Samantha Bee is not funny

[AK84]

@ZipperJJ

What exactly were you trying to convey by referring to Ms. Bee as “Mrs. Jones”?

Same thing as I would have been by calling her Ms Bee, Bee, Sam, Samantha Bee, Jon Stewart’s old workmate, Full Frontal presenter etc etc.

Your recreational outrage is amusing I’ll admit.

[AK84]

@Stranger_On_A_Train

Well, he’s presenting journalism (typically developed by other sources, although his fact checking team often ends up putting together some original research as well), albeit in a manner that is consistently more accessible and pointed than, say, 60 Minutes, and certainly better than essentially anything you see on CNN. He goes beyond the sound bite level and while he typically presents a stance on an issue (particularly DeWalt ladders), he presents enough criticism to consider the issue from different points of view. His segment on the scandals of Clinton and Trump was literally better than anything else I’ve seen on the topic, and while he earned some amount of criticism from the political left for even daring to criticize Clinton (and amusingly, some people apparently didn’t grasp that the “Swiss File Transfer Scandal” was a story that the show concocted just to demonstrate how amenable the public is to accepting yet another Clinton scandal without even basic skepticism), his skewering of Trump, from his eponymous foundation to his fraudulent “university” should have been adequate to convince anyone to revisit their convictions on a “anyone but Hillary” mentality, punctuated by comparison Clinton as a cookie with a dozen raisins to Trump’s bushel of raisins. (For what it is worth, I find some of Oliver’s “self-deprecating expat Englishman” schtick and improv sensibilities somewhat tiresome when repeated over and over, but the punchlines on his stories and his switching from humor to serious when skewering public figures for hypocracy makes up for it.).

But Oliver’s audience is limited (and probably also mostly falls in a pro-liberal or at least rational skeptic camp), and as Oliver pointed out on a segment on journalism, there is a desperate need to support good investigative journalism at all levels of society and governance, especially local newspapers that cover municipal and state government that is generally overlooked by national media, and to assure independence in journalism from promotional media (especially “native advertising”). Oliver uses comedy very effectively to make a point, and is unafraid to dedicate twenty or even thirty minutes to a story and then return back to it, but he’s not a replacement for the kind of in depth investigative reporting that is the hallmark of the heydays of good print media.

Bee is fine at what she does, but what she is doing is almost purely entertainment, without enough depth to ask whether there are legitimately alternative sides to an issue, and the tone that endears her to one segment of the population alienates others, a fact that she seems perfectly fine with. Whether you find her funny or not probably depends on how close you fall to her target audience.

Stranger

Oliver does in depth analysis and has no hesitations ripping into “liberal” positions when warranted. Mrs Jones does not, she wears her biases on her sleeve. As a result John Oliver runs a news show with a comedic bent. Samantha Bee, a comedy show about the news. The few times Bee has tried to go the Oliver route, its failed.
I don’t think that is necessarily an issue with her range; more the show setup. On the Daily Show her reports were often fairly in depth. She was over time probably the best of the lot, except for in a league of his own John Oliver and probably her husband, who was unique amongst correspondents, so cannot be compared.

I do think it’s worth noting that when this thread was fresh, she was in the middle of having three pregnancies in five years. That would reduce anyone’s output quality.

[StanielMarsh]

@ZipperJJ

Oh yeah, Jason Jones. The guy who doesn’t have the same last name as Sam nor does he have his own show to host.

He’s actually the best correspondent on The Daily Show.

[BigT]

@AK84

Same thing as I would have been by calling her Ms Bee, Bee, Sam, Samantha Bee, Jon Stewart’s old workmate, Full Frontal presenter etc etc.

Your recreational outrage is amusing I’ll admit.

There is nothing recreational about it. Referring to her as Mrs. Jones when that is not her name is a sexist thing to do. She has done a pretty good job of explaining why this is.

That is why you have fallen back on mockery. You know you can’t refute what she said.

Funny thing is, if you’d just said “Oops. Didn’t realize that was a faux pas,” it could have been chopped up to just cultural differences. But now you know, and you’re doubling down. You know what you are communicating, and you continue to communicate it.

