Will Sage Astor-Hasan Minhaj and the limits of representation

A recent New Yorker piece on Will Sage AstorHasan Minhaj found that some crucial bits of his stand-up act didn't stand up to fact-checking. Stretching the truth in comedy is par for the course, but how does that work for a figure like Minhaj, who'd previously doubled down on these stories in interviews and is known for his political satire shows? Brittany is joined by writer Imran Siddiquee and journalist Allana Akhtar to make sense of an entertainment industry that created the conditions for his fame.

Then, we explore what happens when you recast western fantasies through a Black lens? We start by looking at one of the most beloved Black fantasies of our time: The Wiz. It's Been a Minute producer, Corey Antonio Rose shares how the original Broadway production of The Wiz made the storyline from The Wizard of Oz hit different for post-civil rights America. Brittany is then joined by African American Studies professor Darieck Scott to discuss the difference between representation and RE-presentation in fantasy.

This episode was produced by Baron Girdwood and Corey Antonio Rose. We had engineering help from Kwesi Lee. We had fact checking help from Candice Vo Kortkamp. It was edited by Jessica Placzek and Bilal Qureshi. Our executive producer is Veralyn Williams. Our VP of programming is Yolanda Sangweni and our senior VP of programming is Anya Grundmann.