Munya Chawawa on making jokes as the world collapses

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:08Today, the art of making you laugh in the age of the algorithm.

0:20Hey guys, come with me to survive the apocalyptic hellscape of Britain after the local elections. I start each day disappointed to find that... Munya Chawawa. Even if you don't know his name, you will almost certainly have seen one of his skits. He's the guy on your feeds who will take a nostalgic chart banger and turn it into a political parody. Now on to meditation. To achieve the perfect om, I imagine I'm a reform councillor being asked to name one policy other than immigration.

0:51He first blew up in the pandemic, rinsing the health secretary.

1:06The Prime Minister. The sheer absurdity of living through lockdown.

1:31Since then, he's racked up more than a billion views. He's appeared on Celebrity Bake Off and Taskmaster. I mean, look, it's a little moist, but it's more dry than moist. So I think that is done. It is raw. I can do better next round. Let's shake on it. Made documentaries on Kim Jong-un and Robert Mugabe, all the while putting a very modern twist on the hoary old tradition of political satire.

1:56But as the news moves faster and our reality becomes weirder, how do you find the funny? From The Guardian, I'm Nashi Nikbal. Today in Focus, Munya Chihuahua on making jokes in a perma crisis.

2:16Munya Chihuahua, welcome to Today in Focus. Thank you for having me. Now, you're a comedian and satirist who bypassed traditional comedy routes and you just went viral on social media instead. Given the news cycle, which is, of course, relentlessly bonkers, do you feel spoiled for choice in terms of subjects to take aim out or do you find it bewildering? It's a great question because it's changed so quickly. In lockdown, especially the news cycle felt pretty intense, but it was like one big story, one big announcement a week. And you would drive all your resource to kind of skewering that. Now it's just crazy.

2:53I mean, it's the way the algorithms are programmed as well, which is to just constantly make us feel like we're behind. Constantly make us feel like we don't know it all. And the only security for being in the know, which, of course, is the currency of conversation, is to stay online, is to be chronically online. now there's almost too much to play with as satirists or at least for me it forces me to be more selective i was at the the brits and this lady grabbed me and she was like you should be writing a parody right now about the iran war which really uh yeah i mean that that killed that killed my desire to be on the dance floor i was like okay i should be working

3:42if you said that it's gone completely crazy what point do you think the news has tipped for you where it is now just beyond your processing power? Well, sometimes my worry is that the total sort of onslaught and constant barrage of news actually doesn't allow us to really form a thought. You're constantly sort of just dipping your toes in the water of a story and then forgetting about it. I would say that this is why actually I started to pivot to long form. My videos are sort of like marathons comparative to what we're told to make. So they're like 90 seconds minimum, which is like... I was going to say, I mean, I thought they were still short.

4:22Is he making seven minute films now? 90 seconds is like a Scorsese movie in Instagram terms. 90 seconds is a long time. Like being able to skewer the Iran war in a way that makes people feel seen and makes people feel like you've hit the key beats and you've been sensitive enough. You know, 90 seconds, I kind of need that time. What's been your biggest video? And consequently, which is your own personal favourite? Hands up for Get Ready With Suela. It just cracks me up. Every time I watch it, I still giggle. Hey guys, this is a day in the life with me, Suella Barberman. So I wake up each day at about 8.30 and do some yoga.

4:55Here's me doing the f*** the poor child's pose. Then I have a quick FaceTime with Satan just for some early morning motivation before making a steaming cup of atrocity. It's a special blend made from 100 % immigrant tears. I was like, I wonder what it would be like if one of the sort of seemingly most malicious, malevolent politicians did something as innocuous as a get ready with me. That's how you end up capturing different audiences because you've got all the young TikTok users who are like, oh my God, I recognise the format. Then you've got everyone who's been feeling quite left out in the cold by Soella and then they meet in the middle.

5:26That combination is so exciting to me. Can I just, was it a conscious decision to not wear a wig and put a t-shirt on your head? Because that is one of the most funniest parts of it. It's just like... Look, you know what? Sometimes the wigs just don't arrive in time.

