Rambod Javan’s revolutionary goal of happiness

TEHRAN, Iran — Filled with cheerful music and raucous applause, “Khandevaneh,” hosted by upbeat, wide-smiling and fashionably dressed Rambod Javan, is the first Iranian talk show since the Islamic Revolution that encourages everyone — men and women — to not just laugh but to laugh out loud. To laugh uproariously. “Let’s get our [daily dose of] laughter," Javan said during a recent taping. "Ready! Breathe." The audience took three collective deep breaths. On the third exhale they laughed, as instructed, for a full 25 seconds.

The giddy, feel-good approach has won over many unexpected fans in a society where unrestrained laughter is frowned on.

“If I as a woman laugh on the street, I’ll get strange looks from people,” said Behnaz Sheivary, a fan of the show who lives in Tehran. “In a culture that says a woman shouldn’t laugh out loud, Khandevaneh encourages women to laugh. It tries to teach people not to glare at women who laugh in public.”

Khandevaneh — a blend of khandeh (laughter) and hendevaneh (watermelon), with the show’s logo a watermelon slice that looks like smile — is broadcast nightly after 10 p.m. on Nasim, Iranian state TV. Its second season ended Oct. 13, with a new season scheduled to premiere this winter.

“The state TV says we have 25 million confirmed viewers,” said Javan, who not only hosts but directs the show, “but I think the actual number is higher.” Javan now has more that 1.4 million followers on Instagram while the show’s popular fictional Jenab Khan personality, a purple Muppet-like character with a heavy regional southern accent, has more than 615,000 followers.

Javan, an actor and director most known for his comedic work, said he first conceived an Iranian TV show about laughter 13 years ago.

“I felt the need for happiness in the society and myself,” he said, speaking to Al Jazeera via Skype. “We have a turbulent past. Over the past three decades our country has always been caught in some sort of a crisis; the [Iran-Iraq] eight-year war, economic problems and sanctions and social issues.  We constantly hear statements about ‘enemies’ and ‘repressors.’ All this makes a nation sad and depressed.”

To conceptualize the show, Javan said his team compiled, translated and studied hundreds of international research papers on laughter. In 2007 he proposed the program to Iran's state television, but the management said they lacked the funding to back the show. Khandevaneh finally premiered on June 9, 2014. Now a team of more than 100 people work on the show.

Javan’s style, rolling up the sleeves of his patterned dress shirts, differs markedly from other Iranian TV hosts, who prefer conservative dark suits. During interviews, both he and the puppet have a casual, disarming rapport with guests, even stodgy political and military figures.

“His style of speech is like us,” said Sheivary. “Other TV hosts speak formally reciting phrases like, ‘In the name of God and with respect to the Prophet Muhammad and all the martyrs,’ but Rambod has gotten rid of all these formalities. He is himself.”

In his interview with Mohammad Rouyanian, the former senior commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Javan asked Rouyanian to call his mother and put her on speaker phone so she could tell the audience about Rouyanian’s childhood. When Gholam Ali Haddad Adel, an advisor and confidant of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, was on the show, the puppet joked with him and sang cheerfully. Haddad clapped along with the audience to the songs.

“It sounds silly, but people like to see Haddad Adel clapping, laughing and playing,” said Marzieh, a graphic designer in Isfahan, who asked to be referred to by her first name only. “In this program a serious public figure is portrayed as a normal person. Famous figures who seem serious and unreachable to the public are seen playing darts.”

Hossein Ghazian, a sociologist in Washington, D.C., and former adviser to Iran’s ex-president Mohammad Khatami, said Khandevaneh is a successful program because it playfully examines and critiques societal issues without crossing the line. Javan pokes fun at society for being hard-edged and indifferent, often relying on Jenab Khan to sing, dance, joke about president Hassan Rouhani, or criticize the government for not tackling air pollution in southern provinces.

“Being a puppet he can say and do things that an actual human can’t do,” said Ghazian. “So he joshes and taunts on behalf of the rebellious society.”

During season two, the program launched a stand-up comedy competition — a first for Iranian TV — featuring 14 men and two women. Each week four comedians and satirists perform their routines and viewers vote for their favorite by text message. Since the competition began millions of texts have poured in. During the season finale, comedian and director Mehran Ghafourian and satirist Amir Mehdi Jouleh were recognized as winners and did a stand-up duet for their final performance.

Stand-up comedy has never been widely practiced in Iran. As a result, not all the competitors were fully versed in the principles of the art, and most simply described funny personal experiences.

“What most of the participants perform is not stand-up comedy,” said Ebrahim Nabavi, an Iranian satirist and standup comic in Irvine, California, who writes for the popular Farsi news website Rooz. “But the fact that now people in Iran talk about stand-up comedy is a good thing.”

Nabavi also notes that the comedians are very limited in how far they can push boundaries. “The performers try not to get even close to talking about politics. They can’t do it on television,” he said.

Javan is well aware of the criticisms.

“Some say our jokes are very dull, or that we invite politicians to kowtow [to] them,” he said. But he argues that a team professional satirists work on the script, and insists the show’s goal isn’t political, but to make people happy.

Alborz, a viewer in Tehran who also asked to be identified by first name only, said Khandevaneh relies on “extremely basic and low quality” humor to keep its audience indifferent and apolitical. But had it been edgier, he said, it never would have been aired.

“They are not professional and funny enough,” agreed Masoumeh Naseri, an expatriate Iranian journalist living in Washington, D.C. “But I believe now that they have this platform on television, they should work hard. The program could be much improved if it brings in a group of capable satirists.”