Laughing it off: Egyptian comedian Bassem Youssef plays down the power of comedy and satire to make a difference, saying it does provide a necessary release. Photo: Supplied
When Bassem Youssef speaks, people listen. That is his fate.
His words sent him into superstardom in Egypt, before forcing him to flee the land of his birth. His words have become an internet phenomenon, earning him celebration and antipathy. His words have taken him around the world in a career that, for the first time, has a stop in South Africa this weekend.
As a political satirist wielding sharp sarcasm, the temptation is to talk up his influence in a public space that is often stolid and stuffy, governed by a partisan media; to talk up the unique role of the comedian in our knowledge economy.
It’s a temptation that Youssef himself strongly discourages.
“I used to subscribe to this fancy outlook of talking about how important comedy is,” he says in our conversation ahead of his three-city South African tour. “But … I don’t know, I don’t think weaponising comedy is the solution.
“People talk about comedy as a shield, comedy as a way to speak truth to power. I think we’re being too optimistic about this. I think we need to understand our position in the world that we are entertainers, even if we sometimes speak stuff that people sometimes relate to. It is an important release — an outlet. And I think it feels like a victory sometimes. But I think that’s about it.”
Youssef began with no ambitions of comedic grandeur. A practising cardiothoracic surgeon in Cairo, his first forays into the field were cheap, Jon Stewart-inspired videos uploaded onto YouTube. This was 2011, weeks after Hosni Mubarak’s violent 30-year regime had been displaced.
The millions of views his channel quickly scooped up suggested a large-scale fatigue with a traditional media that was incapable of capturing the febrile mood of the country.
As he tells it through his memoir Revolution for Dummies: Laughing Through the Arab Spring, the next three years were a maelstrom of TV deals, run-ins with censors and accusations of blasphemy from the ultra-pious Muslim Brotherhood.
It culminated in raids by the incumbent President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi’s regime on his producers. Fearing that his arrest was imminent, Youssef fled to Dubai in 2014. He has never returned.
In the years since, he has worked on a number of projects, introducing himself to Western audiences. This has included appearances with Stewart — someone he is openly influenced by and whose Daily Show is the godfather of political comedy TV.
But the zenith of his popularity came unexpectedly — on the back of world events that couldn’t be less funny — as a guest on Piers Morgan Uncensored. Reacting to Israel’s invasion of Gaza in the wake of Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attacks, Youssef delivered a sarcasm clinic.
“Those Palestinians, they are very dramatic, ‘Ahh, Israel is killing us.’ But they never die, they always come back. They are very difficult to kill, very difficult people to kill. I know because I’m married to one. I tried many times, couldn’t kill her.”
The clip exploded onto social media, drawing both choruses of praise and fierce vitriol from those it offended. At 23 million views, the full interview is the most watched on the channel. Not a trifling achievement in the catalogue of a combative host who has done incendiary interviews with Andrew Tate and Kanye West, and the infamous sycophantic sit-down with Cristiano Ronaldo.
I suggested to Youssef people identified with the segment precisely because it was comedic. It was a reprieve from the talking heads on all sides who recycled the same talking points. In a human tragedy that defies explanation, an absurdist response is the only one that seems logical.
“Yeah, but after all that, what actually happened?” came his riposte.
“After all the solace, after all the release and after all the celebration about how I stood up against Piers Morgan, it didn’t stop the killing, it didn’t stop the genocide. Did it make any difference? I don’t think it did.”
“It almost sounds like you’ve become disillusioned?”
“Nah, I think the world is a terrible place and people are trying to find solace and trying to find bright spots in satire or comedy.
“But, truly, we just crack jokes and show people how ridiculous the system is. That’s the most we can do. Because the system doesn’t give a damn about you thinking the system is bad because the system is going to do what it is going to do anyway.”
His own denials of grandeur notwithstanding, Youssef practises a genre that has long been looked at as a lubricant that helps society loosen its inhibitions. A format that riles against the system.
Lenny Bruce put counterculture onto the mainstream stage, creating new conversations on politics, sex and life. George Carlin challenged us to rethink our dread of vulgarity and its place in the media we consume.
Ditto for Richard Pryor, whose bombastic figure recast the form that a public intellectual might take.
“Tell Bill [Cosby] I said have a Coke and a smile and shut the fuck up,” he reportedly told Eddie Murphy, rallying against the genteel corporate culture created by television executives.
Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle’s trenchant observations about race helped push uncomfortable topics through the Western world’s Overton window and into common conversation today. Contemporary comedians, meanwhile, are often credited with keeping authenticity alive in an era many think is besieged by political correctness.
But, for all the influence of the art form over the past century, there are few comics who, like Youssef, would go willingly to that mantle of recognition. Stewart — his idol as a developing satirist — is one of those who has rebuked the idea that he has a special space in society’s discourse, despite being one of the most respected voices in the US.
On a seminal day in news television over 20 years ago, Stewart appeared on the show Crossfire and lambasted hosts Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson for their “partisan hackery”. When it was suggested that his own softball interview style on The Daily Show — which aired on Comedy Central — deserved scrutiny, he replied: “You’re on CNN. The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls. What is wrong with you?”
Communication theorist Marshall McLuhan famously said “the medium is the message”, the idea that the format of communication — visual, radio or written — is more important than the content it is delivering.
Comedy is so often its own medium, with its own set of rules that are not easily prescribed.
As our conversation draws to an end, we talk about the life path that standing up to Sisi’s regime has led Youssef on. He takes the opportunity to once more draw the lines of his responsibility.
“I have absolutely no regrets. I think we should stop romanticising comedy and treat it as a way of release, as a way of giving us some sense of looking at a very nonsensical world. It’s important but it’s also important to know the level of its importance and what it can actually do. Without trying to put such a burden on comedians thinking they can actually solve things.
“We don’t solve things. We discuss ideas in a unique way. In a comedic and satiric way. It resonates with people and gives them a good feeling. This is what we do and I don’t have any illusions about a bigger role.”
The word “burden” is striking. It separates the comedy consumer and the practitioner. While we naturally look to ascribe great meaning to the words we take in, the comedian is faced with the preposterous task of summoning laughter — that most primal and unpredictable of human responses.
That job is hard enough without being expected to be a voice of change. No amount of intellectualising can escape that reality.
The role Youssef does proudly accept is that of activist and he has been a prominent voice on the Palestinian plight, particularly over the past year. That affinity has drawn him to South Africa, a nation he greatly respects for taking Israel to the International Court of Justice when other freedom touters were afraid to do so.
He waxes lyrical about the “beautiful people” here and fulfilling the bucket-list item of surfing on the Durban and Cape Town shores.
If you attend his show he wants you to have the time of your life. Just don’t expect him to change it.
Bassem Youssef is in Durban on 7, Cape Town on 8, and Joburg on 9 February. Tickets from TicketPro.