Comfort in Late Night Comedy
By Belinda Nam
What’s the job of a late-night talk show host? It’s more than to shallowly entertain their audience. Talk show hosts are expected to connect their viewers to the events happening worldwide, but in a comical and personable manner. Comedy is no longer synonymous with mere lighthearted chatter. Modern late-night comedians are informing the public about important, sometimes heavy, issues. I argue that many of us have been using humor to mask the hurt or disbelief the news cycle causes us; we feel the only way to combat those negative feelings is through laughter.
It’s not unusual for people to use humor as a coping mechanism. Psychologists have shown that this defense mechanism helps “to keep an individual from feeling the pain associated with the trigger, [but it also] has been found to actually reduce the amount of suffering experienced.” It seems cavalier to laugh at horrific events, but when we laugh through trauma, we aren’t ignoring the events. On the contrary, we are preparing ourselves to approach and survive any adverse situation.
This concept is evident on a large scale during stressful political times, especially on late-night talk shows. If the topic is controversial and touchy, we should turn to humor, even if it seems socially inappropriate to do so. These mechanisms help us feel less hopeless and doomed. We accept the truth through humor, and only through truth can we effectively formulate a plan.
These late-night talk show hosts have their unique methods of exposing the truth. Lately, many of the episodes have focused on changes that Donald Trump and his administration want, but they use their platform to emphasize any number of controversial issues; they’re not always politically charged. They heighten humor to connect with the audience, but the show’s ultimate goal is to help consumers understand what’s at risk in our society.

Trevor Noah uses political satire to engage his audience. The TV viewers can hear laughter in the background from the live audience as he makes comical claims about Trump. “It’s good to get the jokes out,” he says during the June 21st episode before he proceeds to discuss a more disheartening topic: the Philando Castile verdict. Noah challenges the National Rifle Association’s (NRA) silence in the death of Castile; his unique take on the subject has earned him over 2 million views on YouTube. The NRA is a right wing group notorious for demanding a sustained right to bear arms. Noah argues that this is exactly what the NRA should fight against, “an officer of the state depriving a citizen of his life because he was legally carrying a firearm.” The room falls silent as he explains why the silence from the NRA is deafening. The audience follows along with him as we come to terms with, yet again, the sad truth that racism puts our black citizens at risk for legally owning a gun. The hard truth that Noah sheds light on is that, despite official mission statements promising otherwise, some police officers and organizations do not actually support, protect, or care about you — if you are black. He engages his audience with political satire, but then he uses his platform to educate them.

Other talk show hosts, like Jimmy Kimmel, also use their platform to educate their audience. Kimmel’s touching monologue on May 1st about his son’s birth has earned over 11 million views on YouTube. His voice cracks, and he has tears in his eyes as he retells the story of his son’s threatening heart condition that had required emergency surgery just a few days after William Kimmel was born. He mixes an intimate and heartbreaking story with little quips to make the audience laugh. He transitions from a personal experience to discussing the current state of American health care. He becomes political as he discusses the ramifications and the possibility of what would happen if Trump’s administration cut nearly six billion dollars from the National Institute of Health. He talks about pre-existing conditions, and how that would factor into the possible new health care bill. “If your baby is going to die and it doesn’t have to, it shouldn’t matter how much money you make. I think that’s something whether you’re a Republican or Democrat or something else, we all agree on that, right?” We see his vulnerability as he talks about his story. Although he personally doesn’t need to worry about the costs of medical treatments for his family, his plea still resonates with the people. Why shouldn’t healthcare be more accessible for every individual in America?
This segment left people wondering: what can we do to fix the healthcare system? What do we even do with our healthcare system? A personal story and a vulnerable host moved millions of people. This could have happened to me, or somebody I care about. Parents are thankful for their healthy children; some are sympathetic to the feeling of seeing another child hurting and suffering because they’ve been in that position before. People understand loss on a primal level. Most importantly, people are left wondering, “How can we change this?” Kimmel ended his segment with a simple statement: that children, who do not have to die, should not die. Better yet, how can we prevent this from happening? So far, the act of repealing and replacing Obamacare has been unsuccessful. Republicans have abandoned that idea, and they moved straight into repealing the Affordable Care Act (which also failed). The idea behind this was to give Trump’s administration more time to come up with a new health care plan from scratch. Either way, people have been more conscientious of what the future may look like when it comes to health care — cutting Medicaid, placing a lifetime cap on insurance, and leaving 30–32 million Americans uninsured. People were deeply moved by Kimmel’s heartfelt narrative. So much so that the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles received hundreds of calls and their online donation page crashed. This is the power a late-night talk show host can have.

