It’s strange how late night comedy hosts went from the kings of satire to puppets of the establishment.
For those old enough to remember, late night comedy used to be about skewering almost every aspect of pop culture, from politics to movies and everything else. Almost nothing was off limits. Democrats and Republicans were equally targeted and lampooned.
Back in the stone age of the Bill Clinton presidency, despite Clinton being a media darling, similar to Obama, old Bill was still mercilessly mocked and made fun of for his lying and womanizing.
Shows like Saturday Night Live would have recurring appearances by their Bill Clinton look-alike who would always be portrayed as a smarmy, sleazy, lying huckster.
Imagine any late night show portraying Obama or Biden like that today?
That’s the point. It’s not about just attacking Democrats. It’s that comedians used to attack all politicians. Bush and Clinton were equally attacked.
But those days are long gone. Late night hosts have evolved into attack dogs for the establishment. Of course, they’ve given up actual comedy in the process. Their monologues and skits now are nothing but attacks on those who question the establishment. The nature of the attack is their main goal, then they try to shoehorn in jokes here and there to add a veneer of comedy to it.
The irony here is that media critic John Stewart, the previous host of The Daily Show, is mostly responsible. Although Stewart himself is left leaning, he did attack both parties. But his style of attacks peppered with jokes here and there have been adopted by a new breed of late night comedy hosts who are nothing more than establishment shills.
A perfect example is just this past week. Representative Madison Cawthorn appeared on a popular podcast and claimed he had witnessed other politicians do cocaine right in front of him. He also suggested he was invited to orgies hosted by other members of congress.
Of course, within a day the late night hosts had their knives out. In decades past, they would have jumped on the comedy gold that existed here. Elderly politicians having orgies and doing cocaine seems like fodder for endless comedy skits. But that’s not what these comedians latched on to.
Instead, they attacked Hawthorn for making the claims.
Below is Trevor Noah from The Daily Show, who apparently is too lazy to even show up at the studio to record his propaganda messages. In his piece, he spends the whole time attacking Cawthorn. It’s an example of Noah clearly defending the establishment instead of harvesting the obvious comedy gold of what Cawthorn had claimed. It proves Noah isn’t a comedian at all, he’s a shill.
But this is just one example within the last few days. If you use YouTube at all, I’m sure you’ve seen similar late night clips show up in your feed for the last 5 years whether you watch any of these shows or not.
Jimmy Kimmel is famous for his complete about-face, switching from raunchy, boundary-pushing comedy to total establishment shill. Kimmel, once famous for wearing black-face in comedy routines, now openly accuses those who disagree with him as racist. Just another example of these comedians being just attack dogs for the establishment.
The saddest part is that societies need proper satire and parody. It’s like a release valve. It forces us to take a look at ourselves and what we’re all doing. It prevents us from getting too carried away in one direction. It’s a checks and balances system.
But that’s mostly gone now. All mainstream satire and parody only goes in one direction. Sites and comedians that try to even out that discrepancy are quickly banned or censored.
For most people out there, you can already see the results of this lack of satire and parody. It’s quite clear that as a culture, we’ve veered way too far in one direction, and maybe it’s too late to right the ship.
—
Thanks for reading: If you prefer, you can subscribe and follow our content on Substack. It’s free!
If you want to learn more about our site and what we do, click here.
Finally, if you enjoy this article please make sure to share it. It really helps.
SHARE