Late Night Comedies, The First Amendment and Millennials

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“Humor is necessary in a democracy for reasons other than serving as a device for spreading truth and attacking fools knaves. In a free society, every few years, the populace engages in a wrenching struggle for power. Humor lets us take the issues seriously without taking ourselves too seriously. If we are able to laugh at ourselves as we lunge for the jugular, the process loses some of its malice.” – Gerald C. Gardner

We can all be sure that when our founding fathers cultivated great dreams of progression and artistry for the new born country, they certainly never could have expected that the first amendment set in stone would come to protect not just politicians, but the comedians that tear them apart.

And with such protections, comedians can catapult the nastiest of blows to anyone they come into contact with, jabbing at newly-elected presidents, satirizing media icons and down-right laughing at given political situations.

Scholars and practitioners call for more research in the context of late-night comedy because some viewers seem to be giving considerable weight to what they are watching. The Pew Research Center for People and the Press found 47% of viewers aged 18 to 29 reported gaining political information from late-night entertainment television shows, like The Tonight Show and Saturday Night Live.

In early 2004, The Pew Research Center for People and the Press released its finding that one out of every two people aged 18-29 reported learning political information from late-night comedy shows, like Saturday Night Live and The Daily Show, and 61% reported learning political information from late-night talk shows, like Late Night with David Letterman and Jay Leno’s The Tonight Show.

For me, I can specifically remember holding back tears to the monologues of pure comfort that late night hosts like Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers streamed to the country the night after election day in 2016. They urged us to not lose hope, have faith in our first amendment, and remember that hate won’t always win. Throw in a few one-liners here and there and everyone had found their homebase for sanity for the next four years.

The Difference Between News and Late Night

The first few months of the Trump administration were a goldmine for late-night comedians and political satirists. Shows like Full Frontal With Samantha Bee, Saturday Night Live, and Late Night With Seth Meyers have enjoyed rating boosts thanks to their regular lampooning of the Trump White House.

And now, we have seen a new light, who took six episodes to even utter Trump’s name.

His name is Hasan Minhaj, with his original Netflix show "Patriot Act."

Coming off the high of his White House Correspondents Dinner Speech and his Netflix comedy special “Hasan Minhaj: Homecoming King,” Minhaj is entering a world that is monopolized by satire artists not on streaming services.

Samantha Bee, John Oliver and Stephen Colbert have been at the forefront of political comedy and hard to swallow pills since long before Trump’s presidency. But have only thrived since.

In terms of Minhaj entering the arena, topical shows headed by stars like Chelsea Handler and Joel McHale on Netflix have utterly failed. As well as Larry Wilmore, Jordan Klepper and Robin Thede all having their 11:30 p.m. broadcasts ripped off Comedy Central.

So is Minhaj DOA? He doesn’t think so, in an interview with the New York Times, Minhaj said, “If we get this wrong, well, it’s what everyone predicted,” he told Dave Itzkoff a few days before the test show. “But if we get this right?” His eyes widened and a grin spread across his face. “It feels like ‘Rocky’ 1 all over again.”

NYT goes on to say that when Netflix pursued Minhaj, in the afterglow of the White House Correspondents Dinner, to create a series for him, Minhaj had a very clear sense of what he didn’t want to do.

If he didn’t assert himself and find his own approach, he said, "I was going to be in a suit, behind a desk, in front of a fake city skyline, and people would be, like, ‘Oh, it’s Indian John Oliver.’"

As detrimental as Trump’s presidency has been, we must admit that its given late-night hosts rousing material that has certainly shown America how to find silver-linings.

Vox correspondent, Carlos Maza, did an in-depth analysis on just how much better satire artists report the news, better than actual news anchors. Anchors will spend their entire 24-hour news cycle delving into an obviously theorized tweet from Trump with debates and round tables.

“And that’s because while traditional journalists feel compelled to take President Trump’s often absurd statements and conspiracy theories seriously,” said Maza, “Political satirists have demonstrated an extremely low tolerance for bullshit.”

