Hasan Minhaj has been a kind of a hero to me. His Netflix special “Homecoming King” was such a perfect reflection of the experience of so many children of South Asian immigrants, and it was moving and funny.
His Netflix talk show “Patriot Act,” which won several awards in its six seasons, was cancelled this summer. Now it seems like there are stories coming out of abusive behavior against the staff.
It makes me very sad to learn this, but it proves the point that workplaces, especially in the entertainment business, need to far greater scrutiny and policing.
I’ve seen this story, but I can’t really understand what happened. Has anyone seen anything more specific?
It reminds me of the recent stories about the toxic environment at Ellen Degeneres’s talk show. She apologized and, I think, three producers were fired (which implies that it was the producers who were the assholes, not Ellen herself). So is Hasan the one engaging in the bad behavior or was it others (and if it was others, it’s his job to set standards that such things don’t occur).
In that vein, sometimes the boss doesn’t really know what’s going on under them. It’s not their fault because, again - some times, their direct underlings engage in “kiss up/kick down” behavior. To the boss, they are told that everything is hunky-dory, but the lower levels deal with the maniacs.
I could be things that happened without Minhaj’s knowledge. It could be things that resulted from his leadership style or mismanagement. It could be things he himself did. There’s no information that I can find yet. I’d like to know what it was.
There seems to be very little out there on this. I did find this article, which basically seems to recap the tweets –
However, following the show’s cancellation, employees of Patriot Act took to social media and made allegations of a toxic work environment on the set of Patriot Act . These allegations follow similar accusations against The Ellen Degeneres Show.
While Minhaj himself has not faced allegations, other staff on Patriot Act are being accused of enabling a toxic culture at the show. Here are some of the reasons why Patriot Act is a toxic show to work for.
Other tweets describe a troubling abuse of power on the show. In an Aug. 21st Twitter thread, former Patriot Act employee Zach Silberberg shares his experience about power dynamics that “disproportionately affected the women of color on the show.”
Silberberg claimed to face “more structural problems, that didn’t have to do with race or gender.” According to him, executives tried to “create a safer environment” but it was “too little too late.” Patriot Act was canceled before the employees saw much substantial change. Silberberg also revealed he didn’t speak out earlier due to “a track record of retaliatory behavior.”
Maybe there’s no racism or sexism involved here, which I guess is something of a relief, but not enough. Run-of-the-mill abusive behavior by employers is a common problem in the United States, and is well-known in the entertainment industry. It should be taken much more seriously. No one should have to put up with it.
I don’t know about other countries, but American society has a habit of enabling abusive employer behavior.