We thought political commentators could actually have some snap and bite, and wouldn’t let folly pass by without mocking it. Boy, were we ever wrong, as Jimmy Fallon enthusiastically demonstrated for us.
On Thursday, Jimmy Fallon had Donald Trump on the Tonight Show and ended the segment by saying, “Donald I want to ask you, because the next time I see you you could be the President of the United States. I just want to know if there is something we could do that’s just not really presidential, really – can I mess your hair up?” Trump let him and the NBC audience roared with laughter. But, for many of us, this is very far from being a joke.
Giving comic cover to Trump just isn’t funny when he’s unleashed forces of anti-blackness and anti-immigrant sentiment. He’s labelled Mexicans rapists, raised the prospect of a ban on Muslims, patronized and insulted African Americans while pretending to be a potential new hope. As a result, Fallon managed to come over as one powerful white man protecting another.
Not only was it not funny. It didn’t do anything to take Trump down a notch (if it was even meant to). Instead, it humanized him, boosting him on that stupid metric so many Americans use when choosing a president: “Hey, he’s a guy I’d want to have a beer with! Look at him, letting Fallon have fun with him!”
I’d threaten to boycott Fallon’s show, but I never watched it anyway. Oh, yeah, I never watched Jay Leno, either.
We see you, Jimmy Fallon. You are as “apolitical” as the wretched Jay Leno was, a champion of the status quo. You think the idea of Trump in the White House is as harmless as your face on a pint of Ben and Jerry’s.
Maybe it is to you, as a powerful white man on TV who doesn’t have to worry about life as a woman, Muslim, Black or Latin person, immigrant, or queer American living under Trumpism (an era which has already begun and will continue, regardless of whether Trump is elected). Your skit was nothing like Charlie Chaplin’s Great Dictator, which brilliantly skewered a rising leader of the right. In fact, you did the opposite, making Trump seem more palatable. When history looks back on this moment, we may well say: Jimmy Fallon, you helped build a monster.
If you want further dissection of how media personalities are often grossly incompetent at actual critical thinking, read Jen Gunter’s analysis of the Oz-Trump interview. I’d boycott Oz, too, except that’s another show I already never watch.
You’re absolutely right. Stewart perfected “comedy as social/political commentary” and that started the gold rush of “comedy instead of editorial” – now everyone’s kidding all the time and nobody’s got to ask hard questions because ha ha ha lighten up. It’s not really the comedians’ fault, though – they’re just the final stage of media being captured by the political machine in return for access. If you don’t give a fluffy interview, you’ll never have that politician on your show again, and you’ll look lame. The media looks lame, anyway, so they may as well suck it up and get back to covering the news instead of being steamrolled by it.
Fallon is not apolitical by any means — he has boasted that he voted for G.W. Bush twice.
I agree that this was painful and pathetic to watch, and Fallon, despite his other talents, is a horrible interviewer in any context, like Conan only worse. But look at it this way: Fallon’s ineptitude is especially glaring because a lot of his peers are on the money, some of them nearly as good as Stewart was. Samantha Bee is pure class. Larry Wilmore is really good. Trevor Noah is good. Considering that it’s unreasonable to expect late-night and cable-channel entertainment hosts to be politically astute to any extent — I mean, we’re never going to see a Rachel Maddow in that crowd — I think there’s a lot to appreciate.
His successor Trevor Noah is trying: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjoX-rTrXcg
I completely disagree. That’s one pathetic little man showing his belly to the ignoramus gorilla that is Trump. There is nothing even remotely “strong” in trying to appease to fascist leaders.
I can’t agree with the objection to humanising Trump, but otherwise a good article.
Hate crimes against Muslims and trans people increased dramatically in 2015.
re @2:
Don’t forget John Oliver. While on premium cable (HBO) he still does a fine sequel to The Daily Show
And as much as I hate to say it, it’s not the responsibility of people in Fallon’s position to condemn people like Donald Trump (not that there is anyone I can think of who is really anything like him). In an ideal world, every single TV and Internet and Hollywood personality — hell, every human being — would be openly contemptuous of Trump. But that’s not remotely realistic.
I don’t really are that Fallon looked like a toady and was playing around with that awful, unlikely coif. He could have done far more damage than that, such as joking about sensitive topics like the proposed ban on Muslims and that stupid fucking wall that’ll never be built even if Trump becomes President, and thereby giving sanction to such stupefyingly bad ideas.
I agree with kevinbeck that that isn’t Fallon’s job. He is the host of an entertainment show whose primary purpose is to entertain people, and whose guests are normally celebrities who are promoting their new movie, tv show, or band. He is expected to be nice to his guests, political or not, or they wouldn’t want to be on his show.
