The minstrelsy of late-night-TV activism
Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart protested the cancellation by CBS of his cohort Stephen Colbert’s Late Show by staging an appalling musical routine on The Daily Show, circling the wagons in Colbert’s defense.
Like his fellow travelers in mainstream media, Stewart reacted to the cancellation news — that tantalizing promise of Colbert’s network disappearance from the airwaves next year — as if it was a personal offense. (Colbert’s TV career began as a parody news correspondent on The Daily Show in 1997.) But Stewart’s allegiance went overboard, as he repeatedly unleashed the f-bomb in a fake-gospel rave-up, backed by six token black singers wearing choir robes — a display of self-righteousness in spite of ludicrous parody.
They all sang “F*** you!” to the CBS corporate brass as well as to the Trump administration. (Stewart implicitly blamed conservative politics for forcing CBS’s decision). As usual, Stewart’s stunt backfired, inverting free-speech and racial stereotypes. His profane gospel tirade was an attempt to hold on to the Democratic Party’s core black American constituents and manipulate those voters.
Stewart’s faux choir appeased patronizing white liberals. But the obvious calculation behind this move illustrated the desperation of so many anonymous black showbiz performers (such as those who were paid to promote the Kamala Harris campaign) who eagerly demonstrate an unshakeable loyalty to the post-FDR legacy of Democratic Party devotion.
The small, ineffective mini choir seemed unaware of their fakery. They seemed both casual and indifferent to history — ignoring that it was Democrats who promoted slavery during the Civil War and that it was Dixiecrats who stood in the way of the 1965 civil rights bill. Stewart backed their rote enthusiasm with white-boy disco-dance moves and gesticulations modeled after Colbert’s clowning on his own show.
Authentic gospel imperative was missing because Stewart exploited the churchy legacy of civil rights demonstrations that the left always appropriates for its own use — from Nancy Pelosi taking a knee for George Floyd at the Capitol to Democrats singing “We Shall Overcome” in the congressional well to support Representative Al Green’s misbehavior. But this particularly obnoxious act recalled the dated “All Gods Children Got Rhythm” number in the Marx Brothers’ At the Races, from 1938, only without the bonhomie. It was an SNL sketch gone off the rails.
Commentator Jason Whitlock described the performance of Jon Stewart (born John Stuart Leibowitz) this way: “Someone who doesn’t accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior uses a black Christian tradition to profanely mock their adversary.” Whitlock also mentioned “blasphemy,” an appropriate term although meaningless for secular activist Stewart and Catholic manqué Colbert. Stewart’s switch from his usual snark to imitate Colbert’s buffoonery proved how spiteful and irreligious political humor has become since the left’s worship of Barack Obama and subsequent persecution of President Trump.
The Daily Show is part of the media activism that dupes Christianity and black performers — on a recent episode, hip-hop radio puppet Charlamagne tha God, enlisted as a dutiful member of the show’s cast, earned his position by cheering on death for POTUS.
Stewart’s program is designed for treachery, not wit or insight. The Colbert choir stunt omitted the facts of Colbert’s low ratings, his exorbitant salary, and the millions of dollars in annual financial losses he was causing the network. It grew out of a mindset shared by the cabal of late-night TV hosts.
Brian Lowry of The Wrap said that Stewart’s church-style rant was a “warning to anyone in news or entertainment thinking they can homogenize or lobotomize their way into President Trump’s good graces.” Note how Lowry substitutes “homogenize” for “democratize” but ignores that poor ratings and high costs contributed to Late Night’s failure. Lowry’s piece featured a composite graphic of five leftist late-night white guys (John Oliver, Jimmy Kimmel, Colbert, Seth Meyers, and Jimmy Fallon) posing as if they are standard-bearers of democracy, yet Lowry excluded significant TV history that their ascension came after industry racism pushed out the sole black late-night host, Arsenio Hall. These all-white liberal Dems are the stars of a new Democratic Party minstrel show.
Stewart’s routine was both uninspired and unholy — an act that failed to edify any audience. But it raised an important cultural question: How did comedians come to replace political commentators (whether cable and network political actors, or PBS pundits)? The politicization of entertainment ruins show business. Despite congratulating the tiny applause-meter audience, Colbert, like Stewart, just isn’t funny. Their late-night host creed: Save democracy by reducing it to f-bomb minstrelsy.