Did last week’s Daily Show replacement-host-announcement seem weird to anyone else? In retrospect, I kind of wonder if the whole thing was mishandled. We didn’t even get a leaked shortlist of contenders to replace Jon Stewart. Out of nowhere, Trevor Noah was anointed as the new host. Initially, the reaction was positive. Although most Americans weren’t familiar with Noah, we wished him well. Then some sites did cursory examinations into Trevor’s social media history and there were many tweets that seemed… bad. Sexist. Misogynistic. Anti-Semitic. Maybe even racist.
The whole thing was made worse by the simple fact that The Daily Show was on a break last week, so Jon Stewart couldn’t personally vouch for Trevor Noah on-air. Instead, Comedy Central issued a flurry of “give the new guy a break” statements and Noah even had to tweet an explanation: “To reduce my views to a handful of jokes that didn’t land is not a true reflection of my character, nor my evolution as a comedian.” Are you buying that? Eh. I will give comedians a break to try to work out their material, but the vein of casual misogyny running through Noah’s Twitter feed gave me pause, and I feel like he is doing a disservice to simply dismiss that as a “joke that didn’t land.”
Anyway, The Daily Show came back last night and Jon Stewart finally vouched for Noah on air. Here’s the video:
Jon says Noah “will earn your trust and respect … Or not. Just as I earned your trust and respect … Or did not. Or sometimes earned it and then lost it and then kind of got it back and then it was like, ‘F— that guy!’” Jon says his experiences with Noah have shown him that Noah is “an incredibly thoughtful and considerate and funny and smart individual, and I think if you give him that time it’s going to be well worth it.”
So, controversy over? Ugh. I feel sorry for Comedy Central a little bit, losing Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart within a year and trying to reboot their late night line-up with new faces. But I suspect that this will not be the end of it. And I’d also like to hear why Comedy Central felt like there were no female comedians capable of taking over for either late-night slot.
Photos courtesy of Trevor Noah’s social media.
Am I the only one that thinks Trevor is a hottie?
Nope, he’s lovely. I think he’s funny too, though I don’t like some of the excerpted tweets at all.
He’s not that great.
And talk about DAMNING WITH FAINT PRAISE. Wow.
I think they picked him without enough research, based on his Obama-type vibe. But his tweets don’t sound like Obama.
Obama’s funny. And sly. And not LAME.
And I think there’s a LOT more to the story. They announced him so fast and so many people are leaving. I expect a long story to come out about all of this.
I think he’s funny, not really hot. I guess South African (and Australian) accents are not my thing.
You’re definitely not the only one.
I think his looks were one of the reasons he was chosen – it is television after all, not radio. And I’m sure CC wanted a young guy who would bring in a young audience attractive to advertisers, and one who would reflect the changing demographics of the U.S., as well as appeal to international viewers.
But….I just can’t with this guy. I actually enjoy edgy humor, and don’t mind a pointed joke about race, religion or sexuality when it reveals a truth or makes me think. I don’t even mind being the butt of a clever joke – hell, as a Christian, I’ve sat through many a Jesus joke, and sometimes laughed. The best humor makes us laugh at ourselves.
But there’s just something mean-spirited about Trevor Noah. He seems to enjoy attacking traditionally easy targets – fat people, prostitutes, Midwesterners, African-Americans with unusual names. I’m like – really, that’s all you’ve got?
I’m with you. I like smart, edgy humor but so far I’m not getting that from Noah. And his lame dismissal of his “jokes that didn’t land” comment hasn’t helped my outlook.
I keep thinking about Louis CK and George Carlin when people talk about this guy being “edgy and funny.”
He’s not on the same planet or in the same solar system with those guys.
if you think woman haters are sexy than yes he is very sexy.
For me it’s – Yea kinda, maybe. Dimples sometimes do it for me.
He won’t
He lost me on 2 points. He dismissed his offensive jokes by the “didn’t land” line. So, if people did laugh and weren’t outraged he would have kept going with those types of jokes?
And to counter the sexist jokes he played the sympathetic mom shot in head card. Really? I’d buy that more if he ddn’t appear to use it as a pr angle to repair his image and if he didn’t make numerous jokes against women.
