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Jay Leno's Phony Case for Balanced Comedy [View all]
Jay Leno’s Phony Case for Balanced Comedy
The former Tonight Show host thinks a dose of bothsidesism will punch up the late-night scene.
BEN SCHWARTZ
Why is it that every time a great late night host loses a job, Jay Leno appears? Back in the 1990s, when David Letterman lost out on hosting The Tonight Show, Leno was there to claim victory. When Conan O’Brien briefly replaced Leno and then got fired from The Tonight Show, Leno was there to take his old job back. This month, CBS fired arch–Trump critic Stephen Colbert and canceled The Late Show—perfect timing to signal to the Trump administration that CBS’s new owner, David Ellison’s Skydance, would offer more “viewpoint diversity” (i.e., Trump-friendly material) on its airwaves. And out of a clear blue sky, Leno is back!
Viewers who suffered through those earlier late-night wars can rest easy in this respect: CBS isn’t hiring Leno as Colbert’s replacement. Instead, Leno has resurfaced in an interview with David Trulio of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute to complain about how politically one-sided late night comedy has become. “I love political humor, don’t get me wrong,” Leno told Trulio. “But it’s just what happens when people wind up cozying too much to one side or the other…. Why shoot for just half an audience all the time? You know, why not try to get the whole. I mean, I like to bring people into the big picture.”
Sure, Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, and Colbert go after Trump relentlessly—he is the sitting president, after all, and one whose extremist bigotry, penchant for attacking comedians, and criminal record puts him in a special class of sitting president. It’s hard to see what else they would do.
Without acknowledging any of that, Leno and Trulio discuss the need for a “both sides” approach to late night as if it were an extension of network news—as if comedians need to give an objective accounting of the day’s events. These people host late-night comedy shows, not presidential debates. We currently have a Republican White House, Congress, Senate, and Supreme Court. It’s not as if having two parties means both sides hold equal power. If Leno wants to see more jokes about Democrats, he should help elect more Democrats.
https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/jay-lenos-phony-case-for-balanced-comedy/
The former Tonight Show host thinks a dose of bothsidesism will punch up the late-night scene.
BEN SCHWARTZ
Why is it that every time a great late night host loses a job, Jay Leno appears? Back in the 1990s, when David Letterman lost out on hosting The Tonight Show, Leno was there to claim victory. When Conan O’Brien briefly replaced Leno and then got fired from The Tonight Show, Leno was there to take his old job back. This month, CBS fired arch–Trump critic Stephen Colbert and canceled The Late Show—perfect timing to signal to the Trump administration that CBS’s new owner, David Ellison’s Skydance, would offer more “viewpoint diversity” (i.e., Trump-friendly material) on its airwaves. And out of a clear blue sky, Leno is back!
Viewers who suffered through those earlier late-night wars can rest easy in this respect: CBS isn’t hiring Leno as Colbert’s replacement. Instead, Leno has resurfaced in an interview with David Trulio of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute to complain about how politically one-sided late night comedy has become. “I love political humor, don’t get me wrong,” Leno told Trulio. “But it’s just what happens when people wind up cozying too much to one side or the other…. Why shoot for just half an audience all the time? You know, why not try to get the whole. I mean, I like to bring people into the big picture.”
Sure, Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, and Colbert go after Trump relentlessly—he is the sitting president, after all, and one whose extremist bigotry, penchant for attacking comedians, and criminal record puts him in a special class of sitting president. It’s hard to see what else they would do.
Without acknowledging any of that, Leno and Trulio discuss the need for a “both sides” approach to late night as if it were an extension of network news—as if comedians need to give an objective accounting of the day’s events. These people host late-night comedy shows, not presidential debates. We currently have a Republican White House, Congress, Senate, and Supreme Court. It’s not as if having two parties means both sides hold equal power. If Leno wants to see more jokes about Democrats, he should help elect more Democrats.
https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/jay-lenos-phony-case-for-balanced-comedy/
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