I Think Samantha Bee Is Sick Of Getting Questions About Being A Woman On Late-Night
"Is there going to be a problem with your ovaries falling out or anything?"
After an epic 12 years as a correspondent on The Daily Show, Samantha Bee last night had her first hosting gig on her new show Full Frontal (not that one). This is something people have been excited for, not just because of her proven comedic and political chops, but also because of the fact she’s a woman. It’s been a long time coming.
Ever since Joan Rivers left The Late Show in 1987, US late-night TV has been an absolute cockforest where Chelsea Handler has been forced to solely face up against a sea of men named Jimmy, and this is a disparity Bee’s been tackling head-on in her marketing campaign for the show. Last year when Vanity Fair ran a spread of the “titans of late-night” (all men in dapper suits drinking scotch), Bee Photshopped herself in as a minotaur with lasers for eyes. She then set up a special hotline for misogynistic trolls, and her billboard’s tagline facetiously read “watch or your sexist”.
Now, at the end of a long promo tour, it looks like it’s taken its toll.
Once that was addressed, she deftly moved on to topics that didn’t concern her ovaries and in fact did a very good job of it.
Here she is taking a look at the extraordinary run of Ted Cruz, a universally reviled “fist-faced shit salesman” and prime candidate in the Republican presidential race:
Here she is pulling a full Daily Show skit on Jeb Bush, a man who recently begged his constituents to clap for him:
And here she is sneaking in another crazy mention of her witch magic with a takedown of Kansas state senator Mitch Holmes, a man who recently wrote a creepy set of dress guidelines specifically for women in the senate:
The segment was called ‘Elected Paperweight of the Month’ and — Charlie Pickering or Waleed Aly, if you’re reading this — it wouldn’t be entirely misplaced in Australia.
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Full Frontal with Samantha Bee will air weekly in the US on Monday nights.