Thursday, September 16, 2004
Jay Leno Right-Wing Pawn?
Nikki Finke capped off two "Jay Leno: Right-Wing Pawn" editorials (The Right Comic and Dave The Brave), with an interview with the toadie himself.
Check out some of the questions/statements...
- It was totally inappropriate for you to push Schwarzenneger's candidacy and then emcee his victory party. It hurt your objectivity.
- The billion dollars that Teresa Heinz Kerry has from the tragedy of her husband dying is considered okay, but Laura Bush is untouchable?
- But that's denigrating Bush. That's not denigrating her.
- I suspect that Letterman is more anti-Bush than you.
- And you admit you gave Bush another pass because of Iraq?
- The White House strategy is to ridicule Kerry every single day of the campaign. And obviously The Tonight Show will be the first to pick up on that. How do you decide if you're being used to further some political party's ends?
- I think that having grown up in Boston, having been in a middle-class family, and having been active on behalf of unions - I know about that - I actually think you're probably left of center. But I think there's a fear inside of you that you don't want to piss off authority. It comes from your mother, this don't-rock-the-boat mentality.
- How come there's no humor made of the fact that Cheney is making people take loyalty oaths before anyone is allowed at his rallies?
Classic stuff. I kept waiting for her to bust out with, "Mr. Leno. Are you now, or have you ever been a Republican?" If she turns it up a few notches we could be seeing the making of a liberal Ann Coulter. But geez, attacking Jay Leno? That's like kicking Estelle Getty in the shin, or Tonya Harding's boxing career. It's just plain wrong.
Jay Leno is no right-wing pawn, just as he is no pawn for the Democratic party. Jay Leno serves only one master, his audience. Look at the demographics. David Letterman has the superior show, but is still seen as too edgy for Middle America. Conan is popular, but ultimately that popularity lies with college students and the chemical friendly. The political junkies flock to Stewart, and there's Koppel and Kimmel for the mentally deranged.
Take all those people out and who’s left? Middle America. That's Leno's audience. These people don't give a crap one way or the other about either party-I would suspect that many of them are members of the fifty percent of the population who don't vote-they just want a laugh before bed. Jay Leno provides safe, sanitized, middle-of-the-road humor for middle-of-the-road people. I hate to break it to Ms. Finke, but no one is looking to the Tonight Show for political commentary. Political humor? Sure. Bias? Not unless you're wearing a tinfoil hat.
One of the arguments Ms. Finke uses against Leno is the frequency of Clinton jokes in his monologue. Has this chick seen a comedian or talk show monologue in the last, I don't know, four years or so? Hell, every once in a while someone pulls out a Quayle joke. Is that proof of a liberal bias? Everyone is still doing Clinton jokes. And for a very good reason, one which she touched upon in one of her editorials.
Blow-job jokes.
And not just any blow-job jokes, but blow-job jokes no censor will ever bleep. The Clinton sex scandals were the biggest gift ever to stand-up comedians, and uppity L.A. Weekly writers or not, they're not giving it up anytime soon.
Put yourself in their shoes. You're onstage boring the hell out of your audience with tonight's monologue-we're talking Hiroshima bombing. What do you do? You pull out a Clinton/Lewinsky joke and suddenly the audience is giggling like little girls. Until Resident Bush gets caught fucking something other than the economy, the military, foreign relations and the future, I wouldn't be holding your breath. Clinton jokes are here to stay.
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