Bassem Youssef, Egyptian satirist, honored for Time 100 by Jon Stewart
My job is hard. I have to sift through pages of political- and media-themed satirical material from exceptional writers and figure out what amusing face I can make to accompany each jab. Then I must perform them, 22 minutes a day, four days a week, with only our caterer’s spread to sustain me. Bassem Youssef does my job in Egypt. The only real difference between him and me is that he performs his satire in a country still testing the limits of its hard-earned freedom, where those who speak out against the powerful still have much to fear. Yet even under these difficult circumstances, he manages to produce an incredible show: a hilarious blend of mimicry, confusion, outrage and bemusement, highlighting the absurdities and -hypocrisies of his country’s rebirth, all wielded with the precision of a scalpel, which, by the way, he should know how to wield because he’s a former heart surgeon. Yeah. And his family is beautiful and he’s a kind and generous friend. I am an American satirist, and Bassem Youssef is my hero.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7uK3SoaCnn6Sku7G70q1lnKedZLumw9JoqZ6kmZavrbGMrKauqpOafLi8jmtnamtfZYFwfZdomZqro5q6bsXOrqqsnZZisqjFz62gmqZdqK61tdGiqq1lmKS7sL7EnWSfp6Jiwaq5xGZoaWhdl8Zuts6nZKyslayus8CO