Sophie McClennen’s book, Colbert’s America: Satire and Democracy, tells of just that. The idea that comedians like Stephen Colbert and John Oliver act as filters for political content that does not need purposeful energy. “The news media sort of seems like it has to take it seriously, in order to be taken seriously,” McClennen wrote.

In the Vox analysis, Maza continues, “You can see the difference between satire and traditional TV journalism in the coverage of Trump’s false claim that President Obama wiretapped his phones at Trump Tower,” Maza explained. “While comedians debunked his claim, traced its conspiracy-theorist origins, and explained how ridiculous the entire story was, major news networks spent countless hours hosting panel debates and interviews with government officials trying to investigate whether Trump’s conspiracy theory might have merit. That kind of coverage can spread misinformation by repeating rumors and falsehoods ad nauseam.”

Those who watch late night will be able to conceive just how ridiculous these claims can be, whether they come from the president or not. But, if they choose to only watch news segments on the matter without even doing their own research, they will see speculation of unqualified panels, pitted against each other for the sole purpose of entertainment, as facts. It seems a little counterintuitive, doesn’t it?

The White House Correspondents Dinner

On April 28, the night of the 2018 White House Correspondents dinner, journalists spanning across all networks come together to celebrate what keeps them in a job: the first amendment.

Besides the gathering of news casters, editors and other journalists at this prestigious annual ceremony, one that has often been skipped by many presidents, there is one event during the dinner that truly exercises the distinct boundaries of that wonderful first amendment.

The remarks of America’s biggest comedians, Stephen Colbert, Hasan Minhaj, Michelle Wolf and many others. These comedians attend every year and absolutely slaughter the administration, the press that covers them and everyone in between. And they do it, because they can.

Hasan Minhaj composed a speech that masterfully encapsulated the irony of the man who runs our country while criticizing the amendment that has hardly kept DJT afloat in his WHCD speech:

“…do I come up here and just try to fit in and not ruffle any feathers? Or do I say how I really feel? Because this event is about celebrating the First Amendment and free speech. Free speech is the foundation of an open and liberal democracy, from college campuses to the White House. Only in America can a first-generation, Indian American Muslim kid get on the stage and make fun of the president. The orange man behind the Muslim ban. And it’s a sign to the rest of the world. It’s this amazing tradition that shows the entire world that even the president is not beyond the reach of the First Amendment. Keeping up with politics is easy now. But the president didn’t show up. Because Donald Trump doesn’t care about free speech. The man who tweets that everything that enters his head refuses to acknowledge the amendment that allows him to do it.”

“Patriot Act”

So as for Hasan Minhaj’s “Patriot Act,” does it miss the mark, or take a stand? Well, Variety’s Carolina Framke explained in her Oct. 28 column, “‘Patriot Act,’ which dropped two episodes on Oct. 28, doesn’t run away from political comedy convention while also aiming for something just different enough to make it stand apart.” Although she cites that there are improvements to be made that late-night viewers might also encourage (less quick-paced camera angles and more feeding of the audience’s reactions), “it is different, and in an otherwise crowded field, that matters.”

Regardless of how the rest of the season plays out, it will be interesting to see how the first Indian-American late-night host will hold up a torch to others who have paved the way. And if anything, he’ll still be using his first amendment rights to appeal to a generation (and hopefully more) of viewers who look to late-night coverage for clarity, less panels or arguments, and most importantly — some much-needed humor.

Today, free speech is the bare minimum. Our ability as Americans to speak out for what we believe, how lucky we are to do it, is truly taken for granted. If anyone even scoffs at an opinion posted online, our first amendment is cited within seconds. Of course, many will use this amendment to spew hate speech, it can only be expected. What that group usually fails to understand, however, is that our first amendment serves not only to protect your right to say whatever you wish, but to leverage the always deliciously clever repercussions that will be tweeted back or thrown into late-night monologues.