There are already several white male comedians in the US and the UK doing news-like shows: e.g. John Oliver, Seth Meyers, Stephen Colbert, Dara Ó Briain, Adam Hills, Bill Maher. It’s not bigoted to want another point of view–let alone to agree with someone who talked about audience preferences.
And (as someone else stated) the job is not about who is funny. Not only must they be intelligent and politically minded, but the show clearly has the host bring their point of view. That’s obvious by how the show was different between Noah and Stewart.
I’d argue that it’s too simplistic to cry bigotry just because someone states a preference or acknowledges a trend. It was the old idea of bigotry that people needed to be completely colorblind. Sure, sometimes those reasons may be bigoted, but not always.
That said, I can see your point on Kumar. I did think his jokes could get repetitive elsewhere. But I liked The Mash Report, and thought he was good on it. That said, maybe that was more due to the others. I don’t have access to Dave, so I’ve not seen the version without him as host. Heck, I didn’t know the show had continued. I only ever watched it on YouTube.
I remember when Jon Stewart hosted TDS that people here complained that he seemed obsessed with talking about Fox News, especially the hypocrisy and the bullshit they’d spew. (I bring that up to point out what may be obvious, that no one is perfect.)
You are suggesting people are choosen for a job based on the colour of their skin, their sex or their sexuality rather than any inherent ability they may have. Whatever you choose to call it you are clearly comfortable with prejudice on the basis on immutable characteristics.
I’d agree, but you don’t need to appeal to ethnicity, sexuality or sex to get you that and doing so doesn’t guarantee you that. People aren’t a monolithic hive mind.
Specifying a very different political view of course certainly would guarantee you that difference you are looking for. Would you be OK with that?
It was a need during the 2020-2015 period. I’m not sure it’s all that needed any more. By the time Trump was elected President, Stewart’s “fair and balanced” mockery of politics was worn out in my view. Stewart still sees himself as an even-handed centrist who thinks that all we need is to work together. His vision is no longer illuminating in the world we live in today.
For the first 60 or so years of late-night, only straight white men were considered for hosting jobs. (Couple of exceptions, like Arsenio Hall and Joan Rivers. But only is a good first approximation.) Is it conceivably possible that all of them were picked because they were inherently better than every non straight white man? Is it conceivably possible that their viewpoints, jokes, concerns, range of possibilities, supporting casts and crew, encompassed the needs and wants of potential viewers who were not straight white men? Is it conceivably possible that the neglected audience did not care if their needs and wants were ignored and were satisfied with what remained? Is it conceivably possible that with six major late night hosts (to be seven when Conan comes back) being straight white men that there are not equally talented non straight white men who might fill that void successfully and appeal to a wider audience?
I don’t see how your comments are relevant to my points. Do you think that choosing people (or not) based on their sex, sexuality or ethnicity is a bad thing? I certainly do.
They should hire the blondest Mexican dude they can find and have him alternate with a red headed chick from China’s Far West.
This is a Liz Truss cabinet type of “diversity” where they only thing diverse is the Oxbridge colleges they went to.
Noah was a genuinely different direction, and frankly he would have been even if he had been an Afrikaans with three apartheid era government ministers in his family, since his viewpoint was so radically different from a left of centre New Yorker that preceded him.
They should try and have someone very different to replace Noah.
Someone can correct me if I am wrong but I could swear I remember reading somewhere that Trevor Noah was way down the list of people that were approached to replace Jon Stewart (like he was the 20th person asked.)
And that many of the people mentioned here were asked and turned it down for one reason or another. A lot of them did NOT want to handle the grind of a daily show and/or give up outside commitments.
If your “choose the best for the job” rubric pretty much always results in a straight, white man, then we cannot trust you when you say you’re just going to choose the best for the job. You need to start intentionally seeking out non-straight, non-white, non-men.
Upthread someone linked to a Hollywood Reporter article that said about finding a replacement for Jon Stewart, “The network reportedly ran the job by big names from Amy Schumer to Louis C.K. to Chris Rock. But why would anybody have wanted it? Anybody who took that seat was always only going to be the guy who replaced Jon Stewart. Doomed to fail.”
