There's a flood of opinions about Noah.
The opinions, they get on, they get on in two-sies two-sies.
I can report that my children, who get their news from the Daily Show, find Noah amusing in his appearances on the show.
Surprisingly, many on Twitter find [plausibly good thing] to be problematic.
A colleague showed me the J Oliver clip with the dog Supreme Court so of course I showed it to the kid who is now hooked on J Oliver, meaning I get sat down to watch it regularly. Sometimes it is pretty good! But almost always too long.
I don't have cable and I don't give a shit. VALUE ADDED.
You don't have a tv delivery method that circumvents cable?
That Slate article is stupid as fuck. I'm going to start a website that makes money by hiring people to get super offended at websites that pay people to get super offended.
I have never given Stewart or Colbert ten minutes of my life, and don't intend to give Noah any. This is not necessarily a judgement of those who do. I also have few strong opinions, cause nihilism.
I do feel, weakly, that it is expected of me that I be the first to say everybody is picking on Noah cause black/Jewish/foreigner.
I was mostly surprised that Noah was recycling jokes about Jewish women that were tired when I first heard them 30 years ago. (And I thought the #BeatsByDreidl one was passably funny. But mostly because of the hashtag.)
9: I don't watch them regularly, but Stewart and Colbert are/were good. They were the only mainstream media figures who acknowledge the horror of modern American politics.
Every description I've seen of the choice makes it look to me like Stewart decided he should have the job well before he was hired as a correspondent, which means that he was basically settling in/screen testing up till now rather than being picked out of nowhere.
Since Jon Stewart's schtick is basically pointing at crazy things in the news and saying "what!? why!?" I can see someone from outside of the United States pulling off a reasonably similar approach. It would be different, I mean, but not basically-another-show-with-the-same-name different.
Tasteless tweets Re: Jewy-jewies.
The other day my FIL, whose political-correctness sensors were never fully developed, sent me a FB link titled "New Polish Olympic sport." I'm thinking, Polish jokes? How 80s can you get? But it turns out it was actually a video of some crazy Polish rowing competition- boat in a pool, two teams try to push the boat to the opponent's end like reverse tug-of-war. Only in a boat. On the water.
What I found myself wondering about those tweets is what his total tweet volume was. I mean, if we're talking about thousands, and the quoted ones are the cherry-picked worst, they're not really all that bad -- not good, but trying to quip at high speed for years, you're going to screw up some (both in terms of being offensive, which these were, and in being unfunny, which they also were). (And at least one of them is reported as antisemitic, when it looks to me like a joke about blue-eyed people being presumably antisemitic. Which I take personally and am horribly offended by, but I don't think is that big a deal.)
On the other hand, if there's lots more in his body of work that are that bad, it's a little different.
He has almost nine thousand tweets total.
I'm starting to feel like posts from the various nick denton properties and slate and salon and so on need some kind of special disclaimer like "NOTE: this article was written by somebody who is paid specifically to hunt for things that will get you riled up". Like, there are terrible people and paying saying terrible things and blah blah but damn to have that as your job? What a piece of shit thing to have to do for money.
"Hot damn some dumbass high school kid said something super racist! My kids get to go on that school trip!"
I saw someone saying at the other place that the tweets look off-color but not horrifying and I agree. Kind of like a late night HBO comedian or actual standup comic rather than the network stuff we're used to.
I am kind of surprised they went with such a newcomer, though. I haven't watched much of the Daily Show over the past six to nine months - nothing wrong with it, I've just been spending my free time in other ways - and I've seen this guy on it probably twice. TDS has dozens of regular correspondents (probably not literally dozens, but several) who have been on more and longer than this guy; none of them wanted the job or thought their skills would transfer to hosting? Weird.
I first became aware of him in an interview he did with W. Kamau Bell on Totally Biased. It was a good interview, but I was struck by how utterly unprepared he was for the American racial dynamic.
He dropped the N-word in the middle of the interview and Bell -- who is a pretty unflappable interviewer -- was definitely taken aback. I don't think Noah fully grasped how nuclear that term is in the US.
I still liked the interview, though, so I looked around and found a few other clips of him. They solidified my sense that he was a very South African comic who didn't (yet) have a deep understanding of (US) American culture.
I was boggled to see the headline that he was chosen for this job, which frankly I think is setting him up to fail. But I'm probably wrong, since I'm almost always wrong on predictions.
N.b. I haven't clicked through to the article in the OP.
That Slate article is stupid as fuck.
Yep. This outrage machine goes to 22. It starts at 11.
