Making her Edinburgh Fringe debut with Toxically Optimistic, it’s hard to refute that Zainab Johnson has Pollyannaish tendencies. “I’m constantly seeking positivity,” the Los Angeles-based stand-up confirms. “I’m like a beauty pageant girl wishing for world peace, Inshallah.”
Nevertheless, she’s hardly oblivious to the state of the world. Speaking from her home office, where she’s about to record her weekly live discussion podcast, I’m Reasonable, about the ICE raids on undocumented immigrants in her city, the Muslim comedian tells me that she “wasn’t surprised at all” by President Trump’s recent travel ban on predominantly Muslim countries. Because she was performing material about it prior to his second election.
“He has very specific targets that are always in line with his prejudices, sexism, racism and xenophobia,” she shrugs. “This is his playbook.” Performing in Toronto as recently as April, she found herself “limiting” her topical material.
“I really wanted to get up and talk about him. But as a black, American comedian, and also as a very vocal, out and proud Muslim comedian, I had to be careful. Obviously, it’s against the constitution for them to be detaining American citizens or those with active visas [coming home]. But he’s clearly not following that. I haven’t had any trouble yet. I don’t believe I will have any trouble. But at times I’m feeling a bit more cautious.”
Despite her easy charisma and relaxed warmth on stage, Johnson’s 2023, identity-based debut special Hijabs Off tackled Islamophobia in the wake of 9/11, disapproval from the “Haram police” and her childhood abduction by a suspected paedophile. Yet although Toxically Optimistic features stories of her dating life and an encounter with an opossum, that doesn’t mean it’s more frivolous.
“Yeah, the content is different but it’s supposed to be,” she maintains. “This hour is very serious. I’m talking about death, I’m talking about fear, I’m talking about empathy. Besides, I’ll always be a black, Muslim woman that grew up in Harlem, New York, that has 12 siblings from the same parents.”
A key routine in her show focuses on “how I’m trying to be a better gun owner, trying to do the absolute best with what I believe to be the absolute worst.” Most comics’ firearms material is “highly political”. But “what sets my bit apart is that it’s a bit more emotional than usual”.
As a single woman living alone, she bought the weapon “because a friend was concerned about my safety. Yet the moment he suggested it, the irony was that I felt more fearful than I had in a long time.
“With Hijabs Off and anything I do in the future, the one thing that will exist in all of my hours is that it will come from a very human, emotional place.”
Johnson is “thrilled” whenever she attracts a “positive reaction for proudly expressing my faith”. Representing an under-represented demographic “can be very difficult and I’m not surprised that it’s appreciated. I don’t know any terrorists. But I do know a lot of Muslim girls [who] are glad that I’m able to tell something closer to a version of their story to the world.”
An actor in the Amazon Prime sci-fi comedy Upload, and with aspirations to host her own talk show, Johnson jokes that she’s practically wielding the “infinity glove of diversity” as far as the entertainment industry is concerned. But while she’s also technically disabled, having limited mobility in her ankle, after both her legs were broken by a drunken truck driver when she was 17, she no longer publicly identifies as impaired.
“I wake up and run five miles every day,” she affirms. “I don’t need another ‘thing’ over mediocre white guys right now.”
Zainab Johnson: Toxically Optimistic, Pleasance Courtyard, 30 Jul-24 Aug, 6.40pm