11/6/2023 0 Comments Deep roy jimmy kimmelEven when punchlines took aim at a specific figure, they were little more than wisecracks, a way for the viewer to vicariously blow off some steam by sharing frustration with this lawmaker or that. Or the way Jay Leno ridiculed Bill Clinton, whom he targeted more than any other politician during his two decade stint hosting The Tonight Show.Īs Charles Bramesco wrote in The Guardian, “An average week’s topical material would engage with important political developments, but in a harmlessly jocular capacity. A punchy one-liner about “Dubya” here, a harmless zinger there - that’s how I remember David Letterman’s years of hosting The Late Show during George W Bush’s eight-year presidency. Carson’s politics (he was liberal) stayed “in his living room”, not on national media. For years, Johnny Carson poked fun at sitting presidents, including Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan but he did it with an almost zen-like non-partisan approach. Of course politics and politicians were the easiest to make fun of, and presidents the obvious targets, but it was all done in good humour and no heavy debates. There was a time when the job of a late-night talk show host and comedian was simple: make sure that the American people had something funny and light-hearted to watch at the end of their workday. ![]() Someone once said, “all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing”, and each of these good men (and some women) have decided to step up! ![]() In 2017, late night talk/comedy shows are the new face of journalism and the voice of resistance - against the Trump administration specifically and against prejudice in general. For that matter, for anyone who watched any of the late shows this week and the earnest urgency with which Trevor Noah, Seth Meyers, Stephen Colbert, and even Jimmy Fallon talked about an issue as important as gun control (when every politician in the White House was, expectedly, shying away from calling it out), it’s clearly not about just comedy any longer. But over the past couple of years (and especially the past few months), while I do watch Anderson Cooper, Don Lemon and Christiane Amanpour’s take on current events and the world at large, I find myself coming back to the handful of late-night hosts who have, perhaps unwittingly, become the watchdogs of democracy and social awareness.Īnyone who watched Jimmy Kimmel’s three-day evisceration of the Republican administration’s Graham-Cassidy repeal of Obamacare last month, or watched his teary-eyed opening monologue after this week’s utterly senseless shooting in Las Vegas (which happens to be Kimmel’s hometown), knows that this isn’t just late-night comedy anymore. ![]() It wasn’t always like that 10 years ago, I would watch The Colbert Report or The Daily Show with Jon Stewart for the laughs - their observations and political satire, although very incisive and so darn hilarious, were not my biggest sources of thought-provoking journalism. I read the news online in the morning, watch CNN in the afternoon, and then for the really nuanced, non-partisan, and empowering take of all that’s happening, I watch what really matters: the late-night talk/comedy shows. I have developed a pretty well thought out manner in which I consume world news nowadays, especially news pertaining to the US.
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