Regarding Bush, Boston and the Ramadan Song: A conversation with Tissa Hami, the country’s first female Muslim standup

By Sadik H. Kassim

MWU is featuring Muslim stand-up comics this month. This is our second feature in the series.

Meet Tissa Hami. Born in Iran and raised in Boston, the ivy-league educated Harvard Kennedy School of Government admissions officer is the country’s first female Muslim standup comedian. In the short time that she has been performing she has developed into what the Boston Globe dubs as “one of the hippest acts on the local comedy circuit.” She has a wickedly good sense of humor. Her quips at times channel the spirits of Voltaire and Mark Twain. Take this bon mot for example: “People ask whether Middle Eastern Muslims live in tents. They do, but only after Bush bombs their houses.” Then there’s the one about congregational prayer in mosques, where women pray in the back, behind the men. Americans see this as a sign of oppression of Muslim women, Hami says, but really, “We just like the view. We’re praying for a piece of that.” Sadik Kassim recently caught up with Tissa Hami by phone for MWU!

MWU! : How did you get started as a standup comedian?

TH: I actually got started in November of 2002. Basically for a number of years my friends and co-workers had encouraged me to become a standup comic but I always thought that’s what other people did. I thought that I should be pursuing a proper career. I had a fancy education, I knew what my parents expected of me and I never really thought I would ever do it. After 9/11 particularly, all these images were coming back from Afghanistan and the rest of the Middle East of these veiled women, and the image was always very one dimensional -- that Muslim women were voiceless, that they couldn’t do anything on their own -- and I wanted to present a different image of Muslim women. I started to notice in the months after that Muslim comics started to get some attention, but all of them were men. And I thought why not add a women’s voice to the mix. So it just sort of came together for me, the idea to do standup comedy as a way of speaking out and speaking up.

MWU! : You mentioned your parents, which brings up the following point. Most 1st generation parents, especially Muslim parents, tend to direct their children towards professional jobs such as physician, engineer, lawyer, etc… How did your parents react to your becoming a standup comic?

TH: Well my father has a PhD in computer science and my mother is a pediatric dentist and they always wanted me to become a doctor. I actually joke about what they think of my doing standup comedy. I say you know they came to a show and I asked them what they thought and they thought it’s not too late for me to go to medical school. So you know they’re getting used to it, but this is not what they wanted.

MWU! : Who do you consider your major comedy influences?

TH: You know it’s funny, I never really watched much comedy growing up. I think mainly because I didn’t feel it spoke to me. But I do remember one incident, I think I was in high school and I was channel surfing and I stopped on Star Search and I noticed that this Asian girl was on and I noticed that she wasn’t much older than I was and I thought what is this Asian girl doing on stage telling jokes? I thought they were all pre-meds. It was Margaret Cho and I thought it was really interesting. There she was talking about her ethnic background talking about her parents making fun of her mother’s accent and I just thought wow, here she is doing something really different and I just remember that moment.

MWU! : An interesting aspect of your act is that when you go onstage you wear the hijab (traditional Muslim head covering). What’s the reason behind that?

TH: Yeah I mean it would go back to the image I was talking to about that the veiled Muslim woman. That this image was coming back of the veiled woman as someone who couldn’t speak, who couldn’t do things on her own and she was so oppressed and voiceless. Honestly, I just thought it would be so funny to go onstage veiled and crack jokes about airport security. I wanted to give what they least expected. I wanted to challenge their preconceived notions of what a veiled Muslim woman is.

MWU! : In terms of feedback, what’s been the audience reaction to your act?

TH: I’ve had a real range of reactions. With some audiences, they’re so shocked when they see me onstage that they don’t know what to think. Like I’ve had people say, “we didn’t know if you were one of the comedians or if you had just gotten lost on your way to the bathroom. We didn’t know what was going on.” I’ve had other people say you know “we didn’t know whether or not it was okay to laugh.” So I have to get them on the first joke and say, “yes I am one of the comics and yes it’s okay to laugh.” Most crowds do pick up on it and the reaction is overwhelmingly positive.

MWU! : What about Muslim or Iranian audiences? Have you performed for them, and if so what has been the reaction?

TH: I have performed in front of Iranian audiences and it has been sort of a range. I performed last year for the Iranian American Medical Association of Boston and I had a great reaction from them. I also performed for a slightly more conservative Iranian crowd; it was the Iranian Association of Boston Mother’s Day Brunch. That was last year and the women, you know there were mothers there and grandmothers some of whom didn’t speak English, they just sort of looked at me “what is she doing? Why is she doing this?” They didn’t really get it, so it varies. I’ve performed for Muslim student groups a couple of times and had good reactions, very good reactions, but last weekend I had a show canceled at the last minute by a Muslim student group because they read a few articles about me and decided that I was not appropriate for a traditional Muslim audience. That my jokes were not appropriate and that, that made me angry.

MWU! : You bring up a good point, with regard to “inappropriate material” you seem to be an equal opportunity offender. Are there any limits for what you will and will not talk about in your act?

TH: Oh yeah if I haven’t offended someone in the audience then I haven’t done my job. I mean I think one of the great things about standup comedy is the freedom it provides. You can really say anything as long as it’s funny, so in that sense I think nothing is sacred nothing is off limits. As long as you can make it funny you can talk about it onstage.