5:47I mean, your videos have now had over 1 billion views. And there's also so many people making political comedy on social media now. Why do you think it is that satire is booming? Well, satire ultimately is its own form of accountability. There's a really great quote, which I will probably now butcher. Comedy is a rubber sword because it has a point, but it doesn't draw blood. so obviously in in britain is quite a western culture is very individualistic so the narrative is always oh are you worried about this person this person's doing better than you this person's doing uh you know has more followers more views but in satire that's a great thing because ultimately we're providing more jump off points for conversation discussion accountability so i'm really pleased to see everything from you know you'll have tiktokers who do like news roundups Scottish swearing news, we've got local elections today and I'll tell you what, you ask me to name my favourite politician right now it'd be easier to name my favourite member of fucking Jedward You'll have other main status who do real long-form explainers of things So you don't know whether the British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will be forced to resign but you don't want to look like a thicky thicky dum-dum in front of all your mates Here's a quick rundown before you become the human equivalent of lemon and herb seasoning with a smattering of nuclear waste as well That is fantastic because so long as there's a discourse between all of us we can speak truth to power we can hold power to account would you say that your audience was already quite politically engaged or do you think you've brought politics to a new audience i mean that would be an amazing privilege if that has happened and you know to a degree there's evidence of that like i will constantly be stopped and messaged by people who will say like i care about politics now or you know this is how i get my news or you've you've put it to me in a way that i can digest.

7:38I remember once I got messaged by this guy and he said, you know, I'm from a very, very posh background. You know, I'm talking, we host cheese and wine nights with the boys, but I will take your videos into those, you know, highly sophisticated evenings of debauchery. And as, you know, an upper class white man, it's a conduit through which I can discuss with other men of that demographic, things that they may not have thought of or things that they sort of, you know, pushed by the wayside. And that's great. Although you didn't come up like many traditional comics through the stand-up circuit, I can't necessarily imagine that online audiences are any less brutal, if not more so, because you've got the, you know, the benefit of anonymity.

8:20What is it like being so big online? And how do you deal with the criticism that comes with it? You know, politics now, as we know it, often relies on us being very thoughtless, so that you can be fed a narrative or, you know, culture wars can be opposed onto you and you just go, yeah, that's right. Without actually, you know, taking time to think, do I agree with that? Do I disagree with that? I've met people before who, for example, disagree with some of the stuff I said, but will be like, well, thank you for bringing it up. And that's great. And I think, I don't, you know, I'm not a trained satirist by any means, but from my definition, it's kind of like, I don't know if you're really there to be liked.

8:58You're there actually just to hold up a a mirror and ask society, do we like this bit of ourselves? And if not, what are we going to do about it?

9:15We now have Donald Trump Mark II in the White House, a president that seems beyond parody. You've made a documentary about him exploring his relationship with, check my notes, the world of wrestling. What do you think of the theory that pro wrestling might have influenced Trump? Everything he does is the psychology of pro wrestling. Can you tell me about it? All right. The documentary is a thesis which proposes what if Donald Trump, one of the most powerful leaders in the world, maybe the most powerful, has based his entire political blueprint on WWE wrestling, professional wrestling, as in the oiled up, budgie smuggler wearing superstars?

9:57What if that is source material for a president? And if you watch wrestling or if you've ever watched wrestling, when you really squint and take a look, the parallels are undeniable. People think of it as people just dropping elbows and power drivers, but the WWE was notorious for weaving these really emotive storylines that kind of really throttled all of our kind of most venomous emotions. Right. And if you look at some of the dramatic devices that wrestling uses to do that, they're very intelligent. Right. So first of all, you have stuff like the smack talk. Everyone I know can quote The Rock's catchphrases.

10:33You know, shut your mouth and know your role. Take this, turn it sideways, stick it up your candy ass. The Rock is going to go out there tonight and do what he does best. And let's lay the smack down on your Rudy Pooh. Then you have stuff like The Foreign Hill, which was creating these villains who really just embodied the stereotype of all these foreign nationalities. You know, during the Cold War, all the villains were these Soviet Russians. Right. Post 9-11, it was Muhammad Hassan who was carrying out like, you know, martyrs rituals during matches. You had an Iranian-American villain back in the day who got square off against Hulk Hogan called The Iron Sheik, whose finishing move was called The Camel Clutch.

11:19In the arenas, what would happen is foreign heels would come out as you'd have thousands of people and then hundreds and thousands of people watching at home screaming, USA, USA. That's how you dialed up the patriotism to the max. Right. And then, of course, the kayfabe. You know how people say wrestling's fake? Yes. To a degree that's true, but we would describe it as kayfabe, which is the idea that in wrestling you see these storylines which almost push you to the edge of plausibility. But as an audience member, I'm happy to suspend my disbelief because it's just more fun that way. And so when you now step back and if I said to you, can you think of examples of all those three things in Trump's presidency?

11:56Smack talk, sleepy Joe Biden, crooked Hillary. Sleepy Joe. Sleepy Joe Biden. Sleepy person. Do we have foreign heels? Well, apparently Mexicans are rapists. Haitians are eating the cats and dogs. They're eating the dogs, the people that came in. They're eating the cats. They're eating the pets of the people that live there. That sounds pretty foreign-heely to me. And then with regards to kayfabe, how many times have we seen Trump say something which hasn't materialized and has sounded ludicrous to begin with? I will have the horrible war between Russia and Ukraine totally settled. I'll have it done in 24 hours.

