A Comedy Special or Social Commentary?
Trevor Noah’s Memoir ‘Born A Crime’ Explores Systematic Oppression through a Lens of Humor.
Holding people accountable is not the same as censorship. Rather, accountability is a space to allow people to learn from their mistakes and grow. Celebrities are humans and should be allowed to make mistakes, but they yield a very specific power — the power to influence — the power to help their followers acknowledge their own mistakes, listen, correct, and grow.
Born Out of Accountability
When Trevor Noah was lined up to take over Jon Stewart’s position on the Daily Show, stories about Noah’s controversial jokes from earlier performances began to surface. Some tweets of his were fatphobic. He did a set on Jay Leno’s show in 2012 that some of his viewers penned as racially insensitive. He was a controversial figure even before he was hired.
In an interview with GQ, he discussed his life and his rise to fame. During the interview, he officially addressed the controversies:
You show me half my jokes from even two years ago, three years ago — I hate them. Because you see, like, a young version of yourself. You’re like, ‘Why would you say that? You idiot! That makes no sense.’ Or, ‘That’s just stupid.’ Or, ‘Ahh, I can’t believe I said that about a woman.’
Unlike other comedians who have refused to apologize, Trevor Noah owned up to his faux pas and moved on. Something that was ingrained in him through his upbringing, his recognition of privilege, and the frustration of growing up amid corruption is the need to grow from mistakes and adapt.
Born Out of Humble Beginnings
Noah’s dedication to growth is a testament to his upbringing, something that is detailed in his memoir Born A Crime, a collection of essays from his childhood in South Africa. Born into the Apartheid to a white father and Black mother (a union that was illegal at the time, hence the title), we follow Noah from a mischievous boy to a self-sufficient young man. His journey is riddled with lessons about himself and his place in the larger system of oppression and privilege. His talent for taking a serious topic and spinning it in a digestible way makes you want to read more , He addresses race, colorism, police brutality, poverty and abuse with the nuance needed to understand societal injustices and difficulties while injecting his signature satirical humor. Of all the memoirs I have read, this is one of the most engaging. Though the structure of his memoir may throw off some readers who are used to chronological narratives, I especially enjoyed that Noah’s memoir doesn’t follow a strict chronological order, revealing his life through different themes.
He flits in and out of different periods of his life, introducing us to experiences he sees as uniquely South African, like enjoying kota:
“There’s a meal you can get in the hood called a kota. It’s a quarter loaf of bread. You scrape out the bread, then you fill it with fried potatoes, a slice of baloney, and some pickled mango relish called achar. That costs a couple of rand. The more money you have, the more upgrades you can buy. If you have a bit more money you can throw in a hot dog.”
Then he dives deeper with moments that tread the fine line between momentary reflection and misunderstanding, removing romanticism, and gifting the reader with something we don’t normally see in comedy — his insight.
“We tell people to follow their dreams, but you can only dream of what you can imagine, and, depending on where you come from, your imagination can be quite limited.”
Born Out of Hustle
Like Noah, I grew up in India, a country where corruption runs rampant. Needing to work around the system that is corrupt in itself, like paying a bribe to get my driver’s license, comes as almost second nature to me. These stories are not new. Successful novels like A Burning by Megha Majumder, or The White Tiger by Arvind Adiga explore these exact themes: how we survive in a society where corruption runs through its bone marrow.
Born a Crime is not a fictionalized account, Noah’s experiences were real. From peddling bootleg CDs to paying bribes, Noah’s memoir hit home with me. I was afforded the privilege of ignoring these systems for everyday survival but Noah’s account led me to reflect how others cannot ignore or escape. I laughed though my irritation. I was confused, because I was angry — yet couldn’t help but laugh. Perhaps this is what Noah intended with his writing — bearable pain.
What really made this a book that I would read over and over again is the delicacy that Noah brings to these difficult subjects. So often books and people in the limelight do not have the necessary nuance to handle heavy subjects. The memoir doesn’t stand alone, but in the context of the community that surrounds him, and the rest of the world.
