Arab Americans

Dean Obeidallah

Dean Obeidallah (born 1969; Arabic: دين عبيدالله‎) is an American comedian of Palestinian–Italian descent.

Early life

He was born in Lodi, New Jersey, and grew up in nearby Paramus.^[1] His father was born in Battir, Mandatory Palestine prior to the creation of the State of Israel; his mother’s parents were born in Sicily.

Obeidallah received a J.D. from Fordham Law School and practiced law from 1996-2000 with the firm of Beattie Padovano. From October 1999 through May 2007 he was a rights and clearance researcher for Saturday Night Live.^[2]

Career

Obeidallah is part of a small but growing number of Arab-American comedians who have increasingly received media attention in the past few years, as they use comedy to both entertain and dispel negative stereotypes of Arab-Americans and Muslims.

He and other Arab-American comics have been compared to the groundbreaking minority comedians of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s who have used comedy to raise political and social issues in an effort to change them as noted by The Baltimore Sun‘s David Zurawik:

“Just as comic Lenny Bruce battled the stifling conformity of the 1950s or Dick Gregory and Richard Pryor challenged racism in the ’60s and ’70s, these performers now are challenging mainstream notions about their ethnic, religious and racial groups.”^[3]

In 2005, Obeidallah received the first “Spirit of Bill Hicks” award, named in honor of comedian Bill Hicks for “thought provoking comedy” from the NY Underground Comedy Festival and the Hicks’ family. He co-produced with the Emmy Award winning comedy writer and best-selling author Max Brooks a new show entitled The Watch List for Comedy Central‘s Internet channel. This was the first show ever produced by a major American entertainment company to showcase all Arab-American performers. Obeidallah has also appeared on Comedy Central on the critically acclaimed “Axis of Evil” Comedy special.^[4]

Dean is the founder and editor of the blog The Dean Report which addresses topics of the day.

He is also the co-founder of the New York Arab-American Comedy Festival. This highly acclaimed, first of its kind festival has received national and international media coverage. It is held annually in New York City and showcases Arab-American comics, actors, playwrights and filmmakers. The 9th annual Festival will be held October 18–20, 2012.^[5]

Obeidallah is the co-creator of Stand up for Peace which he performs across the country with Jewish-American comedian Scott Blakeman. Stand Up for Peace brings Arab-Americans, Muslims and Jews together through comedy in the hopes of fostering understanding and supporting a peaceful solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Dean has also been featured on numerous national and international television programs including Comedy Central’s “Axis of Evil” special and The Watch List, ABC’s The View, NBC’s “Rock Center,” Current TV’s “Young Turks,” MSNBC’s “Up with Chris Hayes,” “Comics Unleashed with Byron Allen,” PBS’ Newshour with Jim Lehrer, ABC’s 20/20, CNN’s “Inside the Middle East” and Japan’s NHK. He can also be seen in the PBS’ documentary, “Stand Up: Muslim American Comics Come of Age”PBS Programs. Dean can also be seen in the bonus feature of the DVD version of Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11” in the section entitled: Arab-American comedians. He has also been featured in various publications and radio networks including The New York Times, Time, Newsweek, “The Washington Post,” The Los Angeles Times, NPR,BBC, Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman, and The Associated Press.

Dean served as the Executive Producer of the Amman Stand up Comedy Festival held in Amman, Jordan from December 2–6, 2008.^[6] This was the first stand up comedy festival in the history of the Middle East. The third annual Festival was held December 4 to 10, 2010.

He co-directed/co-produced the award winning documentary with comedian/filmmaker Negin Farsad entitled The Muslims Are Coming! focusing on freedom of religion for all Americans. The film focuses on a free stand up comedy tour by American-Muslim comedians across the South and West. It also features celebrity interviews with a wide range of people including The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, CNN’s Soledad O’Brien and Ali Velshi, Congressman Keith Ellison, comedians Lewis Black, David Cross, Colin Quinn, Lizz Winstead and others. The film was released in September 2013.

In addition to appearing at hundreds of comedy clubs and colleges across the United States, Obeidallah has performed stand-up comedy in Canada and in the Middle East in Amman, Dubai,^[7] Beirut, Cairo, Haifa, Oman, Sharm El Sheikh and Ramallah.

Controversy

Obeidallah appeared on the December 28, 2013 episode of MSNBC‘s Melissa Harris-Perry show. On a “photos of the year” segment of that program, Obeidallah and a panel of comedians made several jokes about a family picture featuring former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney‘s family, including his adopted black grandson, joking that the photo represented the diversity of the Republican Party. Obeidallah later apologized to the Romneys (“but not the wingnuts”) for the remarks.^[8][9][10] Dean also joked about Koreans “eating dogs” and quipped that perhaps Kim Jong Un’s murder of his grandfather was simply a “dog buffet” gone wrong.^[11] Most recently he has insisted that the murder of three Muslim students at Chapel Hill by Craig Stephens Hicks were committed because of their faith, though no evidence for that conclusion has been proffered. ^[12]

References