12:35We have a plan, because of the power of our military, where every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12 o 'clock tomorrow night. When it doesn't materialise, he's like, well, hang on, I was only, you know, you can't take anything he says seriously. That is wrestling one-on-one.

12:57Coming up, can political satire bring together a divided Britain?

13:17I'm Kai Wright. I'm Kari Sherman. And we are here to tell you about our new show, which is rooted in this feeling that at least I have, I know you have, where, you know, it's kind of like when you wake up in the morning and you pick up your phone and you're just hit in the face with a fire hose of news. right? There's war, there's authoritarianism, our planet is burning. I could go on and on and on. And on and on and on. But like we're trying to figure out how to manage it, right? Like how do you manage it? I manage it by leaning in and trying to learn more and trying to figure out, okay, how can I be smarter about this particular topic?

13:54And who can I talk to that's going to make me feel better about it? And who can tell me who's responsible for the mess that I'm reading about? So that's our mission. That's the show. Welcome to Stateside with Kai and Carter. We're a new show from The Guardian. We're talking to big thinkers and the best journalists, just trying to understand the world through smart conversation and honest reporting. We don't have billionaires telling us what to say. Stateside with Kyan Carter is out now every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Follow on Apple Podcasts or catch us wherever you watch or listen.

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15:06so minyat you were born in derby but you spent a period of your childhood living in zimbabwe before returning to the uk how has that impacted how you see politics what lens does it give you when we used to drive past uh mugabe's complex or whatever it wherever it was that he lived that i remember as a kid we were told in the car just look down like don't don't look at the at the complex because there were armed guards there and um it was very fear-driven that's what my recollection is even to the point where when the president and his and his uh convoy would travel all of the cars would have to part like the red sea either side of the road it didn't matter what situation you were in and you know we had family friends who were maybe listening to kiss fm or whatever the zimbabwe equivalent was too too loudly not to hear the sirens right and then you'd be stuck up at gunpoint why didn't you stop for the president so to move to england which you know for all we say that's bad about it has a very active democracy you know we have local elections we have big elections you can critique a politician on social media that's a privilege i'm i'm very grateful to exercise because had i stayed in zimbabwe i don't know what would have happened to me if i'd if i'd taken the same career path in zimbabwe i mean if you'd done one mcgabi video No, we wouldn't be talking.

16:27That would have been a wrap. I mean, to be honest, I think I'm currently banned from Zimbabwe and North Korea, which ruins any future stag do, doesn't it? How do you feel about making comedy now when the conversation around immigrants, class, race in this country has notched up crazy levels? How do you process, filter, and then make fun of that? Yeah, I mean, look, the feeling of venom at the moment is very different from what it was in lockdown. In lockdown, it was a very different period because it felt like we as the people were all frustrated at a higher entity, which was the government. We were punching up.

17:13you know i've i've mentioned this term of the foreign heel right which is a foreign villain that encapsulates your worst fears about people i do believe that is something that has bled from you know wrestling not just into u.s politics but to a degree into here as well because it makes things so simple basically the simplest things are binary it's either good or evil it's either right or wrong right and it's so easy just to take something as nuanced as immigration and to to say listen I'll give it to you straight we're good they're bad but it's not like that you know the complex issues fall along the spectrum and so um does it feel like Nigel Farage is operating on a spectrum though does it no but that's not that's not how you operate as a populist and you know I've tried to say this in the past which is populism is a is a really exciting shiny new thing that's how it looks on the surface but the actual mechanics of it are so dangerous because this is like if I was sat here in a different multiverse and I said I would like to be PM and as prime minister these are my promises to you right here I'm going to make sure everyone in A &E gets seen within 30 seconds of arriving I'm going to make sure that every family gets like a 10 ,000 pound bonus at the end of every year just to say thank you and I'm going to make it so everyone has like a six bedroom house though I guarantee you I'm going to do that as prime minister and it's just such a shame that I'm so far away from being prime minister I'll never actually be able to do those things it doesn't it suck you know i can say whatever i want because my proximity to that role is so far away it's not the case with him though well with nigel frog yes but for a long time it was the case which was his proximity to the role of pm was so far of course you can say what everyone wants to hear because the opportunity for them to falsify you on those things is near impossible right but now as we've crept closer to elections i mean they're three years away but but that gap is narrowing it's narrowing but even then it becomes dangerous because if uh faraj gets into power and suddenly all these promises and and pledges and you know uh means of raising money and sort of kicking out immigrants if there are still problems right what you do is you double down on what the problem is as opposed to the fact that you have failed in your solutions so it becomes okay like all the immigrants are gone now but did you know that this group are actually a real drain on society we should probably get rid of this group of people you have to continually create enemies in order to maintain popularity when the things that have made you aren't working how does watching him on tv or wherever like how do you feel what's your sort of visceral gut feeling now given everything you've said about where it started to where it's Hopefully not ending.

