Between movies, touring, and now creating his own streaming series, Mo Amer’s plate has been hella full for the better part of the past two years.
That’s not exactly a bad thing in his mind though, as Amer finds the bustling schedule to be a “welcomed distraction” as his latest special, Mohammed In Texas premiered on Netflix at the end of November. Regardless of how nerve-wracking the process of putting a special together and laying it all out there for everyone to see may be, though, Amer is more than excited to see it out in the world as other projects continue to stack up and represent the fruits of his grueling labor over the last few years.
“I put my heart and soul into this, and I worked my ass off getting it together while juggling a few different projects, and I’m very proud of this special,”Amer tells Vanyaland. “I’m over the moon. Now that I’m working on the series, it’s just been very rewarding to have one thing after another, so I’m just excited to see it [out there].”
Throughout the new hour, Amer pulls from a number of topics to fill the time, including the first ten minutes of the special where he delves other ways the pandemic affected him, from his divorce to the general panic and confusion that is all too relatable at this point. While that was a big inspiration for the way he sculpted the hour, Amer also digs deep into the differences in cultures between the Middle East and the Western world, specifically the detailed differences in our languages and how the sacred culinary construction of hummus has been negatively altered.
Beyond that, Amer finds an extra special meaning in being able to shoot the special around the area where he grew up in Houston, and to deliver a message that he’s wanted to share since he started crafting the hour together.
“It was great that I got to shoot this in Houston, because it’s somewhere I’ve wanted to shoot a special my whole life, and I wanted to show my appreciation for the city, but it’s also about getting rid of those stereotypes when it comes to people thinking that just because my name is Mohammed and I’m living in Texas, that it must be hard,” says Amer. “It’s just frustrating to keep hearing all of this, and I think it’s all about keeping us divided from uniting and being a unified society. At least I can share an experience that is real and honest and unifying, because I am just so tired of what has unfolded specifically over the last eighteen months or so, and it was just really important to me to talk about that.”
Sure, he’s going to miss some of the bits that stood out in this hour (specifically the hummus material, as he considers it his deepest frustration in the world), but just as his first special, The Vagabond, was supposed to be an introduction to who he was, this special represents who he is and hopefully what he grow to be, both as a comedian and as a person. And at the end of the day, he’s just feeling good about being able to really get into what makes Mohammed, well, Mohammed.
“The Vagabond was always intended to be an introduction, and it’s just a very different performance from Mohammed In Texas, and you can tell how it shows my growth as both a comedian and who I am as a person,” says Amer. “The Vagabond was always supposed to be an intro, and I’m tired of explaining what I do and where I come from. All those things are answered in The Vagabond, and to get the chance to just be a free stand-up in this one is something I’ve been looking forward to my whole life. It was therapeutic to share that introduction, and to see how many people relate to it, and it feels good, but I just really wanted to start getting into me.”