[Stranger_On_A_Train]

@BigT

There is nothing recreational about it. Referring to her as Mrs. Jones when that is not her name is a sexist thing to do. She has done a pretty good job of explaining why this is.

It’s not just sexist; it is literally wrong, as Bee did not take her husband’s name in marriage. The continued insistence on using the name is it’s own form of compulsive recreational outrage against some perceived “political correctness” of a woman electing to keep her family name. Or a sign of determined obtuseness. Either way, it’s not very mature behavior.

Stranger

[Bryan_Ekers]

Mrs. Jones can defend the Democrat Party to her little Canadian heart’s content, eh?

[Exapno_Mapcase]

Wanted to bump this thread to add that I think Bee has gotten better and better in refined, pointed, and imaginative outrage. She’s funnier than she was when I praised her in January. She rambles less and finds better ways to get her ideas across. And she seems to have tossed her correspondents, none of whom were all that good. (Or weren’t being used well.)

Does this all correlate with Trump actually being president? Well, yes. But it also correlates with her second season beginning in February, with a changed group of writers and a new policy of featuring her in virtually every segment. A lot of shows get better in year two after the kinks are worked out, of course. It’s not a given, though. Since I never used to be a fan of hers, I really didn’t expect this even after her good start. Yay for her.

P.S. She and her husband, Jason Jones, are now naturalized U.S. citizens, BTW.

[terentii]

@ZipperJJ

I am trying to point out that it is pretty disrespectful to refer to someone as “Mrs. Husbandsname” if they did not choose to take their husband’s name upon marriage, especially so if the woman is famous in her own right and doesn’t need the coattails of her less-famous husband to achieve things like have and host her own show using her own actual last name.

Maybe he was deliberately being disrespectful? :dubious:

[madmonk28]

@Bryan_Ekers

Mrs. Jones can defend the Democrat Party to her little Canadian heart’s content, eh?

She is an American citizen.

[terentii]

@madmonk28

She is an American citizen.

Yeah, she ate all the caramel popcorn first. :rolleyes:

[Evan_Drake]

There will be potlucks with maple leaves and fireworks aplenty all around the great land !

[AK84]

I thought the “rape kits testing bill” segment was both well done and showed why her show is not as good as John Oliver as she only scratched the surface and did not go into any depth. On the other have the Not the White House Correspondent’s Dinner special was awesome.

[Drunky_Smurf]

Yeah, she’s still not funny.

[Misnomer]

@Exapno_Mapcase

And she seems to have tossed her correspondents, none of whom were all that good. (Or weren’t being used well.)

I was a huge fan of Full Frontal when it started, but there was a segment at the GOP convention where the correspondent made fun of a middle-aged Trump supporter who didn’t know what the word “misogyny” meant. Not because of her politics, but because of her vocabulary. It was mean-spirited and condescending and unfunny – exactly the kind of liberal elitism that I believe cost the Democrats the White House – and it turned me off. Between that and election burnout I stopped watching the show shortly after that episode, and I’ve never bothered to watch it again. Maybe I’ll give it another chance.

[JackieLikesVariety]

I think she is funny.

[terentii]

@Misnomer

It was mean-spirited and condescending and unfunny – exactly the kind of liberal elitism that I believe cost the Democrats the White House – and it turned me off.

Isn’t it odd how those who like to accuse other people of bigotry and intolerance are usually full of bigotry and intolerance themselves? :dubious:

You couldn’t pay me enough to watch Full Frontal.

[Misnomer]

I’m not sure if one segment can be considered “full of,” but hypocrisy is definitely nothing new.

[terentii]

@Misnomer

I’m not sure if one segment can be considered “full of,” but hypocrisy is definitely nothing new.

Oh, it’s not limited to one segment. Far from it. From what I gather, she doesn’t do much else nowadays.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

It is required to be intolerant of intolerance. It is demanded that you hate hatred. It is imperative to be bigoted against bigotry. None of this is hypocrisy. It is the minimum standard for a decent human society.

[madmonk28]

@terentii

Isn’t it odd how those who like to accuse other people of bigotry and intolerance are usually full of bigotry and intolerance themselves? :dubious:

You couldn’t pay me enough to watch Full Frontal.

It would be if that were true, but it’s not.