Friday, September 9, 2016

News Satire Roundup: September 6th-8th


Still a few weeks before we get a new Last Week Tonight.  One recurring comedy bit from the show that I want to single out is John’s frequent use of completely random hashtags during his stories.  Sometimes they’re a good encapsulation of the entire main story’s point, like the classic #MakeDonaldDrumpfAgain, but more often than not, they’re just something fun, goofy, and/or pithy.  #Investifarted (after a typo on a newspaper’s Twitter feed) is a good one, and the recurring #NotMyChristian (referring to Jamie Dornan in Fifty Shades of Gray) is always good for a laugh.  My favorite, though, is his often off-the-wall inclusion of #Feminism, most memorably after Trump called Clinton the “co-founder of ISIS” – the additional hashtag, naturally, being #ISISWithHer.  It seems John always pulls one of these out when I least expect them (unless he’s talking about Jamie Dornan,) and they’re always awesome.




Tuesday, September 6 – And we’re back!  The G20 Summit was up first, with Obama not getting the red-carpet rollout on the tarmac in China.  Trevor’s response to Trump’s take on the matter was fantastic, from wondering if Trump thinks carpet on the staircase protects the president’s feet, to tearing apart Trump’s assurance that, if if had happened to him, he would have thrown a tantrum and left the summit instead of doing his actual job as president.  The story on Trump trying to earn points with Black voters (or, per Roy, “white people with Black friends” voters) was good, too.  The best part, naturally, was Ben Carson’s involvement:  him exclaiming, “My luggage!” and running away in the middle of a live interview was the funniest thing I saw all week.  Guest Jeff Ross promoted his new special “roasting cops.”  I liked his point about how much distrust there is on both sides of the police violence issue.



Wednesday, September 7 – I appreciate Trevor’s continuing disgust at Congress for not passing a bill for funds to fight Zika.  His plan here, to have a Florida congressman lock the doors and smash his jar filled with mosquitoes, seems sadly on the mark, and I loved him lamenting that he can’t have come all the way from Africa only to die of a mosquito disease in New York.  Amusing story on the iPhone 7 and the online gnashing of teeth over the removed headphone jack.  I liked Trevor’s point about how it was virtually the same argument made by transphobic people – from “but it’s unnatural!” to “that’s not how we did it in my day!” to “it used to have a thing, and now…!”  Weirdly spot-on comparison.  Ava DuVernay was the guest and was awesome because she’s great (my completely unbiased opinion, natch.)  She was there to talk Queen Sugar and what it was like for her creating/writing/directing for TV instead of film.



Thursday, September 8 – It’s crazy, but really, of course Kim Jong-un would outlaw sarcasm.  So true.  Most of the night was devoted to the Commander-in-Chief Forum hosted (badly) by Matt Lauer.  From spending a third of an interview about military policy asking Clinton about her emails to ignoring Trump’s blatant untruths, Trevor took Lauer to task and proved how much more rigorous an interviewer he can be, citing Lauer’s grilling of One Direction over an absent member.  Desi did a great What the Actual Fact on the Trump portion of the forum.  For me, the best/worst was Trump claiming his recent visit to Mexico was successful and non-destabilizing, specifically referencing the finance minister who arranged the visit and was fired because of how angry Mexican citizens were at Trump coming to their country. Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz was a “meh” guest for me.  A lot of the interview felt like him patting himself on the back.

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