We have the Daily Show, Samantha Bee, John Oliver, and Larry Whitmore for the satirical political skewering.
I was younger, and not a regular viewer, but I don’t recall Johnny Carson asking his political guests tough questions that could hurt their standing in the polls.
The Tonight Show has always been stupid and very silly the great majority of the time. I can remember when Johnny Carson was the host and people oueed and awweed over his “brilliance”. I just didn’t see the “brilliance” what I saw was dull, boring and mediocre. As for funny – well. Carson raped, mutilated and murdered the art of comedy, Jay Leno screwed the corpse and then ate it. As for Fallon he breathes in Jay Leno’s post meal farts.
Year and years ago the Brits broadcast episodes of The Tonight Show and result was bafflement. Bad as Johnny Carson was, Jay Leno was worst and from what I’ve seen Jimmy Fallon is worst than Leno.
1. You bet it would be grim to be a woman, Black, Hispanic, immigrant, or LGBT under the GOP fascists.
2. It’s also going to be hard on non-fundie xians. Especially Moslems and atheists.
3. It will be hard on science and scientists, one of the driving forces of our civilization.
4. It will probably be hard on everyone including whites and white males.
The Bush Catastrophe destroyed our economy and slaughtered millions of 401(K) plans and pension plans, all of which are tied to the economy and stock markets. Including mine!!!
(It was resurrected by…Obama. Thanks Obama.)
This isn’t trivial. As a Boomer, I will need that money real soon.
re 11:
yes. exactly
FTFY
I fall into several of the classes that will be attacked under the triumph of Trump and the christofascists.
We did have a preview with the Bush/Cheney Disaster.
One doesn’t live under fascism, one just tries to survive. It’s time for the New Doomsday Preppers, which is…us. I’m making contingency plans already, based on the Great Recession and Bush/Cheneyism.
1. Things won’t fall apart all at once. The USA with 324 million people has a lot of momentum. It took Bush 7 years to wreck the economy.
2. Toss your TV and spend time with your family, pets, and hobbies. This won’t change anything but you will sleep better.
3. Try to protect your financial assets. Millions of people saw the stock market crash coming and bailed, including us. About the only people that didn’t were…Wall Street and the US government.
4. Probably there will be more pointless wars. Say goodbye to the people going overseas. You might never see them again. Two of my friends were killed in Iraq.
PS One thing we learned from Bush. Our complicated, finance driven Hi Tech civilization is fragile. Not robust. This wouldn’t be the time to be an optimist.
This reminds of the time that Colbert had Donald Rumsfeld on his new show. I was looking forward to some rapier-like questioning or at least a jab or two about the run-up to Iraq Invasion. But Colbert caved in the most ignominious and unexpected way. When the subject of the “faulty intelligence” assessments came up, instead of pressing Rumsfeld about whether the intelligence was cooked, manipulated or worse Colbert simply said that he didn’t want to believe that his government would lie our way into a war and dropped the whole line of questioning. Rumsfeld had this awkward, one could almost say disbelieving smile, as though he couldn’t believe that he’d just been given a pass on this vexatious topic. I lost a great deal of respect for Colbert that night.
Michael:
So? It isn’t a librarian’s job to refrain from strangling kittens… yet they shouldn’t strangle kittens, because a person’s job description has fuck all to do with it.
I don’t care what he’s expected to do — should he be “nice” to people like Trump? If you have a politician on, and if being “nice” amounts to doing nothing along the lines of examining their political views critically, what is the point of interviewing the politician? If you invite an artist, and if you take their work seriously enough to try to understand and criticize it, why should they be offended and refuse to come back? Why should you care if they don’t come back?
Do these people need to be on his shown at all? If there a KKK or neo-Nazi leader on it, would you give me a blank stare and tell me he’s expected to be nice so they’ll want to be there?
Aren’t there tons of people promoting their new movies, TV shows or bands? If you made it a point to have a new interviewee every single night, would you ever run out of people to interview?
How many of those entertainers are themselves making horrible garbage that’s promoting violence/ignorance/hate? If you decided your show doesn’t need to advertise for those assholes either, despite the obvious fact that they fall under the heading of “entertainment,” wouldn’t there still be way more than enough decent/reasonable/interesting people to interview to fill your schedule for the rest of your life?
re 14:
as a Colbertian (?), it was pretty clear Colbert was not breaking his character of righter-than-right-wingnut. So it was all in mannerism (i.e. body language) that *winked* at the audience about his actual response to Rumsfeild. Rather than get confrontational and risk breaking character. Colbert Show, from it’s very inception, was spotlighted as role-playing-sarcasm. So I, for one, will give him a pass on the pseudo-interview.
