Yeesh. Even being a functioning member of society is an accomplishment. Hat tip to Mr. Cenac.
Yeah, she deserved to be shunned after that insanity. Having him followed was bad. Looking through his things was really bad. Calling the cops on him is grade-a crazy.
Assuming that happened when he was a teen, he disowned her about ten years after she gave him a good reason to. She’s lucky he stuck around for another decade’s worth of insanity.
I think he said the final straw was when he first started getting some jobs in show business and she insisted that he hire her as his manager.
Sometime after that, she showed up uninvited and unannounced backstage after a show in Los Angeles (she lives in Texas). I think that is the last time he saw her.
He also said that his paternal grandmother in Brooklyn helped keep alive his memories of his father, but he had heard from his older half-siblings that he had not been a great father when he was living.
Having worked in comedy (6+ years as a stand-up, though nowhere near the levels of Cenac or Stewart), I’ve been exposed to exactly how tense these situations can become. I can’t find fault with either party, but an argument could be made that they’re both equally culpable.
I firmly believe that there are three sides to every story: your side, my side, and the truth, which is somewhere between the other two. But this discussion has a Isaac Hayes/“South Park” vibe to it. Not that the events are comparable, but it just has that feel to it to me.
According to Cenac, he did not approach the issue by calling Stewart a racist. He approached it in the form of saying that he knew he wasn’t attempting to be racist, but that it made Cenac uncomfortable and might come off as racist to some, and that he didn’t think he should continue doing it. You’d expect most liberals to understand this distinction.
I don’t think his impression was racist. But I do think his subsequent response was the wrong one. He made it out like the only people who could possibly object were those people who, like Fox News, were looking for an excuse to bash him. I have no problem with him tearing Fox a new one for that, but his attitude of “If you found that offensive, then watch this!” was not the right one. Especially the part where he intentionally did do a black accent. (Not saying that’s always wrong, but this was not the time.)
That entire bit made me wince when I first saw it. It read too much like how actual racists defend their racism. I had to go “well, I guess that technically isn’t racist, and Stewart hasn’t shown signs of racism before.” Compare that with how Colbert handled the Chinese racism thing, and they are miles apart.
The problem is, if Stewart is going to be that careful about not being offensive, it’s will ruin the show for many viewers (such as me). He has a show to run, jokes to make. If he has to spend all his time in arguments about what may or may not be perceived as offensive it will never get done. As a viewer of the show I want him to tell Cynac to fuck off. (I mean not as the first response, but I doubt that was the case.)
Frankly I feel like political correctness is already a problem with the show. For instance, I suspect that they hire too many non-white reporters. I would prefer if they mostly hired the best. More John Olivers and fewer Jessica Williams please.
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The Daily Show’s humor is not based on being offensive.
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Neither Jon Stewart nor the Daily Show seeks to tread the line of potentially racist expression. I am pretty sure if you ask any of them, they will say that if they think something is racist, then they wouldn’t do it.
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The idea that preserving the quality of the show depends on hiring only white men is offensive.
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What Wyatt Cenac suggested was that the Daily Show’s then-being-planned response to the criticism from Fox News of the original bit seemed defensive and it would probably be advisable to just let the issue fade away rather than to respond overtly to it.
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There are many ways to disagree over stuff like this. According to Cenac, Jon Stewart reacted very defensively to what Cenac was saying and started screaming at him “Fuck you! I’m done with you!” As Superdude says, this kind of thing happens sometimes, but it seems unnecessary to actually defend this kind of response. Chalk it up to an unfortunate incident and a reminder that the people we admire aren’t perfect.
Agreed. Cenac went into this issue on The Champs podcast a while back, and it seems to be that he has some serious issues he hasn’t worked through yet. His mom may be an overbearing, tiger mom type, but his reaction seems really petty, hysterical, and immature.
I assume this is a comment for me? I don’t think that idea is even remotely true.
What I suspect is that The Daily Show has a focus on hiring reporters that are not white men. I would personally prefer if they hired whoever is funniest, and I suspect this is not what they do. If it was, I don’t think they would’ve hired Olivia Munn and Jessica Williams. I’m also skeptical about that new guy Noah, but we will see. I still think they would’ve hired Cynac though, for instance, or Aasif Mandvi.
I wonder, if the show were ever to feature a white male contributor who one might perceive as less funny, whether he might be faced with the reaction that the show has a focus on hiring white men instead of who is funniest.
Totally disagree. His mom is not owed a relationship from him any more than anyone else is. If she’s being awful toward him–and it sounds like she is–it’s completely reasonable for him to cut her off. There’s nothing petty, hysterical, or immature about ending a relationship with a toxic relative.
Man, different tastes. I’m not familiar with Olivia Munn, but I think Jessica Williams is freakin’ hilarious, a lot funnier than, say, Samantha Bee or than Steve Carrell was during his run on the show. I don’t think Jordan Klepper ever made me laugh.
Mind you I watch the show rarely, because of the white guy on the show whose ability to make me laugh has really waned over the years. Stewart’s mugging and falsetto and Joysey Accent that he goes to every other skit really put me off.
Aasif Mandvi got on the show because they needed someone of his race and religion for a specific bit.
This kind of pretend “color-blindness” is really just a way to preserve white supremacy in our society.
Jason Jones? The man wouldn’t know funny if he fell in it.
Since this story really hit the internet in a big way after Thursday’s episode of The Daily Show I’ll be curious if Stewart addresses it tonight. They’ve been pretty good owning up to things they do or say on the show.
I hadn’t heard of this before. At first glance it sounds like something personal between Stewart and Cenac, and perhaps the subject of the argument was just the last straw in a relationship that wasn’t working anyway.
The last hire was Jordan Klepper. Are you seriously trying to make a case based on Jordan Klepper as funny?
I don’t know if I’m trying to make a case as such. I’m saying that I have suspicions that their hiring criteria is not exactly what I would prefer.
But maybe I’m wrong. If many people think that Klepper is not funny while Jessica Williams is, then it’s just a question of taste, and not a question of The Daily Show choosing less qualified people.
Which I would be glad about. Like that Im glad about Jon Stewart standing up for the bit with Herman Cain.
Wow, really disagree. Aasif Mandvi is hilarious to me. Same with Jessica Williams.
You disagree with what? I didn’t say that Mandvi isn’t funny. But How he got the job is a publicly known story. He got it because they needed a person with his ethnic and religious background. That’s a fact.
My point is that on our society today, minorities and women who are perfectly qualified for a job are way less likely to be hired unless you intentionally set out to hire them.
There are way too many societal and cultural weights favoring hiring of white men in all kinds of professions to pretend you can apply some sort of color-blind criteria in these kinds of situations and end up with equality.