With over 2 million views on YouTube, Seth Meyers supports his arguments about the health care bill during his June 29th episode — that it’s a dangerous legislation that uninformed people are in charge of — with clips from a variety of other news sources. While he uses satire and makes jokes, it’s ultimately informative and persuasive because of the evidence he backs it up with. It essentially shows how unprepared Trump is when it comes to the health care bill. This provokes critical thinking in the audience, like what does this health care bill mean when Trump seems to be uninformed on it? Who is at risk with this healthcare bill, and who is benefitting from Trumpcare? How can citizens stop a bill like this from passing? Meyers takes a clear political stance against Trump and his actions through the “Closer Look” segments.

In a sea of male talk show hosts, there’s Samantha Bee on “Full Frontal”. She’s a comedian with a political opinion and voice. There was a 156% increase in the 18–49 demographic watching her show in February after Trump was in office. Bee’s June 28th episode focuses on Medicaid and how it’s jeopardized through the GOP health care bill. The secret bill revealed that they would be cutting Medicaid, but Trump’s administration was vehemently denying that claim. In a comical manner, Bee teaches her audience what Medicaid is and who is covered through Medicaid. The elderly is one group that would be greatly affected by Medicaid cuts. What’s another group that will be affected by Medicaid cuts? The rich. The rich will benefit from scraping Medicaid funds by giving tax breaks to the rich. The message I get after watching Bee’s segment is that cutting Medicaid challenges a primary Republican belief about being pro-life. Are there conditions to the pro-life sentiment? That some lives are more valuable than others? This leaves me questioning what this administration is trying to achieve and whom are they trying to please. Even though it seems inappropriate to laugh when talking about lives being at risk, I found myself laughing. Through the laughter, I know that I’ll call representatives to stop a bill like this from passing.

Not all talk show hosts decided to take a political stand, however. Jimmy Fallon went a different route of having a decidedly apolitical stance. There are pros to this approach because adopting a political stance brings with it a slim chance of insulting certain demographics. But lately, some people are demanding a more political stance from public figures. Fallon had Trump on “The Tonight Show” last September, and his liberal viewers responded negatively to Fallon’s interaction with Trump. Instead of interrogating the Republican candidate, Fallon ruffled Trump’s hair. People perceived this action as Fallon making Trump personable and approachable. Some of his viewers didn’t want that, and the proof rests in the ratings. “The Late Show” with Stephen Colbert has successfully surpassed Fallon’s “The Tonight Show.” While Colbert’s audience grew over 11% since the previous year, Fallon’s audience shrank by 15%. It would seem that Republicans don’t tend to watch Colbert because he isn’t shy about criticizing or insulting Trump, while Democrats gravitate toward talk show hosts who are critical of the administration.
Satire can be used in an informative and educational way, especially for young people because they view late-night television as a major source of news. For example, a 2014 Pew Research study showed that “younger males are most likely to use and trust ‘The Colbert Report’ as a source of news about government and politics.” Contrary to what newspapers like to claim, younger generations are staying up to date with news, they just rely on different outlets than their predecessors. This shift is encouraging late-night talk show hosts as they adjust content to appeal to their young audience. A multitude of sources are reporting on a plethora of events, giving consumers a variety of options on how they want to educate themselves on social and political issues. Millennials are the most likely to share and circulate the content if they like it onto their personal social media profiles. They rely on episode segments from YouTube or Facebook to be more effective than watching television because younger generations prefer how accessible the clips are.
I, like many others, have my concerns about what I see in the news. Policy changes affect me — just like they affect us all. I worry about the current threats to women’s health care, state of our environment, and institutional racism and sexism that’s prevalent in our country. Rather than feel powerless, I allow myself to find comfort in late-night talk shows because I find myself laughing and learning. In a ten-minute segment, I can see and hear about what’s happening around the world. Humor lets me find a sense of hope — that we’re all in this together, and that we can beat what is ahead of us. It’s natural to view this progression in news with suspicion, but the changing role of late night hosts is nothing to fear. The world is changing, so news sources adapt to how people process and engage with news. Tonight, I’ll watch a clip on YouTube about the Russian collusion. What are you going to do?
Belinda Nam is the content intern at NewFounders (formerly RISE). NewFounders is comprised of design, tech and innovative thinkers that believe in unity through problem solving. See more at www.newfounders.us.
