2015 has been a huge year for Aziz Ansari. Before this year, he was primarily known for playing the slightly smarmy Tom Haverford on Parks and Recreation. But in 2015 he made a big splash with the release of his book Modern Romance in the summer, and now his new Netflix show, Master of None.
Both the book and the Netflix show have been praised a lot as examples of a comedian delving into uncharted territory. Modern Romance, for instance, is not your typical memoir about a nerdy kid who grows up to be a famous entertainer (think Mindy Kaling’s Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me), but a sociological exploration of dating in the modern age co-written by an actual academic. The Times’ Sarah Lyall praised the book’s unlikely pairing:
“Mr. Ansari, who is 32 and now enjoys a healthy textual relationship with a steady girlfriend, might not be the first person who springs to mind when it comes to dispensing romantic advice. But he is as good a guide as any. He’s old enough to remember what life was like in the era before cellphones, yet young enough to understand the point of Snapchat, a disappearing-image app beloved by the young and only vaguely understood by everyone else. ”
And then there’s the much lauded parents episode of Master of None. In episode two, Aziz’s character Dev, and his friend Brian blow off their parents by citing more important social engagements--like getting to the movies early. We see flashbacks of their parents’ childhoods in a developing India and Taiwan. Dev and Brian feel bad and arrange a couple of dinners where they try to get to know their parents better. The Internet--especially the second generation Internet--ate it up. I must have heard at least three podcasts go on about how revolutionary this one episode was.
I too love the way Aziz has brought a lighthearted perspective to some serious topics people of our generation think about regularly. But the area I think his work really stands out is women’s issues. I’ve been impressed by his feminist views, and have been tempted to do a Bustle-style listicle on the Top 10 reasons why Aziz Ansari is the most feminist male comedian out there. Even setting aside his public declarations of being a feminist, it’s all over his recent work. The episode “Ladies and Gentlemen” of Master of None features a set piece comparing the dangers he and a guy friend face walking home from a bar at night (stray rats, sidewalk vomit) to the dangers his women friends face walking home (a man following you to your door). Modern Romance has a distinctively feminist vibe too explaining why women might be selective in how they respond to online messages, and why they might delay settling down now that marriage is not their only option.
But I also realize that I’m mostly impressed by Aziz’s feminism because it’s so rare in a guy. I give him extra credit because he is a man. And that makes me sad.
Women have been making noise about issues like safety and inequality in the workplace for far longer than Aziz. While Master of None presents women’s experiences as a revelation to the main character, Dev, who basically gets feminism mansplained to him by his girlfriend, female comedians have made the same point in much subtler ways recently. Earlier this year, Inside Amy Schumer featured a spooof of Friday Night Lights where the new Coach (Josh Charles) introduces a "no rape" policy. Schumer manages to highlight the prevalence of sexual assault while avoiding a lecture.
Similarly, Mindy Kaling's commentary occasionally takes feminism to the next level. In a recent episode of The Mindy Project, Mindy's (spoiler alert) live-in fiance/ baby-daddy Danny doesn't want her to go back to San Francisco to start a fertility clinic; he wants her to stay in New York, stop working, and take care of their child. As Kaling told Cosmopolitan, "It's the 20th century, Danny. A woman can work and have a baby with no problem. I mean, rich women can." A joke about gender and class?! That's what we call intersectionality.
It makes me sad that even as women comedians tell more sophisticated feminist jokes than their male counterparts, the men seem to reach a wider audience. The difference between Aziz and female comedians was stark at the Oddball Comedy Fest, where I saw him headline over the summer. Aziz came on right after Amy Schumer, and basically made the same joke. The joke was that women get the short end of the stick during unprotected sex because -- as Amy put it--they have to "cross their legs all the way to the toilet," and---as Aziz put it-- "stuff is leaking out of them for days." Same concept, but the audience distinctively cringed at Amy's version, and laughed warmly at Aziz's. When I heard Aziz's delivery, I too was impressed that a man was finally getting it.
Though Mindy and Amy are like Contemporary Theories of Gender and Sexuality 325 while Aziz is like Introduction to Women's Studies 101, at the end of the day you can't get to the advanced classes until you've passed the prereqs. So though I'm chagrined at my own eagerness to embrace Aziz as a feminist figure, I look forward to his continued education in feminism.