But don't you find it amazing that television show hosts must now be vetted the way candidates for office are. Being in TV comedy now means having to deal with opposition research.
I've seen him on some UK comedy panel shows. He's good. Sharp, and doesn't always go with the expected thing. He didn't strike me as a natural replacement for Stewart, though.
19 - You may have literally seen every appearance by him on the Daily Show, though. I think he's done maybe three segments. (This is part of the reason I suspect he was brought on with the idea of making him the next host in mind.)
Incidentally, fwiw, apparently Noah's mother is part-Jewish. Which may make the tweets take on a different slant.
I'm going to start a website that makes money by hiring people to get super offended at websites that pay people to get super offended.
It is sad how much of a thing that is now.
Scouring the opposition for something to be outraged by (aka to raise money with.)
26: For better or for worse, I think it's less political than "the opposition" makes it sound. I mean, there are political operatives who do it, but there are non-political writers who do it too. This article isn't much different from some Cracked articles.
Since Jon Stewart's schtick is basically pointing at crazy things in the news and saying "what!? why!?" I can see someone from outside of the United States pulling off a reasonably similar approach.
How generous of you.
I'm starting to feel like posts from the various nick denton properties and slate and salon and so on need some kind of special disclaimer like "NOTE: this article was written by somebody who is paid specifically to hunt for things that will get you riled up". Like, there are terrible people and paying saying terrible things and blah blah but damn to have that as your job? What a piece of shit thing to have to do for money.
This seems right to me but should be extended to many, many more outlets, including much of what's on TPM these days, etc. Outrage: it's what's for dinner.
As for this guy, yes, his tweets weren't funny at all. And yes, they were sort of (but not very) offensive. But I suspect that tells me exactly nothing about him.
a different slant
Okay, that's racist.
29 - That's not what John Oliver does with his show.
I think Trevor Noah is very funny, and very sharp. Obviously those tweets are not his best work.
I'm sure I've already linked to his UNICEF spoof?
For good and oll, Noah is basically what Sarah Silverman would have been if she'd been born into the body of a coloured man in South Africa.
Canadians are always thinking about oil and how to dump it on Nebraska.
So if they dump oll on Nebraska, you're okay with it?
34: That makes me sad: I'm not much of a Sarah Silverman fan.
Luckily it works out for me, I'm a huge Sarah Silverman fan (and Trevor Noah fan, too).
And hi!
Hi, babe. I'll just have to see what I think of Trevor Noah when the new Daily Show launches. Silverman, eh. She just seems like cutesy sarcasm all the way down, which isn't really my thing.
In related matters, I've been surprised that the Colbert show replacement, Larry Wilmore's show, is so very different from Colbert. But I've only seen 2 or 3 episodes, and not even the entire thing at that.
In further related matters, I was happy to have seen some episodes of Louie, Louis C.K.'s show, recently: so excellent. Now, see, if you asked me to compare Sarah Silverman and Louis C.K. -- which you have not done, I realize -- my choice would be clear.
This occurs to me because I believe some people find their styles of comedy similar. I have some recollection that perhaps they've worked together in the past? Does Silverman have a drier sense of humor than I realize? Maybe!
I've always identified Silverman with dry humor (and devastatingly effective toying with racial and sexual taboo), both of which Noah is great at in his own way. (He's actually maybe not all that similar except for having similar general strengths.)
Have yet to see Willmore! I want to see it!
The episodes of Wilmore's show I've seen are like panel discussions on race-related issues. Fairly snarky.
I'm guessing I haven't seen the appropriate Silverman stuff to appreciate the devastatingly effective part.
But it's after 9 p.m. here on my side of the North American continent, and I gotta go eat. Good to see you around, Castock.
Back at you, babe, see you later.
Back at you, babe, see you later.
Hoil and woil met! the Spear-Danes' glory through splendid achievements
The folk-kings' former fame we have heard of,
Stormcrow! Did you know there's a book about you and it's the best thing ever.
The episodes of Wilmore's show I've seen are like panel discussions on race-related issues. Fairly snarky.
They do the panel discussion thing basically every episode (kind of like the 10 O'Clock Show over here, but not terrible, and not the usual talking heads). They're not all about race-related issues, but certainly they have a higher prominence than on other late night shows. I really like that there are now three high profile shows spinning out of the Stewart Daily Show doing very different things very well.
53: Nice:
Above the sound of the chaos the Stormcrow's cackling laugh could be heard.
I really like that there are now three high profile shows spinning out of the Stewart Daily Show doing very different things very well.
Plus Senator Elizabeth Warren, the best Daily Show spinoff of all.
Guy Branum did a very nice job with this.