Jon Stewart delivered a bracing rant against his corporate bosses on Monday, but that was, frankly, expected. Buried within the commentary was the more lasting warning to anyone in news or entertainment thinking they can homogenize or lobotomize their way into President Trump’s good graces.
Monday evening marked the “The Daily Show” host’s first time on air since CBS and parent Paramount, which also owns Comedy Central, canceled Stephen Colbert’s “Late Show,” hosted by his longtime friend and former colleague.
Admitting that he was “not the most objective” person to comment on the situation, Stewart questioned Paramount and CBS’ motives, before getting to his most salient and resonant point: The faulty logic of institutions trying to bow to Trump’s “whims.”
Citing the potential goal of trying to safeguard Paramount’s $8-billion merger with Skydance Media, Stewart noted, “A not insignificant portion of that $8 billion value came from those f–kin’ shows. That’s what made you that money. Shows that say something. Shows that take a stand.”
Stewart then drew the obvious connection and corollary to that, saying that if the idea is to present programming so inoffensive as to avoid provoking Trump’s wrath, “Why would anyone watch you?” To networks and corporations, he cited the fallacy of thinking that “you can make yourselves so innocuous, that you can serve a gruel so flavorless, that you will never again be on the boy king’s radar.”
It’s a simple point, but during Trump’s ongoing crusade against media, an easily overlooked one, which has echoed through other recent pop-culture staples.
“Superman” director James Gunn, for example, erred in the eyes of conservatives by making politically tinged comments about the title character being an immigrant, triggering the usual “Go woke, go broke” diatribes prior to the film’s release.
Since then, though, a funny thing happened: “Superman” has performed extremely well in North America, but lagged a bit in its international returns, a dynamic that Gunn attributed at least in part to “anti-American sentiment around the world” elicited by the Trump administration.
Granted, going “woke” will surely alienate some people, particularly if they have a megaphone to voice their displeasure and a profit incentive to do so. But as Stewart suggests, there’s no more sure-fire way to go broke than trying to please everybody in a way that sands off all the rough edges and winds up being boring.
Moreover, as Stewart noted, short of heaping praise upon him, there’s no real way to ensure that you can remain on Trump’s “nice” list. As proof, Stewart cited Trump’s lawsuit against the Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal, filed despite the fact Murdoch’s other most prominent asset, Fox New Channel, “spends 24 hours a day blowing Trump, and it’s not enough.”
Admittedly, an aspiring blockbuster like “Superman” plays by a different set of rules than a late-night TV show. Yet as numbers guru Nate Silver noted in a lengthy post about the “Late Show” cancellation, “Outside of sports and perhaps Taylor Swift, there’s really no mass culture anymore.”
Stewart’s vital lesson, then, is why try to be all things to all people, including those operating in bad faith? In a niche-oriented world, material and talent that provokes strong feelings is ultimately going to be more valuable and enduring, whatever headaches might go with it.
That dynamic obviously comes with a few key disclaimers, chief among them producing content at a reasonable price. As Stewart acknowledged, the economics of late night have become far less hospitable in recent years, prompting him to compare the financial model to “operating a Blockbuster kiosk inside a Tower Records.”
Pure economics could explain the “Late Show” decision, although after CBS settled Trump’s frivolous “60 Minutes” lawsuit, skeptics can be forgiven for seeing the merger and regulatory concerns as having played a part — with Paramount joining all the other institutions that have “bent the knee” to the “Boy King.”
The bottom line, though, is that while Colbert’s top-rated network late-night show might have fallen victim to being too expensive, it isn’t breathing its last breath because it was too “woke” — except, perhaps, in the eyes of what Stewart called a “vengeful and vindictive” president.
Stewart’s parting plea, in essence, was a foul-mouthed call for companies to grow stiffer spines. And whatever the response, he made clear that he does not intend to stand down without making a fight, the kind that for his fans, at least, will be well worth watching.
