Meeting with Maysoon: America's First Muslim Female Comic Discusses Palestine, the Good Side of Ashcroft, and Why an ABC Reporter Thought She Needed Therapy

Maysoon Zayid is co-founder of the annual Arab American Comedy Festival, being held this year Oct. 10-13th in New York City. For more information, visit the Festival's website.--Ed.

By Sadik H. Kassim

Comedian Maysoon Zayid has an idea for all of the Arab men who want to get back at George W. Bush for the things he has done to the Arab community. Zayid quips that Arab men, “should make it their one and only goal to marry one of the Bush twins.” Without missing a beat she continues, “and if you’re Muslim and Arab, try to marry both.” The Bush administration hasn’t been all bad though. Take the Department of Homeland Security's special registration for Arab men, of which Maysoon, as a single Muslim Arab woman is quite appreciative- "Thanks, Mr. Ashcroft, for getting together all the Arab men under 35 in one place for my viewing pleasure."

So who is Maysoon Zayid? Well my friend, what if I told you that she is the first female Muslim comic in America, the first standup to ever perform live in Jordan and Palestine (during the second Intifada no less), the co-founder of the first ever Arab American Comedy Festival, a political activist, a humanitarian volunteer, and a classically trained actress to boot. She has tussled with John Stossel and has appeared on Soap Operas. Oh yeah, one more thing, Zayid has Cerebral Palsy, making her story all the more amazing. She is an indefatigable trailblazer. Sadik H. Kassim, as part of our continuing series profiling standup comedians in the Muslim community, recently caught up with Maysoon for MWU!

MWU!: When and why did you go into standup comedy?

Maysoon: I’m a classically trained actress and I was trying to find a way to break into acting. I had been working for about two years on a Soap (As the World Turns) and it was going nowhere. So I talked to my acting coach and realized that the best way for a non-conventional actress, which means someone who is not a blonde haired, blue eyed supermodel, to get on television was to do comedy, and that’s how all the great actresses who are not conventional got started. People like Whoopi Goldberg, Roseanne Barr, and Mimi on the Drew Carey Show, so I decided to give it a shot.

MWU!: Regarding your days on Soaps, you were the only handicapped actor on daytime television for a while, is that correct?

Maysoon: I was the only handicapped actor on ALL of television, except the word handicapped is not used anymore. The word now is disabled.

MWU!: My mistake. I mean disabled. So what was that experience like? Do you feel you were overtly discriminated against? Were you treated differently?

Maysoon: My experience working on television was amazing and it was great and everyone was great to me. I think what was so horrifying was the fact that I was the only actor at that time and was about probably for a year and three months, I was the only disabled actor working on television. That for me was really horrifying. That you know with all the cable stations and all the network stations and all the pay stations that no one was hiring disabled actors, it was really disturbing.

MWU!: Why aren’t these stations hiring disabled actors?

Maysoon: I think, you know, television and the advertisers really want to project a perfect image and that ethnicity and disabilities sort of tarnish that image.

MWU!: Who are your major comedic influences?

Maysoon: Richard Pryor is my first because he was ground breaking as far as he was an African American comic who was one of the first to come out and talk about discrimination, segregation, and was kind of really revolutionary getting the African American plight out there to mainstream America. He’s my number one influence and Jon Stewart. I love Jon Stewart. I love his political comedy. I love the way he talks about such important issues in a way that is accessible and funny and really gets people listening.

MWU!: The influences of Pryor and Stewart can definitely be seen in your act. I mean, you talk about political issues while most other comedians these days are talking about airline peanuts. So, how is your act generally accepted, especially within these politically polarized times?

Maysoon: I know. I’m just so lucky. So so lucky, because I know these are polarized times and I know how sensitive people are but I’ve just been so lucky. I’ve gotten a great response from mainstream audiences and from Arab audiences even though I talk about really tough things. I talk about Israel and Ariel Sharon. I talk about Bush at length and I mean I touch the hot buttons and people are laughing.

MWU!: Do you think that it’s a potentially risky move to fuse together politics with comedy? That it could potentially hurt your chances of being more accepted by a broad mainstream audience?

Maysoon: Well I know it’s risky, but it’s what I do. Like I’m definitely not a conservative comic. I’m very very edgy because I feel like comedy is one of the last bastions of free speech and that I’m live and I’m on stage and I get to say stuff that no one else gets to say because nobody edits me and nobody writes what I say. I write everything and say everything I want, whether it’s on stage or on the radio. We’re on Peace and Justice radio too so we don’t get censored there either. I mean we can’t curse but we can say anything that’s on our mind.

MWU!: What drives you to continue with your act? To be outspoken on the stage.

Maysoon: Well, I feel it’s pretty obvious. The state of Arab Americans is in shambles and I feel like the discrimination young Arabs are facing today is ridiculous and that the only way to change that is to keep putting out positive Arab role models and having the American public kind of see that female Muslim Arab women aren’t all wearing burqas. Kind of getting out that positive image. As far as Israel and Palestine, I don’t think anyone is talking about it, so I have to, because there are people being murdered every single day. In Palestine there are children being slaughtered and it needs to stop. If I don’t give them a voice no one will.

MWU!: Have you ever gotten in trouble with the act? Have club owners ever told you to tone it down?

Maysoon: I’ve never had a club owner tell me to tone it down. I think they’re scared. I think they know better. They really do, they know better than to edit me. They just know that I won’t have it. I’ve had people ask me not to wear my Palestine shirt onstage, but that’s like as far as they’ve gone, and I’ve just kind of looked at them and they stopped at that. They never even mentioned it again. Club owners are very, very aware that with somebody like me who was born and raised in the States, that if I even sniff discrimination I’ll bring them down. Don’t even try it.