I suspect he wanted Rumsfeld to hang himself, by letting him speak uninterrupted.
*shrug*, my opinion, only.
consciousness razor
You begin with quite a false analogy. How is a librarian strangling kittens in any way comparable to having a presidential candidate on your talk show?
I don’t like Trump, but lots of people do. When you host an entertainment program, you show your guests respect unless they do something on your program to deserve otherwise. I’m also unaware of Fallon ever inviting on any KKK or neo-Nazis, so that point is also irrelevant, and even if he did, an invitation is not an endorsement otherwise some talk show hosts would only invite Democrats and others only Republicans. Russell Brandt on the other hand, did invite members of Fred Phelps church onto one of his shows, and treated them respectfully.
If I were to complain about every one of my personal causes that a talk-show host didn’t address, then it would be a long list indeed. In fact I’m only aware of Jimmy Kimmel taking a shot at anti-vaxxers, as far as non-entertainment issues goes. As I said, that isn’t Fallon’s job, but it is the job of programs like Meet the Press, 60 Minutes, etc. So if Trump isn’t getting enough scrutiny, then you should be complaining about those programs, not the Tonight Show.
when shows like this one have guests like this I think that it is as much about ratings for the show (getting eyeballs) as much as toadying up to some deplorable. Its about grabbing the spot light. “Look at our show we have a face, live and in person”! To me it looks worse than advocacy, they often deliver nothing at all not even entertainment just a tease and empty bullshit.
uncle frogy
Comedians, especially late night hosts, go out of their way to not appear one-sided. Jon Stewart was also coy about it, most of the time, though everyone with half a brain knew he was on the liberal side. Sam Bee, John Oliver and Trevor Noah are the ones actually calling it like it is, IMO more than Stewart ever did, though Jon to be fair didn’t have this election. Even comedians who normally don’t talk politics have realized the urgency. Louis CK sent an email and posted on his site a long-ish letter basically saying that Trump is “literally” Hitler.
That was about Stewart, not defending Fallon. I always thought too Fallon was the spiritual and literal follower of Leno, mass market and “inoffensive”. He wouldn’t even do anything comically controversial, let alone politically. I like to watch the late night shows after work when having a meal. For example, when the second “late night wars” were on, it was a hilarious time, and Fallon had nothing to say about Leno shafting Conan on his new job at the Tonight show. Kimmel, Letterman, Stewart and Colbert all got in the game and it was funny as hell.
On actually important matters, even Conan, who very very rarely gets serious or political, had a moment after the Orlando shooting calling unequivocally for gun regulation, like other more political hosts. Fallon, only had some platitudes which amounted basically to “we should love more and hate less”. The phrase “there will always be more good than evil” was actually uttered.
The revolution will not be televised. Status quo gonna status quo
You suggested that “it’s not his job” is some kind of valid excuse. Why? Why are we supposed to believe the expectation certain people may form about his job (as a fucking talk show host, no less, and not my expectations) is so super-duper important that it’s given more weight than anything else?
I don’t care how analogous the two things are. So feel free to substitute it with something else. Then explain to me how “it’s not his job” is a relevant response to anything that anybody here is actually saying.
Those people are assholes too. Fuck them, and fuck their hurt fee-fees. What is your point?
I guess respecting your audience, by not conjuring up fake respect for a piece of shit like Trump, is not part of the job.
If somebody had said or done some horrible shit, does it not matter that it wasn’t specifically during the program itself? If so, why? Where did these arbitrary rules and loopholes of talk show etiquette come from? And why would anyone treat them as more important than genuine moral and political issues that have significant consequences in the real world?
What are you saying? Is there some kind of Earth-shattering problem, that I’m just not seeing right now, if that’s how some of them work? I mean, as a reductio, this is some pretty weak tea — what exactly is the problem with people having some kind of ethical standards and some kind of control over the content they decide to make and communicate to a worldwide audience? I’m going to bite that bullet and say that there is no problem. Do you have a problem with me criticizing spineless bootlickers who are totally irresponsible about their own work, and what exactly is that problem?
Michael 17:
The point is that fascist doucheweasels who are a hair’s breath from the US presidency should not be guests on “entertainment” programs in the first place.
You say that like it’s a bad thing. ? Though I would prefer the distinction to be leftists vs. conservatives/reactionaries, so as not to, you know, lend conservative Democrats the kind of legitimacy Fallon gave to Trump.
