12/6/2023 0 Comments Samantha bee talks marjorieHe still strains to fill Stewart’s formidable shoes–too sophomoric some nights, too strident on others–but Trump brings out his best. Take Noah, the South African–born comedian now leading The Daily Show. Hillary Clinton gets her share of jabs (most recently for her “basket of deplorables” remark and her campaign’s slowness to reveal her health problems), but Trump has galvanized the late-night crowd, prompting a new sense of urgency, outrage, even panic. With his orange skin tone, animal-pelt hairdo and overweening ego, Trump may be the greatest gift to comedians since the invention of the mother-in-law joke. Stewart aimed his barbs less at conservative pols than at the Fox News pundits who enabled them.īut the game has changed, thanks largely to the man at the top of the GOP ticket. Colbert couched his views in the put-on character of a right-wing Bill O’Reilly type. Stewart and Colbert were groundbreakers, but even they tempered their political edge with ironic distance and a concern for balance. Yet all three disavowed partisan agendas, often welcoming as guests the same public figures–from Bill Clinton to Donald Trump–whom they lampooned on other nights. Carson and Leno played it straighter, but their tolerant-centrist orientation (sympathetic to gays and other minorities, scornful of the religious right) struck some conservatives as liberal bias. Letterman in particular, with his constant needling of politicians like Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney, allowed his left-of-center leanings to peek through toward the end of his run. The hosts weren’t always as apolitical as they appeared. No obvious political agenda, nothing to offend either side–just a gentle brew to help you process the day’s news and drift to sleep with a smile. Longtime Tonight Show host Johnny Carson–along with his chief heirs in late night, Jay Leno and David Letterman–poked plenty of fun at political figures, but mainly for their personal foibles, both real and comically exaggerated: Gerald Ford’s clumsiness, Ronald Reagan’s age, Bill Clinton’s appetites. Political Comedy on TV used to be a polite, easy-listening affair. And I think this election served as the catalyst.” “I do think we are in an era where people come to expect, or become comfortable with, hosts of late-night shows having a strong point of view,” says Meyers, former anchor of Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update.” “It probably took me a year or a year and a half of doing this show before I felt comfortable sharing that point of view. (More than $25 billion, according to his careful analysis–over twice as much as Trump’s highest estimate.) It took Oliver to investigate, back in March, just how much Trump’s oft-touted wall on the Mexican border would actually cost. They are doing journalism too–in many cases ahead of actual journalists. As their best bits circulate online and get picked up by TV pundits and campaign operatives alike, they help drive the political debate. Several were born abroad, giving them a fresh perspective on the increasingly vitriolic U.S. Their satiric arrows are aimed, nearly always, from the left flank of the political battlefield. Their weapons are parody and polemics, dripping sarcasm and cheap-shot one-liners, video compilation reels and schoolyard taunts. (Larry Wilmore, The Daily Show’s former “senior black correspondent,” took over Colbert’s old time slot on Comedy Central before a surprise cancellation last month.) More traditional network talk-show hosts, too, are showing newfound political muscle–especially NBC’s Seth Meyers and ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel–joining HBO’s 14-year-old comedic political talk show Real Time with Bill Maher. Along with Bee and Colbert, they include John Oliver, who vents about current events on HBO’s Last Week Tonight, and Trevor Noah, who replaced Stewart on the flagship Daily Show last September. Alumni of The Daily Show have metastasized across the dial.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |