Krish Mohan sees it as a positive sign that only one person has ever threatened to shoot him during one of his stand-up comedy performances.
“I don’t think he was paying attention a whole lot,” Mohan says. “I made some statements on my stance with guns essentially being tools for killing things. He disagreed and threatened to shoot me in order to prove me wrong. I felt like that wasn’t really helping his argument.”
Mohan likes to address potentially controversial social topics in his comedy, so he’s prepared for audience members to disagree with him, just not necessarily with such force.
“It’s rare that we see a major outburst like that,” he says. “I’ll hear some stuff after the show. People tell me they didn’t particularly care for what I did. Then they’re on their way. Or I’ll have the venue call me and tell me that ‘x’ amount of people thought I was too political. Or, it wasn’t funny because I wasn’t giving them a form of escapism. Escapism is fine; I just don’t think it helps in solving any of the problems that we’re trying to actually escape.”
Mohan and fellow comedian Andrew Frank recently embarked on their “Anti-Imperialism Nationwide Comedy Takeover,” which will stop at LiterBoard in Knoxville on Jan. 25. They hope that a thoughtful, comedic approach to subjects like war, religion, race and class will inspire conversations to help people understand each other in a positive light.
The two joined forces after mutual friends suggested they work together. Mohan seeks to deliver his quirky, intelligent brand of humor with an optimistic philosophical twist. Frank also likes to dive into the humorous side of philosophy, language and sciences. They channel these interests through the spectrum of topics, and make sure they strike the proper balance of being informative and being funny.
“You do have to learn about some of the stuff you want to talk about,” Mohan says. “I’ll go do research about it, learn about it, and then bring it up on stage and work through to find out whether it’s funny or just a depressing old fact.”
“A lot of other comics take the approach of telling stories of life and their own experiences,” Frank says. “So, in a way, they’re researching through their daily experience.”
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The two comedians’ personal life experiences do inform their topical humor.
“I was raised very religious; my father is a pastor,” Frank says. “So, analyzing belief systems — the influence of religion on societies historically — that’s really interesting to me. I like talking about the anthropic perspective, like how humans view other organisms. The hubris of humanity, I like talking about that.”
He also often discusses American perceptions about war.
“It’s a very difficult thing to talk about,” Frank says. “I want to arrive at as nuanced and complex and informed and empathetic of a perspective as I can on that topic. But, yeah, I like addressing the biggest problems facing humanity. So, whether it’s an environmental collapse, whether it’s our own greed and consumption of resources, and accelerating the process of wealth inequality, that sort of thing. I think those things are important to talk about. And they’re funny, too.”
Mohan was born in Bombay, India, and moved to the United States with his family when he was 8 years old.
“A lot of my perspective is informed through that,” he says. “Stuff that I thought was normal turned out to be completely the opposite. It was sort of alien when I first moved here. I’m interested in the way we behave, why we behave that way, the psychological aspects behind it. Right now, the show I’m working on is based on divide, and why we’re so divided.”
Ultimately, they hope their show helps narrow such a divide.
“I try to come from a place of love, a place of empathy and a place where I want to encourage critical thinking and the intellectual pursuit,” Frank says. “I think when you treat people with respect, wherever you are, people positively respond to it.”
“Even if you disagree with what I say, at least you can understand where I’m coming from,” Mohan says. “I’m not saying that if you don’t believe what I believe, then you’re dumb. That’s not it at all. If we differ in what we believe, and there’s a reason for what you believe, I want to be educated about that. That's just more information, and there might be something funny in those differences.”
If you go
The "Anti-Imperialism Nationwide Comedy Takeover" with comedians Krish Mohan and Andrew Frank
8 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 25
LiterBoard, 1848 Cumberland Ave.
$5 suggested donation