(Yes, I’m going there.) Lots of people liked Hitler. There’s a fascinating new book called Hitler at Home describing Nazi efforts to portray a certain image of him to the world – as cultured, statesman-like, modest, caring,… – that were quite successful in the emerging culture of celebrity. The Nazis knew how to use this culture: not only domestic but foreign journalists, sometimes enthusiastically and sometimes naively, participated in disseminating this image and making Hitler palatable to the world.* Today, there are many people and organizations (including Paul Manafort, it should be said) who are very sophisticated in despot PR. This was a great opportunity for the Trump campaign, and they’ve touted it as showing how playful and personable Trump is.
There’s no excuse of being apolitical, especially when you have a national/global stage. Everyone and everything is unavoidably political, and when it comes to the possibility of a neo-fascist ascending to the most powerful position in the world, Fallon has a moral responsibility to avoid contributing to that outcome.
* This includes US outlets like the New York Times.
@ #10 Pacal:
Carson had his problems, but he wasn’t so bad, really. He was quite progressive for his time, and when british actor Oliver Reed started behaving like a sexist pig on his show, he didn’t get in the way of Shelley Winters taking matters into her own hands.
I figure Trump is pretty glad that he doesn’t have to get sliced and diced in person by Jon or Dave.
Michael wrote:
And this is why the the real news media doesn’t bother fact checking anyone anymore. They want to be respectful (read: deferential) to their guests. They don’t want to offend their audience. They don’t want to appear biased. Etc.
@26
Dear lord, don’t get me started on the content-free panel discussions where we have to pretend an expert with a lifetime of experience is just as qualified to speak as the head editor for a wingnut website or a new law school graduate with some pre-programmed party lines to tow.
But hey it’s ~not biased~, right?
Samantha Bee, Trevor Noah, John Oliver, Jimmy Fallon: one of these is not like the others. I just don’t get why people are upset that a chat show would treat its guests like, well, chat show guests.
And it’s just silly to say that he’s an asshole and everyone who supports him is an asshole and they shouldn’t have invited him in the first place. Maybe silly isn’t the right word – naive?
I never thought I’d hear a plea for safe spaces for bigoted assholes on the verge of assuming presidency of a powerful country.
Trump deserves contempt and ridicule on any venue, even the “neutral” ones.
Didn’t you realize?
The people most loudly opposed to concepts of safe spaces actually want the whole world to be a safe space … for them.
Derek Vandivere:
The word is “responsible.”
A plea for safe spaces? Oh, for Pete’s sake, recognizing that a chat show is a chat show and not political journalism is nothing like a plea for a safe space. The job of the Tonight Show is to maximize ratings.
Btu given that candidates have been going on chat shows for softball interviews since Clinton took his sax to Arsenio Hall’s show, would you expect challenging questions? Another pickle jar? What?
Ideally, he shouldn’t be invited to chat shows (or any show, including the news and radio) at all. But if you do have him on, the correct thing to do is incessantly and relentlessly call him out on his statements, even if it means deceiving him into thinking it’ll be a nice friendly chat about how brown dudes with funny names should be tortured.
Derek Vandivere, #32
What would a presidential candidate likely to win the presidency have to say or do for you to not mind an entertainment show host holding his feet to the fire?
While it might have been a chat show on paper, from the description here, it was effectively a campaign stop.
When having a dinner party , during table conversation, never ask your arsonist guest anything about the fires he set, just let him say how forced he was to set those fires, “to stick-it-to the insurance companies who rip off all the people who pay for fire insurance but never have their house burn down, ayup”. Just getting what they paid for, is what he provides. Let him continue to ramble in a random string of thoughts and diatribes, while he *swishes his hands*.
To ask the arsonists why he destroys property people are living in, and whether someone might have been inside at the time, makes you a bad host. parties are for fun, never confrontation.
/sarcasm
It’s not her job, but…
Derek Vandivere 32: An interview of a presidential candidate intended for mass consumption in any format is political journalism.
Saad: I wouldn’t have *minded* if he’d held his feet to his fire. I don’t think that his job was *responsible* to doing so. I’d rather have candidates not show up on chat shows, since it just adds to the culture of the politics of celebrity.
But given the situation that politicians have been using chat shows for the past several decades as places to get softball questions and appear more human, and chat shows do it because they get ratings, I expect nothing else from appearances like this. I didn’t watch it, but I assume his interview of Hillary was similarly content-free.