MWU!: They’re afraid because you know your rights.

Maysoon: Yeah I do know my rights, thanks to the ADC.

MWU!: What about John Stossel? After your appearance on 20/20 he said that you were angry and should seek therapy. What was that about? And why is Stossel such a twerp?

Maysoon: Because I wasn’t answering questions the way he wanted me to. He said to me in YOUR country you would never be able to do this. So I responded by saying that I was born in Cliffside, New Jersey. THIS IS MY COUNTRY, but if you mean my ancestral country, I’ve done it there too. And he was like “you can never do this over there.” I’m like, “I have! I have done standup over there.” He’s like “well you could never talk about politics and Yasser Arafat the way you do here”. I’m like “I have.” And he’s like “well, you can never say,” and I’m like “but I have.” And he was like, “well you could never say,” and I’m like “BUT I HAVE!” and then I was like “DO YOU WANT TO SEE THE VIDEO TAPE!” Then he was like, “you’re angry. You need therapy.”

MWU!: So he was trying to pigeonhole you.

Maysoon: And I wouldn’t let him. It was going back and forth, back and forth, but then finally I snapped. I think he also thought I was insane because I walked into the 20/20 interview wearing a Rachel Corrie T-shirt. I was very, very upset and Rachel Corrie had just been killed days earlier and there was no media coverage about it. Everyone else came in wearing their beautiful blue button down shirts, and here I am in a Rachel Corrie t-shirt, with glasses on my head and red lipstick and he must have thought that I was insane.

MWU!: The New York comedy circuit is probably the most competitive scene in America if not the world.

Maysoon: Absolutely.

MWU!: So are other comedians generally supportive of you, or is it an all out everyone for themselves kind of a thing?

Maysoon: Extremely, extremely. I mean I have a couple of very conservative dissenters that are much more offended by my anti-Bush than my anti-Zionism.

MWU!: You’ve also performed in the Middle East, where I believe you where the first ever standup comic to do a live performance in Palestine.

Maysoon: I was the first ever standup to perform in Palestine and was also the first standup ever to perform in Amman, Jordan.

MWU!: Wow. Very impressive. So, what was the experience like? Did you perform in Arabic or English?

Maysoon: Yeah I performed my routines in Arabic and it was very, very nerve wracking even before it happened, because again even there I was very political and spoke about Arafat and I spoke about being single and Muslim. You know, not stuff that you hear women talking about very much. I was worried, but it was incredible. The Ramallah show was my favorite show of all time.

MWU!: So the audience basically understood what you were doing, even though standup comedy as an art form is virtually unheard of in the Middle East?

Maysoon: Yeah you know, I mean the first five minutes they just kind of stared and then one person started laughing and the rest relaxed and then it was out of control. It was a near riot. People were laughing, rolling around and this was in the middle of the Intifada. This was a year and a half ago so it was like the Intifada was hot. There were curfews and tanks and the night of the show people were able to come out and we had to do the show early. They could have called curfew that same day. I was supposed to do a show in Gaza that I didn’t get to because they closed a checkpoint and I couldn’t go. When Ramallah came off it was amazing. It was really great.

MWU!: You along with others have observed that Arabs are good story tellers, that they like to laugh at themselves. Why do you think standup as an art form has not really developed in the Middle East, and do you think there is a potential for standup to grow over there?

Maysoon: I think it is definitely developing. I simply think that it has not developed because there is no opportunity for it. People don’t know the form, but they’re really interested to learn it and Dean Obeidallah and I went back again and did shows this summer in Beirut and Palestine and we’re going Insh’Allah in November to Amman to do shows. So I think the more that we’re working there, the more people will see it as a viable art form and start trying to do it.

MWU!: Tell us about your project with disabled Palestinian refugee children.

Maysoon: I run four months, two months in the winter, two months in the summer, an arts program for disabled, wounded, and orphaned refugee children. I choose a different camp each year and I go in and work with the children for three reasons: 1) For the severely disabled children, they really don’t have much of an outlet. They’re not attending school, so this is a way to get them out of the house and to stimulate them. To make them viable members of society. 2) To integrate the non-disabled children with the disabled children in the camp, to create a camaraderie so that they can get to know each other and play with each other. 3) For an outlet for the trauma, art is a great way to get out what they’re feeling and what they’re fearing.

MWU!: Tell us about the Arab American Comedy Festival. What do you have planned for this year?

Maysoon: Yeah! My baby! My other baby! Dean Obeidallah and I started that last year and this year it will be held from October 10th to the 13th, it’s the second annual comedy festival. We are so excited! It’s bigger! Much bigger than last year. We’ve expanded it to two nights of theatre. We have Ahmed Ahmed and Aron Kader coming in from California. We have a comic coming in from Canada, who is also amazing. We are doing a new faces night, were we’re introducing all new Arab comics that kind of have come up and Dean and I have sort of mentored them. It’s been great because since we’ve been doing this a lot of people have been trying their hand at standup. So at this year’s festival, we are going to introduce a bunch of new comics that nobody has ever seen. We have amazing pieces being done on theatre night and we have A list actors involved. People from television, Broadway all acting in the comedy festival.

MWU!: Where do you hope to be five and ten years from now?

Maysoon: Five years from now I want my own sitcom. Ten years from now I’ll probably be retired in Palestine working in the camps and raising my kids.

Suggested Links:

Maysoon’s official website: maysoon.com
Arab American Comedy Festival Website: arabcomedy.org
Dean Obeidallah’s Official Website: deanobeidallah.com/

Sadik Kassim is a graduate student studying the immune response to sexually transmitted viruses. He may be contacted at shkassim81@yahoo.com