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The Tufts Daily
Where you read it first | Thursday, March 28, 2024

Spotlight: Jehan Madhani

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Jehan Madhani is a dual-degree student studying animation at the SMFA and majoring in English at Tufts.

Jehan Madhani, a dual-degree student studying animation at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA) and majoring in English with a minor in Communication and Media Studies, developed a passion for both comedy and animation at a young age. She grew up watching Saturday Night Live every week and was a big fan of Pixar and Disney movies, some of which blended the two genres. She regards these as some of her biggest creative influences; although as an illustrator, she prefers 2-D animation to the kind of computer animation Pixar specializes in. She credits the SMFA program with expanding her horizons of what 2-D animation could be.

“SMFA introduced me to the world of independent animation, where independent artists and small studios are making short films and they’re typically using more traditional methods and telling really beautiful stories that don’t get seen,” Madhani said.

Still, the animations she makes “have always been comedic in nature,” she said.

Animation and comedy make a natural pair, like warm apple pie and vanilla ice cream. For Madhani, who is the head writer for the campus sketch comedy group The Institute, her two disparate backgrounds can sometimes complement each other in unexpected ways.

“I feel like things that shouldn’t talk, talk regularly in my sketches,” she said. “[For example,] we have a show this Friday where a plant will be talking in a video sketch.”

Madhani's using comedy as a means to give a voice to the voiceless doesn't stop at anthropomorphized plants, however. 

“Last semester, we started working to create Tufts Funny Ladies, which is a women-in-comedy group, just because there’s so many groups doing cool things in comedy on campus," she said. "When I started at Tufts, they were definitely more male-dominated, but last semester, we had the first stand-up comedy show with more female performers than male, which is super cool.”

Madhani hopes to build on this progress and to continue producing comedic content in a variety of mediums. She is currently working on an upcoming show for TUTV called “Lady D8,” which is due to be released in the next couple of weeks.