Shazia Mirza

Shazia Mirza (2010)

Shazia Mirza (* 3. October 1972 in Birmingham , England ) is an English stand-up - comedian who for her dry sense of humor is known.

Life

Shazia Mirza was born the youngest of four children to an immigrant couple from Pakistan ; she has three brothers. Her parents supported her at school and wished she would become a doctor or a researcher. Shazia went to a girls' school and studied biochemistry . In her comedy, she described her father as a classic macho whose (always boiling, therefore not bombastic) wife always follows him five steps because he looks better from this perspective. For a long time, her program included punchlines on topics such as: the relationship with her family is excellent, the family wants her to marry a Muslim, and they want the parents to finally divorce. She also temporarily excluded encores at the beginning of her stage appearance on the grounds that her father would pick her up immediately after the performance and think she was working in a library.

According to interviews, her parents hesitated for a long time to recognize her calling as a comedian, but are now very proud of her, to which her commercial success and her status as a celebrity have also contributed. Mirza initially worked as a teacher. At the high school, which was in the East End of London , she had the rapper Dizzee Rascal as a student. She was already successful in theater at school and later took acting classes at the Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama in London.

Stand-up comedian and other activities

Shazia Mirza as a comedian

About a year after starting her stand-up comedy career , Mirza gained national fame when she came on stage at the Amused Moose Club in Soho in a hijab after September 11, 2001 and joined them

“My name is Shazia Mirza. At least, that's what it says on my pilot's license. "

“My name is Shazia Mirza. At least that's what it says in my pilot's license. "

- Shazia Mirza

introduced. Afterwards, after Mirza's description, the audience looked at each other in amazement, realized that they thought it was funny, and started laughing after a delay, but then loudly. Mirza was able to work professionally as a comedian and give up her part-time job as a teacher.

In April 2007 she presented F *** Off, I'm a Hairy Woman, a documentary about body hair on BBC3.

Mirza has performed in Kosovo, Germany, Sweden and Holland, as well as in the USA. When she first performed in Germany in 2003, she wasn't sure whether her humor (or humor in general) would get there, but was very surprised at the positive response. Among other things, she challenged the German audience with the words “Oh, come on, join the war. It isn't the same without you. "( Shazia Mirza:, German:" Oh, come on, join the war. Without you, it's not the same. ") To participate in the Iraq war .

The BBC started a documentary on the rise of stand-up comedy in Pakistan (and India) in 2008. This included appearances at the 25th World Performing Arts Festival in Lahore . Mirza also had appearances in Bangalore , Pune , Chennai and Hyderabad and was regularly the first British female comedian ever. The British Council supported their tours.

In connection with Eve Ensler's Royal Albert Hall V Day Event 2002, she performed a self-written monologue. Mirza is recognized as a journalist and has been writing a column under the title A Disappointing Daughter? for The Guardian . In 2006, biweekly comments were added in the New Statesman , where she was named Columnist of the Year in 2008. She is a regular on the Channel 5 talk show The Wright Stuff . Occasionally she is compared to the Norwegian Shabana Rehman Gaarder , who is much more critical of Islam .

In 2009 she was presented to Queen Elizabeth II at a reception for a state visit together with other British British people of Asian origin. She described the experience with the Queen as touching, the Queen was a happy and humorous old lady and very professional in communication, while she pinpointed Prince Philip's behavior with fine tips. He asked the actress Shobna Gulati, who comes from an Indian family, about her origins, and when she replied that she was from Manchester, asked which part of India it was.

resonance

Mirza has gone through some changes during her professional career. At first, she consciously stood on stage as a Muslim and only appeared veiled. At first she was only able to convey her success in the comedy sector with difficulty in the Islamic community as well as in her own family.

Mirza resists being reduced to the brave Muslim woman, whereby she was not spared from hate mail and occasionally even violent attacks by Muslims on British stages. The contradiction between her piercing voice and dryly served punchlines, sometimes hair-raising with sexual connotations, and her appearance in a stereotypical outfit was just as suitable to break up classic prejudices of the audience by conforming to them (at least in part). She shares her experiences with Omid Djalili, among others .