I see a lot of passion in the replies to my posts, but I disagree with the logic, or lack of in some cases.
consciousness razor
Fallon has a job, for which he gets paid millions of dollars a year, and for which has a job description to which he has to abide. I suspect that part of that job description involves keeping his ratings up (see Conan O’Brien), which would involve getting high profile guests to appear on the show. I suspect that if he doesn’t treat his guests with respect, as hosts are expected to do (It’s called courtesy, and like mercy or forgiveness, reflects well on those that offer it to those that don’t deserve it.), they and others would be less willing to appear, and his ratings would fall. I also suspect that his job description does not ask him to make strong political or environmental or ___ statements. This doesn’t mean he can’t (see Jimmy Kimmell), but that he doesn’t have to. If for instance, Jimmy was a Republican (I don’t know or care), why would you expect him to challenge his candidate?
While you might complain about him not crucifying Trump, others might complain about him either supporting or not supporting PETA, supporting or not supporting abortion, etc.
While you might feel that all Trump supporters are a**holes, some of them might simply be misguided or mislead. Why should your opinion that a presidential candidate should not be given a platform or not be treated with respect, trump (no pun intended) those who feel the opposite?
As for my Democrats/Republicans comment, I meant that by your logic, if Fallon was a Republican, Democratic candidates would probably not be invited on his show, and if Kimmell was a Democrat, Republicans wouldn’t be invited on his. So basically you would have a form of censorship where talk shows would only invite people on whose views agreed with theirs – self-reinforcing with no debate.
Regardless, this still simplifies to my point that the job of holding candidates feet to the fire belongs to shows like Meet the Press, 60 Minutes, the news, etc. and not talk shows. If the former are failing at their task, it is not the job of the talk shows to take up the slack. You are complaining about the wrong show!
Iris
“The point is that fascist doucheweasels who are a hair’s breath from the US presidency should not be guests on “entertainment” programs in the first place.”
Why?
While I might agree with your opinion, it appears that a significant portion of the population doesn’t. Why should your opinion trump theirs? Isn’t it entertaining?
See also my Democrat/Republicans comment above.
The problem with American media is that politicians now have the option not to appear on programs that ask the tough questions, or be properly questioned about their policies, beliefs, etc. This means that journalists, etc. have to play nice if they want to talk to the person in question and consequently maintain their ratings. This is not a new problem – think W – and needs to be addressed. Again, you should be complaining about the shows whose job it is to do investigative journalism!
Derek Vandivere:
They don’t need to do political journalism, especially when their guests aren’t politicians. But if Fallon and co. recognize that their chat show is not and will not be political journalism, they can also recognize that they should exercise their political responsibility as competent/sober/sane/adult human beings.
Well if so, that’s pretty stupid. Aren’t they producing something? Isn’t their job to produce it? Can’t they decide what will and won’t be produced?
Michael:
So you’re saying he’s not in a situation where he’s forced to do this kind of shit just for the money, since he already had a lot of money. So I shouldn’t feel bad that the standards are unfair or too difficult for him to realize….
How many “high profile guests” are there, which would keep his ratings up? If there are many, more than they could ever hope to have on a single nightly TV show, there is still no pressing reason to have Trump (or Clinton, etc.) on the list.
I don’t expect a person like Fallon to do that, because I’ve seen how he works and what he’s about, experience which has lowered my expectations considerably. However, I think that like anybody else, he should challenge claims which are false, fallacious, etc. — whether or not they’re a politician and no matter what political affiliation they have.
There’s a large gap between “crucifying” and presenting him favorably, giving him a platform, and so forth. I haven’t rallied for Trump’s crucifixion, so please lose the idiotic strawman.
Yes, and those people are in fact wrong, if for example they don’t support abortion. If some think the Earth is flat, they are also wrong, and we simply shouldn’t care if they have something to complain about. It’s fair game to care about what is actually true, because we’re not just stuck with what some random people might believe or say they believe.
That’s not a form of censorship. When I decide to write classical music, I’m not censoring other people who want to make a different kind of music. If I write a dystopian sci-fi novel, I’m not censoring people who write other novels. If I do certain kinds of interviews, I’m not censoring people who do others.
And indeed there could be some debate and cross-pollination and so forth, when the parties involved are actually open to it. You’re saying that Republicans won’t want to face some kind of fair criticism/debate from a progressive host (who may also criticize Democrats, but leave that aside), so they will choose of their own volition not to appear on that host’s show. It’s not the host’s problem that Republicans want to be shielded from fair criticism, or that they’re afraid of a debate with a mere talk show host when they are ostensibly politicians who are supposed to be doing this kind of thing for a living, have some kind of expertise or experience with the issues, etc. Want they’d like is of course just some free advertising in front of a big national audience, but talk show hosts (or journalists or whatever they may be) are under no obligation to offer that.
Seth Meyers shows how it’s done.
re 42:
Absotively: Seth Meyers’ A Closer Look is effectively a condensed version of Stewart’s Daily Show. *applause*