MWU! : Getting back to this image of the Muslim woman in western media, as an Iranian American woman what was your reaction to Shirin Ebadi’s Nobel Prize win and how did it change the image of Muslim women in western eyes?

TH: I think it’s fantastic that an Iranian woman won that prize and I am going to see her speak in a few weeks, which I’m really looking forward to. I think that as more voices of Muslim women are in the media and we see more Muslim women speaking out and speaking up I think it’s good for all of us. And so I love it when I see someone like her succeed and address these issues so incredible and so intelligent and so eloquent that it’s a huge thrill to see someone like her having an influence.

MWU! : What did you make of the adverse reaction of some of the Mullahs to her winning the Nobel?

TH: Well you know they’re afraid of losing power and with more women like her they lose their hold on the fundamentalist society that they’ve created for themselves. I think most of those people in Iran aren’t, or I think the Mullahs don’t reflect most of the people in Iran so I think things are changing there and I think they will change quickly in the next few years.

MWU! : How have other comedians taken to your act? Have they been supportive?

TH: Oh boy, you know I’m based in Boston and in Boston there isn’t much ethnic comedy. It’s still mostly white guys telling beer and sex jokes. So when I came on the scene and I get up onstage veiled and I’m talking about stoning and harems and airport security and these sorts of things people were shocked. But what the comedians will respect is someone who is funny and I was lucky in that I was funny and that I had something new so I think I’ve gained their respect but it was very hard at first.

MWU! : Speaking of ethnic comedy, there has been a wave of Muslim and Middle Eastern standup comics. This typically happens with minority groups as part of an overall pattern of assimilation into the culture at large. After WWII for example, there was a wave of Jewish comedians. During the 50’s and 60’s there was a wave of Black comedians. Do you think the current wave of Muslim and Middle Eastern comics is part of this trend?

TH: Definitely. I do definitely see the parallels that you drew. I don’t know how much we can do as comedians but I think we can do something. I think we can do something to help break the stereotypes people have, especially the negative stereotypes people have about Muslims and about Middle Easterners. I think we can help to bring our cultures into mainstream society. I think we can cut down some of those barriers, I think people see us as weird as fanatics they’re scared of us and if we can help ease some of the tension, which I think we can through humor then I think we can accomplish something.

MWU! : Tell us a little about the Ramadan Song.

TH: You know Adam Sandler’s Hanukkah song?

MWU! : Yeah of course.

TH: It’s basically a parody of that. So you know, it’s like “put your turban on here comes Ramadan, so much fun-a-dan.” And um, it’s I basically just you know I mean I did a parody of that song. So you know, one of the lines is “Ramadan is a tradition everlasting, instead of one day of presents we have thirty days of fasting.” It’s based on that song and it’s a parody and I sang that song for the first time last December and had a fantastic reaction from the crowd. People loved it.

MWU! : Where do you hope to go with the act? What do you have planned for the future?

TH: I’m really excited about the things that are coming up. There are things that I’ve done that I never imagined I would do in my first year and a half in comedy. It’s a lot of work but I’m really enjoying it and basically I think there have been no voices of Muslim women in the media, of Middle Eastern women in the media. And I think those voices should be there and I’m not saying it should be me or that it should or shouldn’t be this or that person. But if I can add my voice to the mix, then that’s what I would like to do and I think the way to have an impact in this country as an entertainer is to be on television. So I would love to do television one day.

MWU! : You bring up an interesting point with regard to Muslim or Middle Eastern women in the media. The Muslims that are interviewed on the media outlets tend to be middle-aged men with accents. Rarely do you see a Muslim woman in the mix leading to a dearth of diverse opinions. The same appears to hold true with regard to the leadership positions in many of the major Muslim organizations and centers. What do you attribute this to?

TH: You know I didn’t grow up or I should say, I didn’t grow up in a very religious family. I didn’t grow up within a Muslim community or attached to a Muslim center so in that respect I don’t have the direct experience. I certainly know what you mean in terms of it seems like the people who speak at these community centers or who speak to the press and so on are the middle aged or older men. I think the voices are starting to emerge, I you know read about I think there’s a magazine now for Muslim women, I can’t recall the name but the voices are starting to emerge and I think that’s great. I think the more we’re out there the more we’re visible and the more we’re standing up for ourselves then we all benefit.

MWU! : The Sex and the Umma feature now being published on MWU! is, I think, part of this trend of Muslim women’s voices starting to emerge.

TH: Right, and as you said there is a diverse range of Muslim voices out there, like there are very devout Christians there’s also the Christmas and Easter Christians. Just like there are very devout Muslims there are sort of laxed Muslims, and I think when people think of Muslims they only think of the fanatic fundamentalist ones. There is a whole range and why not express all the voices that are out there and show the range and show the diversity.

MWU! : Elections are coming up. As a comedian who do you think would provide more comedic fodder, Bush or Kerry?

TH: There’s comedy in everything and which ever one of these middle aged white guys wins we’ll find something to make fun of. Although with Bush, it’s a bit easier because for one thing I think the American president should be fluent in English. There’s always that to make fun of.

Read more about Tissa at her official website