Melinda Taub, a writer for “Full Frontal With Samantha Bee,” wrote this piece for the Down to the Wire issue of TheWrap’s Emmy magazine.
On election night, after the results came in and the world realized that Donald Trump was really, truly going to be the president, I got a lot of wonderful messages from friends. “Can’t wait for ‘Full Frontal’ tomorrow,’” they said. “We really need you guys.”
A lovely sentiment, but it was 3 in the morning, I couldn’t stop crying and the show wasn’t written yet. I was working as hard on getting my sister to come to my office and give me a hug as I was on my script. Eric, one of the other writers, was looking at real estate in Canada. I wished my wonderful friends would shut the hell up.
A lot of people seem to assume that late-night writers are thrilled that Trump won. “He must give you so much material!” they say. First of all, please believe we could have made fun of President Hillary Clinton. She’s so awkward! So stiff! The woman is like a traffic cone with an anxiety disorder. As president she would have been hilarious.
And second of all, we are also people who live in the world — people with families and uteruses, and varying amounts of melanin and, in the age of Trump, increasingly severe drinking problems. We are as freaked out as the rest of you. Possibly more freaked out, because we can never turn the news off, and also comedy writers are a pretty nervous bunch to begin with.
A couple examples from our staff: Mathan can’t watch improv because he is “too scared for them”; Ashley and I have multiple text threads devoted to reassuring each other that not everyone hates us. We are exquisitely fragile little balls of neuroses and we are not built for Trump’s America, but we have a show to write, so we can’t look away.
Sometimes when I’m trying to go to sleep I hear Trump’s voice in my head. Sometimes it’s Wolf Blitzer. I read just now that the Democrats might support anti-choice candidates for Congress in 2018, so I am currently hugging a doll.
It’s a hard job, but it’s also satisfying. I am a big believer in talking about what bothers you. When something stupid happens, I don’t have to just write down my feelings in a diary — I can write them in a script and then a pretty Canadian lady yells them into your television. We’re still just shouting into the void, but at least our void is on basic cable.
At the end of the day, this is my dream job. I love comedy that comes from a real place — the kind of jokes that hit the audience in such a personal way, it sounds like we punched the laugh out of them. We’re getting gut-punched as a nation on a regular basis, so I’m proud to write for a show that lets people laugh at all this nonsense.
I don’t believe comedy can or should save the world, but hopefully we can make it a little more bearable. We will call Trump as many synonyms for orange as we have to to get you guys through this.