This sounds like a Brian Williams case. Admit you did wrong. Admit your humor was in poor taste and not because it wasn’t the demographic you thought. Fall on your sword and if we forgive you earned it. Not this PR tap dance.
Sadly, CC has great PR damage control and in time he will rebrand himself into a character he plays on TDS and not this fool with negative stereotype frat boy sense of humor.
I think what flies in South Africa is very different than what flies here. Like it or not, anti-Semitic stereotypes, misogyny and sexism, and casual racism are still considered suitable subjects for humor in other countries. I think CC didn’t do adequate vetting nor did they instruct Noah to do a paradigm shift in his humor before taking the job (ie, purging all his offensive online “jokes”). It was sloppy.
I doubt CC has given Noah more than a year’s trial, just to be sure. And if they were dumb enough to lock him in for more time than that, I hope many escape clauses were written into the contracts.
I agree. There are a lot of talk show hosts that have come and gone very quickly….Dennis Miller, Magic Johnson, Chevy Chase, Tony Danza, Roseanne, Kris Jenner…. the list goes on.
At any rate, Noah’s new high profile will probably get him more standup gigs in the future. What’s Andrew Dice Clay doing these days, anyway? Trevor Noah’s tweets made me think about him again.
I disagree – to suggest that casual racist humor is acceptable in South Africa makes no sense at all … especially if you have any knowledge of their history.
His humour and what he comments on is so typically African. It’s not necessarily that he is racist, mysogynist etc. People don’t really think about the translation to western audiences. It’s all just humour.
He will self censor soon enough.
Is any negative comment on Israel anti Semitic? I’m pro Israel but it’s not perfect and his joke was on point. An anti Palestine (or Roma, for example) joke would be in poor taste because those people aren’t in a power position.
if those tweets were years old, isn’t it possible that the man’s comedic perspective has changed. I find this black or white mentality frustrating. I would HOPE that people wouldn’t hold things I said when I was younger against me today. We all grow and evolve. Trevor Noah’s stand up has NO misogynist content, in fact in the stand up special I watched, the only woman he mentioned was his mother. His routine is mostly observations about his life in South Africa, his experience coming to America and the differences between America and the rest of the world. It’s not fair for people to dismiss him as some unintelligent frat boy douche because of a few cringeworthy jokes.
Jaye
His dismissive repsonse to those older jokes is very recent and still fall in line with that mentality.
As far as a culture shock defense it’s not enough. You can come from another culture with a different sense of humor. It can be tough to adjust. Especially with types and styles of humor.
His jokes were offensive though. And he hasn’t been cut off from the states and that style of humor. He’s been aware.
I did see his routines before all this played out. He was ok, but nothing stand out about him. And we all know his offending jokes came from his social media where he isn’t censored. Those filmed routines are. You have to submit your jokes or let those who host the venue/film be made aware if there’s any really offensive content so they can avoid a scandal.
Filmed routines are terrible ways to gauge a comics true private humor. They’re playing to audiance.
We could be all wrong about him. If nothing else he’s not taking ownership of his past behavior. He’s writing it off/dismissing it, but not admitting he said it and it was a poor choice.
I agree that he should say his humor has evolved and he sees why those jokes were offensive, and he doesn’t plan to use that type of humor anymore. I would feel better about it all then.
I had no idea filmed routines were censored. I mean, watching Louis CK, the late George Carlin, Larry the Cable Guy, Bob Saget etc, if their shows were censored, then they must have had extremely raunchy material, ’cause the end results are still pretty raw. IMO.
The Twitter jokes I find offensive were from 2011, 2012, 2013…so he was 27-29 years old at the time. Not exactly an innocent young lad. It reminds me of a Republican Senator years ago who claimed an extramarital affair was a ‘youthful mistake.’ He was 42 at the time.
At any rate, Trevor Noah is going to have a hard time calling out Republicans and Democrats for the various stupid things they say in the 2016 campaign, given his own less-than-brainy utterances.
Why is a South African being hired to comment on American politics? They couldn’t find someone raised in the US?