19:54Right. Well, when I, you know, when I watch Trump or Farage, you know, I see populism at play. And that's what makes me sort of dig deeper into the mechanics of why is this working on people? And, you know, I do think it's because, you know, life has become very hard for very many. And as I mentioned, when that is the feeling, you just want to make it stop. You just want a simple answer. And so anyone waving a simple answer saying, I got the solution here, becomes the most appealing prospect. And it's just like a very dangerous way to think. And also what I like least about Farage is sort of how he has turned people against each other.

20:36Because the thing we're forgetting is if everything goes to pot in Westminster, like we the people, we're the ones who can fight it. We're more than them. but in order to fight something terrible from happening god forbid if we ever were encroaching upon a dictatorship we would be the ones who would have to to stand up and unite but the more and more we divide the less likely that is in future when we really need to to be together you know um so much of the change that happened in lockdown and the people that got fired and the baddies that lost is because we as the people were really discontent and dissatisfied with what we were seeing and we made it loud and collectively heard that we want change and we saw change so our biggest weapon as the people is our unity and for me Faraj poses a big threat to that

21:33putting Faraj aside for a minute you have actually tried to make grassroots change and do these positive unifying things. And I am thinking specifically about Black Boy Theatre Club. Why did you start it? Theatre's like the only place that you can go and actually experience human emotion in full flavour, in 4K. As a man of colour, you know, someone with a black dad as well, like a black Zimbabwean dad, that's something I didn't see from him. You know, I've never seen my dad cry. I've never seen him. Really, the only emotions I've seen are sort of like furious or kind of quite, you know, quite reserved.

22:09Those are like the, that's the emotional spectrum I had to work with. And then when I began going to theatre, theatre might be in the first place I actually saw a black man cry. Right. You know, or upset or elated, jubilant. And so a combination of those experiences and then also, you know, going to the theatre and looking around and being like, bloody hell, I think I'm the only one here. Like, am I allowed to be here? made me want to start the initiative, which was to get young black boys into the theatre. How many boys are you taking on these trips? So we did on the launch year, I think we've done 150 students.

22:45So we'll do like 15 to 20 boys. We'll go to Nando's afterwards, phones go in a box and then we'll discuss the trip. Most recently, we went to watch One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest with Aaron Pierre. And that was a fantastic example of a play that was so important for them to see, because in this interpretation, it was a mainly all black ensemble. And so you're watching these, you know, black men with really, really battling against these sort of mental illnesses. Black men and mental illnesses is something that we're very desensitized to, especially here in London. And we had a Q &A with them afterwards.

23:18And then we got to discuss some of that stuff. And I just think I just thought to myself, like, I wonder how many other young black 15 year old boys would ever have a conversation with grown black men about mental health. Hopefully many. But if that's the only one, what a great conversation to have. What a great place to have it in the old Vic, you know?

23:45Thinking about what Chris Morris, you know, legend that is. Now, he argues that there's no point in satire if it's placating the core, which in other words means, you know, don't bother if you're keeping the establishment giggling and you're not really challenging it. the other point for him is that it should it should try to change something now others rena hyde from the guardian she would say that satire never changes anything but we need jokes as comfort in hard times and times right now are hard almost beyond parody and difficult to comprehend what's your view i think it's both of those things because the reality is sometimes i think of saying this and i don't think i've ever said it out loud maybe this will be my weird slogan i'll get tattooed on my low back it's like if one of my videos hasn't made you laugh hopefully it's made you smile and if it hasn't made you smile hopefully it's made you think i think laughter and uh being able to think about something and discuss something are two of the best weapons we have against an increasingly darkening miserable misinformed world and so if the videos include either both or one of those elements, to me it will always be worth doing.

24:59I don't know if there's anything left to be said. Munya, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for having me. That was Munya Chihuahua. My thanks to him. You can watch his documentary, Wrestling With Trump, on 4OD now. It is very funny and very smart, so I do recommend that you do. And that's it for today. This episode was presented by me, Noshin Iqbal. It was produced by Eleanor Biggs. Sound design is by Ross Burns. The executive producer was Huma Halili. We'll be back later this afternoon with the latest.

25:36This is The Guardian.