nearly 20 years ago, Iranian-American comedian Maz Jobrani set out with other entertainers on an Axis of Evil comedy tour, hoping laughs could subvert stereotypes. Being Iranian, he jokes, is like a Facebook relationship status: It's complicated. Perhaps never more than in the past week, as Israeli munitions have pounded the country where he was born, where 90 million people live as inheritors of a proud history – but under the rule of an authoritarian Islamic regime. 'We love our land. We love our history and we don't want that destroyed. We don't want our people destroyed, either,' Mr. Jobrani said in an interview Friday. Born in Tehran, he knows how people have suffered under what he calls 'a brutal dictatorship.' His own cousins are among those who have fled the Iranian capital in recent days, seeking safety in more distant places. Still, he has little hope that bombs and missiles will win their liberty from oppression. 'War has never helped solve anything – not in the 21st century,' he said. 'We haven't really come out of a war, especially in the Middle East, and gone: 'See? It worked!'' Roughly a half-million Iranian-Americans live in the U.S., a population whose largest concentration lies in Los Angeles – 'Tehrangeles' – but whose numbers reach across the country. Turmoil in the country of their birth has accustomed them to anxiety. 'I had a bit where I said, I just wish I was Swedish, life would be so much easier,' Mr. Jobrani said. 'Being Iranian, it's constant – they're always in the news and always the enemy.' Analysis: Collapse of Iranian regime could have unintended consequences for U.S. and Israel Yet many, like Mr. Jobrani, see little gain in using military force to attack the regime that has ruled the country since 1979. In the days before Israel launched strikes against Iran last week, the National Iranian American Council, or NIAC, commissioned a poll that showed 53 per cent of Iranian-Americans opposed U.S. military action against Iran, while nearly one in two said diplomacy represents the best path to preventing the country from obtaining nuclear weapons. Only 22 per cent said military operations are the best hope to forestall a nuclear-armed Iran. 'The strong outcry in the Iranian community is, 'Don't get involved in this. Stop the war. Stop the bombing. Let the Iranian people breathe and give them a chance to chart their own future,' said Ryan Costello, a policy director with NIAC. 'The movement for democracy in Iran has to be one that's led by Iranians, not a hostile government.' For others, however, the attacks on Iran have also brought a flourish of hope. In the NIAC poll, 36 per cent of respondents said they supported U.S. military action against Iran. Now, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordering military strikes against the country where she lived until her late 20s, Farnoush Davis cannot suppress a feeling of hope. 'It's very exciting,' she said. Opinion: Iranians deserve a path to freedom that is also free from violence Ms. Davis grew up with little love for the ruling authorities who demanded she cover her head, made Western music illegal and lay U.S. flags on doorsteps for people to tread on. As a young woman, she rejected the hijab, stepped carefully around the flags, developed a fondness for Michael Jackson – and ultimately left for the U.S., where she now lives as a citizen in Idaho. For people in Iran, the downpour of Israeli munitions, offers a fresh chance 'to take down the Islamic republic, get their lives back and go for freedom,' she believes. For nearly a half-century, she added every attempt to demand change from within has failed. 'We need to have some help from outside,' she said. 'I appreciate what Netanyahu is doing.' For those whose lives are intertwined with Iran, the past two years have given even greater cause for fear. Professor Persis Karim, the Neda Nobari Chair of the Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies at San Francisco State University, said she can only imagine how terrified people in Iran must feel because they have watched Israel's military campaign in Gaza. Analysis: Trump's two-week pause on Iran puts him at centre of world's biggest drama She has family members in Tehran and spoke with a cousin after the first night of bombing. Her cousin lives with her elderly mother and didn't want to leave. 'Two days later, I got a text and she said: 'We're leaving,'' Prof. Karim said, speaking Friday from a hotel room in Los Angeles after a Thursday night screening of a film she co-directed and executive produced about Iranian-Americans. Sadly, she says, few people attended, likely because they are worried, sick and anxious. Prof. Karim said she is 'ashamed' of the U.S.'s behaviour and that of President Donald Trump especially. 'I think the whole thing is absolutely disgusting in terms of international leadership,' she said. She also criticized Israel for suggesting it is time for Iranian people to rise up, calling it 'completely nonsense.' 'People cannot rise up and liberate themselves from an oppressive government when bombs are being lobbed at them, especially at civilians and civilian sites,' she said. 'I think what it's doing, it's going to harden the Islamic Republic.' Mr. Jobrani, meanwhile, has found himself placing his hopes for a better Iranian future not in Mr. Netanyahu or Mr. Trump, but in others who he sees as more determined to seek peace – perhaps European diplomats, perhaps Chinese negotiators, perhaps even Russia's Vladimir Putin or U.S. conservatives like Steven Bannon and Tucker Carlson, who have publicly opposed U.S. entry into war with Iran. 'Maybe these other ideologues from his party can convince him not to escalate,' Mr. Jobrani said. It is, he said, 'a surreal time and situation.'