Isn’t America the land of Immigrants?
The daily show comments on international politics as well.
Dontgetit
Does that matter?
Sadly, I heard from someone more on the inside than us here he was chosen to appeal to a wider audiance. International, multiracial, appealing accent.
LAK
You bet it is!
“They took our jobs!”
Do you have a problem with Jon Oliver, Samantha Bee, Jason Jones? None of those are American and they seem to have done just fine whilst on the Daily Show.
Yeah, I was disappointed as well when a woman wasn’t chosen for the spot.
I’ve seen TN’s stand-up on youtube – it was funny. We’ll see how he does on the Daily Show – those are some hard acts to follow (Stewart and Colbert) and I’m sure it’s a daunting task. I hope they’re able to keep the quality level high.
I don’t think a handful of tweets either makes or breaks a person. People will either watch him or not.
Meh. I’ll give him a chance.
If most of us were judged on the crap we spew (often jokingly) on social media; twitter, Instagram, Facebook, blog comment sections etc, we’d probably be viewed differently. Thankfully, we have the luxury of being anonymous.
Maybe Trevor Noah should have cleaned up his twitter before the announcement, but then again, the internet is forever, nothing goes away.
People love to over-react to small things/nothing. Makes them feel like they’re a good person doing good for humanity (hah) when really their energy would be better spent elsewhere.
Oh, I dunno – I feel pretty comfortable over-reacting to racism, misogyny, anti-Semitism and homophobia. I guess that makes me feel like I’m doing something good for humanity. Hah.
Yes, the joke about the woman who dares to say no receiving an uppercut was really small. And the one about feeling bad because the car that hit the Jew was German, that was teeeeeeny.
Why has comedy central not snapped up Aisha Taylor? She’s increadibly funny. Its almost possible to sit thru some of the Talk because she’s on it.
Who knows if she even wants to work for Comedy Central? Or if they screen tested her but she didn’t do as well as (insert the hundreds of other comedians who auditioned for this role)?
I dunno, Comedy Central consistently gets it right for me when selecting their late-night hosts, so I’m willing to give this guy a chance if he was able to beat the whole field of other applicants. Simply put: if they think he’s the best for this particular job, then he might just be.
She’d have been great. I know she has a ton of things on the go but I wish she’d been given serious consideration.
Big shoes to fill. It doesn’t help that another TDS correspondent John Oliver did a great job with that Snowden interview. Oh, man!
Being from South Africa I can tell you he works hard, I’m not always the fan but the guy deserve his chance. He was super massive here before he decided to move in the US two years ago. One thing for sure the president and the rest of the politician gang sure glad his gone.
I wondered for awhile if Jessica Williams was under consideration, but she is pretty young and made it clear she didn’t want the job…yet. I get where she’s coming from.
As for Noah…I’m not thrilled about some of his content, but it’s been a few years and he has the potential to grow. Stewart is pretty much right – either he’ll inherit the seat and succeed or he’ll be eaten alive by social media.
Jon Stewart is very hard to replace, but they couldn’t find someone less misogynist and anti-Semitic? His jokes are mean spirited and pretty vicious, and it’s not just that they “didn’t land”. Nor are they in the past; they’re pretty recent.
Then it’s a good thing he’ll be working with a team of writers, as does Jon Stewart.
I find it funny that the uber pc Stewart/comedy central is bitten in the derriere by–pc
He’s a funny comedian, his jokes are about his observations as an african. I’m also an African anf some if what he says might make some people cringe but he tells it like he sees it and honestly I find humor in that because I can relate to what he says too.
I think a lot of what makes Stewart so good is the writing (which I realize he has a hand in). I usually end up skipping the celebrity interviews and other unscripted bits he does. Put Noah with the same team and I would be surprised if we get a demonstrably different product. Also, I don’t think anyone would call most of Stewart’s work outside of TDS particularly auspicious or successful.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I love TDS. I think that Stewart is very talented and has worked almost inhumanly hard at a job America desperately needs done for an amazingly long time, but to dismiss this guy before his first episode? It would make as much sense as dismissing Stewart based upon his performance in The Faculty.