Bassem Youssef: Egypt's Jon Stewart
The studio lights come up, illuminating a stenciled graffiti panda behind the anchor chair, and the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, bounds onto the stage. The onetime candidate for Egypt’s presidency seems to have buffed up and grown taller, while the eyes behind his familiar tortoiseshell frames are today an unexpected blue. Stagehands stand around giggling and snapping photographs as the impostor is revealed; his laugh is unmistakable, loud, high, and infectious. ElBaradei is in fact television host Bassem Youssef in makeup and a bald cap. He quickly hushes the chuckles, adjusts his lapel microphone, sits down, and addresses camera two in ElBaradei’s quiet, measured tone.
It’s the fifth of seven impersonations Youssef has done during a 14-hour day of filming for an upcoming episode of his TV show. For a man who claims to be new to the art of mimicry, he seems to be doing a pretty good job. His take on a Salafi presidential candidate is sufficiently bearded and intense, while the arrogance and evasiveness of a former Hosni Mubarak lackey is uncannily accurate. The camera operators regularly snort in recognition.
In the past year, this 38-year-old cardiothoracic surgeon with his brand of aggressively sarcastic and quirky humor has become the runaway success of the new Egyptian media landscape. What started as a handful of YouTube webisodes following Mubarak’s ouster has, tens of millions of views later, turned into a fresh kind of programming for the Middle East’s largest TV market. His show, Al Bernameg (The Program), now appears thrice weekly on Egyptian satellite broadcaster ONtv. By next season, he hopes it will run five nights a week.
“In Egypt and the Arab world in general,” Youssef explains from the makeup artist’s chair between takes, “you had these really serious talk shows, or the slapstick, farce, ha-ha stuff. I can’t be placed in either category.” He looks down at one of two cell phones and ignores an incoming call before continuing. “Our aim is to inform but also to entertain people.”
That mission statement could well belong to Jon Stewart, and Youssef clearly enjoys the comparison. “I love the guy,” he says of The Daily Show‘s host. “And I always dreamed of actually having his kind of model in Egypt.” Youssef has even picked up some of Stewart’s comedic tics, including the mug of mock befuddlement in response to clips of talk show blowhards.
Youssef’s take on the country’s twisted politics has become a water cooler fixture for Egypt’s latest generation of cynics. “Right now people wait for the show to listen to our opinion, and that’s very important,” he explains. “But I hope next year they can actually wait for our show to listen to the news,” if—as is planned—the show broadcasts live.
According to Hani Sabra, an Egypt analyst at the political research firm Eurasia Group, Youssef’s ambitions go hand in hand with his hard-charging approach. “I think what he does right now, it’s quite daring,” Sabra says from New York. “He mocks the military leadership of Egypt, he mocks all the politicians, and I think that this was not something that was tolerated under the Mubarak era.”
Although Youssef’s broadcast has proved hugely popular among the country’s younger viewers—he estimates most of his audience is under the age of 30—it has its share of critics. “Even my mum has turned against me,” he says. “She thinks what I’m doing makes people more angry, though partly she’s scared because she’s seen media people targeted.”
He says his host network, ONtv—owned by Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris—backs him all the way. Despite receiving several far more lucrative offers from around the Gulf since his online show took off last year, he and his executive producer did not hesitate in their choice of satellite network ONtv for their first season. “I fit in perfectly,” Youssef says. “It’s the only channel that’s been consistent with its politics, that’s been for the revolution since Day One.”