Fazila Bhimji , who teaches film and media studies at the University of Central Lancashire , states that Mirza has the ability to address and bring together a large and very different audience. She embodies cosmopolitan complexity in the best sense of the word. Among other things, she also likes to poke fun at the classic Guardian reader, the British equivalent of Bionade-Biedermeier , and answers the question of how dreams are made in the microwave within three minutes .

Prices

• 2003, one of the 50 funniest comedians in British comedy according to The Observer .
• 2008, Columnist of the year at the PPA Awards for contributions to the New Statesman
• Semi-finalist at Last Comic Standing
• 2010 winner of the AWA The Arts and Culture Award

Web links

Commons : Shazia Mirza  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Mirza's website
• typical appearance

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Index entry. In: FreeBMD. ONS, accessed April 15, 2019 . 
2. ↑ Shazia Mirza: Halal comedy? You might as well ask for halal bacon , The Guardian . April 12, 2010. 
3. ↑ Shazia and Razwan Mirza
4. ↑ Shazia Mirza: What I know about men . In: The Guardian , August 3, 2008. 
5. ↑ ^{a b} Geraldine Bedell: Veiled humor Shazia Mirza was supposed to be a teacher and marry a nice Muslim man - but she prefers the loneliness of the mostly-male comedy circuit. Why? In: The Observer. April 20, 2003.
6. ↑ The Nation-SundayPlus, Pakistan 2008 ( memento of the original from September 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
7. ↑ ^{a b c} Did you hear the one about the suicide bomber? ( Memento of the original from October 7, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 468 kB) In: New York Times Magazine. June 15, 2003, pp. 44-47. 
8. ↑ Time Out London: Shazia Mirza: interview June 17, 2008 TimeOut
9. ↑ Shazia Mirza: Diary of a Disappointing Daughter - Shazia Mirza's weekend column, May 22, 2010, Guardian .
10. ↑ Interview: Shazia Mirza Spoonfed, ( Memento of the original from March 27, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. June 23, 2010. 
11. ↑ Emily Wilson: A Disappointing Daughter? Interview with Acclaimed Comic Shazia Mirza Speaking with the Pakistani-British comedian about her journey from biochemistry to cracking jokes . AlterNet , 10/2011.
12. ↑ Shazia Mirza: No open. In: Financial Times. June 2013.
13. ^ The only think sacred was comedy. ( Memento of the original from October 12, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 99 kB) In: Hindustan Times. Mumbai India, November 2006. 
14. ↑ Expect the shocking truth, says Shazia Mirza. Bangalore 2002.
15. ^ Profiles: Shazia Mirza , The Guardian UK. July 23, 2008. 
16. ↑ Humor in the Islamic World. ( Memento of the original from December 3, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on ZDF, May 1, 2009. 
17. ↑ ^{a b c} Shazia Mirza: Shazia Mirza: A right royal experience 'Meeting the queen is a bit like having a laugh with a friendly old lady at a bus stop In: The Guardian. October 2009.
18. ↑ Mirza alludes to the internal English contrast between London and the Midlands, she herself is from Birmingham , for which the term Brummie is common because of the accent.
19. ^ Sophie Gilliat-Ray : Muslims in Britain. Cambridge University Press, 2010, ISBN 978-0-521-53688-2 , p. 243.
20. ↑ Simon Weaver: The Rhetoric of Racist Humor: US, UK and Global Race Joking. Ashgate Publishing, Farnham 2011, ISBN 978-1-4094-2011-8 .
21. ↑ Peter Morey, Amina Yaqin: Framing Muslims. Harvard University Press, Cambridge 2011, ISBN 978-0-674-04852-2 , pp. 197 ff.
22. ^ J. Palmer: Breaking the Mold: Conversations with Omid Djalili and Shazia Mirza. In: Sharon Lockyer, Michael Pickering (Eds.): Beyond a Joke The Limits of Humor. Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, ISBN 0-230-23677-4 .
23. ^ Fazila Bhimji: British Asian Muslim Women, Multiple Spatialities and Cosmopolitanism. Palgrave Macmillan, New York 2012, ISBN 978-1-137-01387-3 , pp. 90 ff.
24. ↑ Gemma Elwin Harris: The Book of Answers to Questions You would never ask (but your children might). Riemann Verlag, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-570-50151-1 .
25. ^ The AZ of laughter (part two). In: The Guardian. December 7, 2003.