Comedian Vir Das pokes fun at American politics—because duh
The stand-up comic on American politics, his current acting projects, and how cancel culture has affected comedy
Vir Das made history last year as the first Indian to host the International Emmy Awards.
Courtesy of Vir Das
Words by Sucharita Tyagi
Finding a date to see a Vir Das show isn’t hard—the Indian stand-up comic regularly tours the world’s biggest cities. If you’re curious about India, enjoy a traveling comic’s take on global politics, and are prepared to laugh until you cry (and maybe cry in solidarity too), Das is your guy.
Watching Das perform and seeing his global success feels almost patriotic to some Indians. Cultural commentators, aware of his pioneering work in the field, can appreciate what it takes for him to persevere despite persecution in his home country, including police reports and cancelled shows (an aftermath of his heartfelt and personal I Come From Two Indias monologue, performed in Washington, D.C., in 2021).
Das however has not backtracked on his stance—that India is a land of dichotomies. Unfazed he appeared as a guest on the The Daily Show, talking about the episode and has since returned to the “scene of the crime,” the Kennedy Center, for more sold-out shows.
The comedian's tour, "Mind Fool," picks back up on March 14 until mid April.
Courtesy of Vir Das
In a successful and busy 2024, Das also made history as the first Indian to host the International Emmy Awards, which took place in New York. JoySauce caught up with him for a chat as he prepares to return to North America on March 14 to continue and eventually wind up his tour, Mind Fool.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Sucharita Tyagi: You’ve clearly had fun following the U.S. elections these last few months. Do you stay updated with American politics because it's important to your comedy, or morbid fascination?
Vir Das: It's hard not to follow American politics. America wants nobody to be unaware of their politics because there's this grand assumption that it's the most important job in the world. It’s the rhetoric I love. I think America has finally come around to a fact that all of us in Africa, the Middle East, East Asia, and India have known for awhile, which is that a politician can be a terrible person. “He doesn't work as a human being, but he works for me at a policy level, so I'll vote for him.” That's a compromise that the rest of the world has made a long time ago.
ST: I met you in 2016 after Trump had won his first election. You were promoting a film at the radio station I worked at, and you said, “I think it's going to be all right. I think secretly, everybody's a little liberal on the inside.”
VD: I still have that optimism. I think you will find a more liberal Trump than you did the last time around, with a possibly more insane cabinet. I think this age of posturing, of American moral exceptionalism, is kind of done, and it's now a case of blatant American pragmatism. I worry less about the guy than the people surrounding the guy. It's never the guy in power you have to worry about, it’s the guy who has one to six degrees of separation away from power and wants to impress that guy.
ST: Each time Trump announces a new Desi for his cabinet, do you start your research for new material? “Kash Patel, another Gujarati I need to know about." You have a great Vivek Ramaswamy joke.
VD: I like Vivek Ramaswamy, he has super “pick me” energy. Kash Patel, I know nothing about. I just wasn't consuming anything last year. So I have locked myself in a room for a month right now, and I'm just consuming fun sh*t. I'm not updated on Kash Patel for that reason.
ST: Your name, Vir translates to “the brave one,” which is tragically ironic at this point because to be a stand-up comic in India requires a certain bravado right now. Does that make you want to seek out an international audience?
VD: No. You've been to a show of mine.
ST: Multiple.
VD: Yes, it definitely interlaces with politics, because as you get older, politics is just a bigger part of your life. It's not the bulk of my routine. Look, in any case, to be a comic, you need a certain amount of delusional bravado. And it takes different forms. In India, it may be, “I know that this will get me into trouble, but I've thought of it. Now, what am I supposed to do with it?” I took in a breath and something changed, and my body converted, you know, whatever to whatever. Do I not exhale? A thought is born in me. I can't leave it in there. It seems biologically and mentally unnatural to do so. So you're never approaching it with a sense of bravado.
By the way, you don't know what you're going to get into trouble for. If you try and second guess you'll go insane. It's never what you thought it was going to be. Yes, there are four or five bears that you know not to poke, and that's just common sense, but there's a creative way to do that as well. On the flip side, there is a new American bravado in stand-up comedy. This, "I can't get canceled now. America's back baby," right? Kind of a great, straight reclamation of American stand-up that is happening because the pendulum swung from the very, very sensitive and woke to the complete opposite direction. And so that cancel culture grift, I think, will stop existing as well and find nuance.
Let’s not discount the immense level of privilege I come from. I (speak) English, I'm Hindu, and I'm heterosexual, those three things make it very, very easy for me to have a little bit of edge to my comedy.
From left, comedian Vir Das and writer Sucharita Tyagi after a show last year in Washington, D.C.
Courtesy of Sucharita Tyagi
ST: The day Trump won, I went to a taping of Seth Meyers’ show. It was a somber room, but the jokes were coming. You started your American tour the same week in Arizona. Was there a vibe you could sense?
VD: Honestly, and I say this with no arrogance, I get to talk about America with more freedom than an American comic. American comedy is ideology connected. American mainstream comedy is now conservative. Ironically, it has gone from being punk rock to very conservative right down the middle, or you're very far liberal. You’re supposed to identify with a certain camp so that you can gravitate towards that audience. But when you come in with an outsider perspective, “I'm just visiting, and I don't want to be part of any of these camps," that's freedom that no American comic has, where you have no dog in the race, as such. I'm enjoying tremendously doing political humor in America, but trying to show Americans what I see.
ST: You recently sold out a venue in Chicago, close to the place where you had a dishwashing job years ago. What was that like?
VD: It's weird as hell, you know. What I remember most about that time is…I was undocumented. Or overstayed my visa. So I was existing in a cash-only universe. That's the one thing that nobody talks about when you talk about illegal migrants or undocumented workers, is we live in a cash-only universe. You can't get a debit card or credit card. You can't get a bank account, so you have to store your rent in cash, in your shoes rolled-up in socks or under mattresses. Now, I walk around Chicago and am fascinated by how accessible everything is through plastic and just online. I can order Uber Eats in Chicago on my phone! I used to be a banquet bartender at this place called Carol's Event Staffing. My manager found Carol, she came for the show, and she's like, “Listen, I have one of your old paychecks, $290 that you didn't collect.” Because I’d left America overnight. I was just like, “F*ck you. I'm done.” And I bounced. So I got a paycheck from 20 years ago, which is also insane.
ST: Wild.
VD: I used to walk by the Chicago Theater on the way to one of my jobs, and it felt like it might be warm on the inside. And it was. So that was nice.
ST: Lastly, what can you tell us about this new acting project that you're getting in shape for?
VD: I just co-directed my first movie, and I wrote it as well. It’s an Aamir Khan production. The film is called Happy Patel Khatarnak Jasoos, and I play Happy Patel. I got in shape for that, and now I have love songs to shoot for it! And then I'm co-directing a horror movie that I'll be in. I do a rom-com at the end of the year that I'm not directing. This is a western (American) rom-com, but I've been clearly instructed that I have to satisfy the female gaze, which apparently is forearms and *ss. So I have to work on my forearms.
ST: It’s the Glen Powell blueprint.
VD: Sure, because we look so alike. People come to us for exactly the same thing. Yeah.
Published on February 7, 2025
Words by Sucharita Tyagi
Sucharita Tyagi is a prominent Indian film critic who divides her time between Mumbai and New York. She runs a popular movie review channel on YouTube and frequently covers international film festivals. She is a member of the CCA and vice-chairperson of the Film Critics Guild, India’s first registered association of film critics. Through a contemporary, feminist lens, Sucharita discusses South Asian pop culture with honesty and passion. Find her on Instagram!