Didn’t you get the memo? Comedians are all we have for a fourth estate now.
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Jimmy Fallon has never remotely pretended to be a news reporter, a hard-hitting interviewer, or an investigative show host. He’s a silly entertainer. I don’t hate or blame him for entertaining people.
By having the prick on, and failing to righteously eviscerate the fuck, he’s a minion.
Cf. the Nuremberg trials.
I know the US media is awash with pap and twaddle, but when it’s got the Nazi brand on it, you can’t say it’s nothing to worry about.
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I do.
Blame, rather than hate, anyway.
He’s an entertainer, not a journalist. I don’t expect him to publicly oppose Trump in any way. Tough interviews aren’t his job.
But there is a difference between “no duty to oppose” and “obligation to not support”. And that’s an obligation that comes with “being a decent human being”, no matter what your job is.
Fallon isn’t a total idiot; he had to be aware of the purpose and effect of Trump’s appearance. He chose to cooperate with and enable that in order to gain ratings and exposure. He made a decision that his personal success was more important than the damage a Trump victory would inflict.
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I’m reminded of when I realised Kelsey Grammer is as much more of a dickhead as than Frasier Crane, upon hearing he was on the committee to re-elect Dubya.
So you’re saying that no talk shows, across the board, should have any political candidates on their shows, lest their viewers disagree with the politics of the person on the show? Got it.
Straw man much?
I’m saying a talk show host who wants to be apolitical shouldn’t host politicians. If you’re going to have pollies on, it shouldn’t be free exposure; they should have to justify their status, just like entertainers have to justify their status by entertaining.
I’m saying any talk show host who buddies up with such a walking nightmare like he’s a harmless entertainer rather than the vile scourge to be denounced that he is, has made it to my shit list.
I already felt a bit dirty watching Fallon, for his sheer vacuity… but now I know he has no soul.
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That’s fair; I mean, I’m not happy with the idea that Jimmy Fallon cheerfully normalized Trump and let him lie, either. What I’m saying is that he and other late-night hosts have never been about taking politicians to task, whatever side their politics rest on. I’m sure that there are right-wing blogs seething with anger about how he welcomed Hillary on his show this weekend and joked around with her rather than arresting her or hanging her, like they’d apparently like to do. But Fallon, like other talk show hosts, purposefully doesn’t take any sides. He’s a neutral, feel-good jokester. I’m okay with that and don’t see it as his lack of soul.
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I don’t get who would want to watch Trump from a purely entertainment point of view though, other than people who want to vote for him.
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I think you’re forgetting that Trump was a TV celebrity for far longer than he’s been a politician; he used to be a regular on Letterman and other shows. This is a man with multiple TV series, board games, and books to his name. Ah, I remember when he was just a blowhard talking about his money and yelling a lot. It was a more innocent time.
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That they’re treating this seriously and we’re hearing about it is a sign that they’re still excited to do his bidding.
‘was’.
Ignoring the fact that chat shows aren’t really my thing anyway, I get that people would have watched him as a guest on one.
But since he entered this election I don’t know how anyone can stand to watch him in an entertainment context unless they can stomach his politics.
It’s bad enough watching him in debates.
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Continued insults of the current ‘millennial’ generation devaluate your opinion to me as you are throwing an entire generation under the bus and continuing the meme of Millinials being clueless and looking for an easy way out. Please stop that.
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Presumably, the same people who watched The Apprentice during the multiple years that it was on the air. I don’t know of anyone who did, maybe the number is non-zero, but one sentence that I’ve never heard in my life is “hey, did you catch The Apprentice last night?” Another one I’ve never heard is “by some freak occurrence, I was physically stuck to my furniture last night and, in spite of my best, strongest, efforts to wrest myself free, I could not get up. Meanwhile The Apprentice was on television and I had to watch it.”
But evidently there were millions of Americans who watched it for one reason or another. I have no idea how much of that audience overlaps with people who’d vote for Trump (or vice-versa).
EDIT: Or what @nungesser said.
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I think they’re like people who eat at Applebees. You know from the evidence that they have to exist, but they live in the other America.
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I remember when he made himself into some kind of celebrity millionaire in the early 80s. I didn’t get the appeal back then either. I was similarly confused by Hello Kitty.
Me: "So, is that cat a cartoon character like Mickey Mouse?"
Other kid: "Sort of, but she’s not in any cartoons or comics or anything."
Me: "Then why do so many people buy things with pictures of her on them?"
Other kid: “Because she’s famous.”
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Another reason to not feel so bad about not working at the bomb factory anymore… many of my coworkers considered that a good choice for lunch.
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Did any Applebees-approving work colleague ever mention watching The Apprentice?
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No not that I recall, Survivor when it was the brand new reality tv hotness… but that was about it.
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