The Accidental Activist

Colorado Premiere
Writer, comedian and actor Aasif Mandvi got bit parts on TV for years before landing on the Daily Show as the program’s “first brown guy.” That’s when he realized the power of comedy as a tool to inform, influence and shape political dialogue. Since the 2016 election, the rise in anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant rhetoric has galvanized Mandvi to use comedy and activism more and more as a salve for today’s fractured society. “I’m not an activist by nature, I’m an artist,” he says. “But I think that there is a time when those two things merge and I can use my art as a tool.”