The Daily Show announced yesterday that Trevor Noah will be succeeding Jon Stewart as the host of the Daily Show. Now I don't cover news in my blog much, if ever, because I only post like once every two months. But I feel compelled to talk about this story. In fact, I'm positively obsessed with this story and I'm not entirely sure why. But here I'll try to explain.
Many people, me including, are totally surprised by this pick and at the risk of sounding too self-centered, it feels like it attracts mainly my demographic: 25-34, educated internationally-minded multicultural-philiacs. In fact, Trevor Noah's act fits in very well in expat circles, where his biracial upbringing, language skills and accent impersonations would receive huge acclaim. As the son of a Swiss German father and a Xhosa mother of Jewish background during Apartheid South Africa, his origin story has the trappings of Third Culture Kid identity issues that many of my friends can relate to, mixed with major policies of oppression that few of us can relate to. I'm not sure of his linguistic roots exactly, but he probably grew up speaking English and Afrikaans in school and isZulu and Sotho in the Soweto township he grew up, only later learning his parents' languages of German and Xhosa. In his standups, I've heard him do great impersonations of Americans, Brits, Africans, Australians and even a Chinese airport announcer in passable fake Mandarin. When people call South Africa the Rainbow Nation, they are hoping to move past the ugly Apartheid past and into the country's untapped potential manifested in Trevor Noah.
Many people, me including, are totally surprised by this pick and at the risk of sounding too self-centered, it feels like it attracts mainly my demographic: 25-34, educated internationally-minded multicultural-philiacs. In fact, Trevor Noah's act fits in very well in expat circles, where his biracial upbringing, language skills and accent impersonations would receive huge acclaim. As the son of a Swiss German father and a Xhosa mother of Jewish background during Apartheid South Africa, his origin story has the trappings of Third Culture Kid identity issues that many of my friends can relate to, mixed with major policies of oppression that few of us can relate to. I'm not sure of his linguistic roots exactly, but he probably grew up speaking English and Afrikaans in school and isZulu and Sotho in the Soweto township he grew up, only later learning his parents' languages of German and Xhosa. In his standups, I've heard him do great impersonations of Americans, Brits, Africans, Australians and even a Chinese airport announcer in passable fake Mandarin. When people call South Africa the Rainbow Nation, they are hoping to move past the ugly Apartheid past and into the country's untapped potential manifested in Trevor Noah.
Can you tell I like this guy? I also really like Jon Stewart and the Daily Show. How often do two things you like combine and make a third thing you like? The Daily Show has become a singularly American institution and while Trevor has shown an ability to pick up local nuances quickly, he is very much a newbie to our country. The show taps on the liberal pulse of the nation and covers a lot of very American issues. Sure the show had a foreign correspondent who was a temporary fill in for 3 months in John Oliver, but part of John's success there and now as host of Last Week Tonight is that he really understands America. John Oliver's international perspective allows him to comment on sensitive American issues without letting pride or feelings come in, but it is his many years living here that allows him to go on rants about issues like Civil Forfeitures and Municipal Violations. It is these issues that disproportionately affect poor Americans that most middle-upper class foreigners would struggle to understand. For sure Trevor Noah will have to at least take the show to a slightly different direction.
There was a lot of speculation who would take over Stewart as host when he announced earlier this year that he'd be leaving after 17 years at the helm. It very likely would have been Oliver had he not already gone to HBO. The next in seniority, Jason Jones or Samantha Bee, would probably both have been great hosts. This was highlighted in a funny sketch where those two and the correspondents Jessica Williams, Al Madrigal bitterly complain when John Oliver got the guest host gig over them. The sketch's humor papered over a real sadness. Going from correspondent to host is such a dramatic career upgrade and an opportunity that just doesn't come around often. But it's obviously a very important decision for the network and not necessarily one where you reward the hardest worker. I really believe that for a show that spends so much time covering liberal issues and mocking conservative groups for their lack of diversity, they felt a really strong need to bring a non-white male voice to the role. And in this case, perhaps Jason Jones really was the victim of reverse racism, because as deserving as he was of the role, there really was no way Comedy Central would pick him. And while claims of reports of white males being discriminated in America and greatly exaggerated, in this case of a limited high profile role, it is probably legitimate. I'm not sure why the Comedy Central brass passed over Samantha Bee - females are more of a minority in comedy than blacks - but both her and Jason Jones (they're married) have moved onto other shows after presumably learning they will not be able to host.
This issue fits into the greater issue of workplace diversity as a whole. Why do we want a diverse workforce? It's a huge question. a) we want to get the best staff, and don't want institutional racism to disadvantage worthy workers b) we want different views that a diverse staff/leadership bring to the direction of a company c) we want the staff makeup to reflect that of the business customers to better address/understand their needs/concerns. Those points are all critical here but c) may be the most underrated one. The Daily Show demographic is becoming more and more racially diverse and having someone with a nuanced understanding of race and culture is critical for the job, given the direction in which Stewart has led the show.
There was a lot of speculation who would take over Stewart as host when he announced earlier this year that he'd be leaving after 17 years at the helm. It very likely would have been Oliver had he not already gone to HBO. The next in seniority, Jason Jones or Samantha Bee, would probably both have been great hosts. This was highlighted in a funny sketch where those two and the correspondents Jessica Williams, Al Madrigal bitterly complain when John Oliver got the guest host gig over them. The sketch's humor papered over a real sadness. Going from correspondent to host is such a dramatic career upgrade and an opportunity that just doesn't come around often. But it's obviously a very important decision for the network and not necessarily one where you reward the hardest worker. I really believe that for a show that spends so much time covering liberal issues and mocking conservative groups for their lack of diversity, they felt a really strong need to bring a non-white male voice to the role. And in this case, perhaps Jason Jones really was the victim of reverse racism, because as deserving as he was of the role, there really was no way Comedy Central would pick him. And while claims of reports of white males being discriminated in America and greatly exaggerated, in this case of a limited high profile role, it is probably legitimate. I'm not sure why the Comedy Central brass passed over Samantha Bee - females are more of a minority in comedy than blacks - but both her and Jason Jones (they're married) have moved onto other shows after presumably learning they will not be able to host.
This issue fits into the greater issue of workplace diversity as a whole. Why do we want a diverse workforce? It's a huge question. a) we want to get the best staff, and don't want institutional racism to disadvantage worthy workers b) we want different views that a diverse staff/leadership bring to the direction of a company c) we want the staff makeup to reflect that of the business customers to better address/understand their needs/concerns. Those points are all critical here but c) may be the most underrated one. The Daily Show demographic is becoming more and more racially diverse and having someone with a nuanced understanding of race and culture is critical for the job, given the direction in which Stewart has led the show.
On a side note, Trevor Noah's humor touches a lot on race and culture and this has gotten him some criticism since the big announcement. People have scoured over his twitter record and found among the heap of his many humorous tweets some objectionable jokes, mainly to Jews and women. I won't delve into the tweet details because I think these objections are mostly not well founded, but they do show that Noah will have to adapt to American sensibilities and those of historically discriminated groups here. He probably didn't have a full understanding growing up in Africa of the stereotypes that Jews are maligned with here, but he'll have to get that. Jon Stewart is probably an ideal coach in this area. Noah wil have to come to understand Americans much faster than Americans will come to understand him.
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