News Satire Roundup: June 30th

Sunday, June 30 – After a quick nod to the G20 – in which, as John pointed out, Trump showed more respect for Kim Jong-un’s boundaries than women’s – we looked at the sorry state of Jared Kushner’s “plan” for peace in the Middle East. The main story was on warehouse workers, with a special emphasis on Amazon. Even though I already knew most of this on a basic level, it was still affecting to see it all put together (timing workers down to the second, workers skipping bathroom breaks to maintain their rates, workers in one warehouse told to keep working with the dead body of a heart-attack victim still on the floor.) I always love when John explains what the show’s lawyers have told him he can/can’t say, in a way that makes his own view stunningly clear, and he did that a few times in this piece. I also liked his emphasis on the “why” of it all – why is next-day delivery on my Oreos (or whatever) worth putting workers through such hell?

The Daily Show was off this week (and I believe they’re airing clip shows next week, not coming back with new episodes until mid-July.) One thing I’ve noted with The Daily Show is that, as it’s gone on, I think its coverage of LGBTQ issues has gotten better. This isn’t just a recent occurrence – it was back in 2016 when it did an entire episode on trans issues – but it is something that I think has been improving over pretty much the entire course of the show, to where, now, I think it’s quite solid in its LGBTQ coverage.

The show has actually always been pretty good with the “T,” which I applaud it for. Maybe that’s because, by the time Trevor took over, trans people were already more in the public eye, through the visibility of folks like Laverne Cox and Caitlyn Jenner, or maybe it’s because bathroom bills were becoming a major issue in season 1 and Trevor and co. found a good angle through comparisons with segregated bathrooms in the Jim Crow-era South. Either way, the show’s coverage of trans-related news has always been both smart and empathetic, and Trevor has interviewed a number of trans guests, including trans women of color and a few non-binary/genderqueer people.

As for the “LGB” (especially the “G,”) that’s where I see more growth. I wouldn’t say I ever found the show wildly homophobic or anything (though mileage certainly may vary on that,) but I do think there was a tendency early on to mine a little comedy from the implied “salciousness” of gay dudes. While, again, I think there were far more overtly-offensive entertainment sources out there, I remember feeling just a tiny bit on edge when the show would cover gay stories, knowing the humor would at-minimum skirt the line.

Along the way, that started to change. It was a gradual shift, so I can’t pinpoint exactly when it started or why. I will say I’ve noticed an increase in LGB guests as the show has gone on, and I like that, when Jaboukie joined the show, he was initially branded as the “youth” correspondent and him being gay wasn’t brought up until a handful of appearances later (when he was covering the whole Jussie Smollett thing.) At any rate, I no longer feel at all tense when the show includes gay-related stories, which I feel have become more normalized on the show. One recent story that comes to mind is J.K. Rowling’s announcement that Dumbledore and Grindelwald had “an intense sexual relationship.” Rather than rehashing the whole “gay Dumbledore” business, Trevor had more of a “why is this news?” take, asserting that, because one was good and one was evil, “Of course the sex was hot!” Bonus points for, “Leave the Sorting Hat on!” It might be weird to use a story specifically talking about sex to show how they’ve toned down the “salaciousness” winking, but I think it’s a good fit. Even in a piece about hot sex, none of the jokes are about the participants being two men – instead, it’s “frenemy sex” with a dash of “Hogwarts sex.”