Soon after Barack Obama’s victory last November, late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel stopped by Legends, a barbershop in L.A. He was there for a trim but also to test out, “on behalf of the comedy community,” what type of jokes about the new President the almost all-black staff and clientele considered offensive. Cracks about Obama being a bad dancer are fine, they said. So are jabs at his big ears. But, Kimmel was told, Mrs. O’s “butt” is off-limits.
The skit was a joke (a pretty good one, actually), but it illustrated a real concern among some comedians and late-night scribes heading into the Obama era. Sure, comics would be able to count on Vice-President Joe Biden to regularly stuff his foot in his mouth, but Obama, unlike most of the commanders-in-chief who preceded him, wasn’t a walking punchline. Most of the late-night hosts have publicly complained about how little the President gives them to work with. Comedian Chris Rock compared Obama to the untouchable Brad Pitt. “Ooh, you’re young and virile and you’ve got a beautiful wife and kids,” Rock told CNN. “You know, what do you say?”
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For starters, how about smarter jokes? A point made by Roseanne Barr, of all people, a day after Obama earned the White House keys. Obama, she said, would “raise the level of intelligence” in comedy. No longer can late-night writers count on a president to write the show for them. The days of cutting and pasting Bushisms or one-liners about stained blue dresses into monologues were over. That, at least, was one of the promises that came with electing the junior senator from Illinois. So how then, halfway through Obama’s second 100 days, are the late-night guys coping?
Consider, for argument’s sake, the first week of June. After all, with Conan O’Brien moving into Jay Leno’s chair on The Tonight Show, it marked the greatest change to late-night in a generation. The other hosts had every reason to be on top of their games. And there was no shortage of news: the U.S. government had just taken over General Motors and Obama was back from New York, where he’d whisked the first lady away for dinner and a Broadway play on the public dime (estimates ranged between US$24,000 and US$250,000). And yet, about the best Letterman, Kimmel and O’Brien could muster, amid a series of tired jokes about Phil Spector’s hair and Dick Cheney’s point-blank range (yeah, they’re still harping on the fact the former VP shot his hunting buddy in the face), was a crack about a jumpy secret service agent wrestling a pepper shaker to the ground during the Obamas’ dinner, and how planting a garden in Donald Trump’s hair was one of the highlights of the trip for Michelle. It was the kind of material that kills at old-age homes.
In fairness, there has been some pointed humour aimed at Obama. “They’ve done a lot of jokes about the bailout, some jokes about how he’s so cool, he’s this messiah figure,” says Russell Peterson, a former stand-up comic who now teaches American studies at the University of Iowa. But too often, it seems, the President is being used to simply set up well-worn lines about dumb ol’ George W. and Bill Clinton, the horn dog. Some argue there’s a reluctance to poke fun at the boss during these tough economic times. Others have suggested that the group of middle-aged white hosts are afraid to take swipes at a black guy. “You don’t want to appear racist,” Buddy Winston, a former writer for The Tonight Show, told the L.A. Times. “You can’t do the stereotypical thing.” Then there’s the claim it’s all a big liberal conspiracy, a theory bolstered by the fact that most in the comedy business are Democrats. But all that, say experts of political humour, is a joke. What it really comes down to is the lack of an angle, an easy hook. Obama doesn’t screw around with the English language or interns, which makes him tougher to write. “It’s a telling indictment of [the mainstream network shows’] approach, which has to do with superficial things, personality stuff,” says Peterson, author of Strange Bedfellows: How Late-Night Comedy Turns Democracy into a Joke. “Obama doesn’t fit their easy way of doing things.” Even Saturday Night Live’s Fred Armisen, a master chameleon, hasn’t quite perfected Obama in the way Dana Carvey nailed Bush Sr. and Will Ferrell channelled W.
By sticking to the issues, the Comedy Central guys—namely Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert—are doing alright. Although, Peterson says, Stewart “has gone out of his way to avoid looking like he’s in the tank for Obama to the point that he’s done some cheap, false-equivalence stuff suggesting Obama is ‘just like Bush.’ ” During the 2008 presidential campaign, Stewart and Colbert directed more jabs at Obama than John McCain, Sarah Palin and George W., according to the Center for Media and Public Affairs. And that trend continued this year. In contrast, Leno, O’Brien and Letterman told more jokes about George W. (129) than Obama (111) between Jan. 1 and March 15—arguably, the height of Obama fever. Overall, most jokes during this time frame focused on his “rock star status.”
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