TV

Jon Stewart Leaving The Daily Show Might Not Be A Bad Thing

It frees up the seat for someone who isn't a white guy, for one.

by Meg Watson  11 February 2015

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It’s only been a few hours since we’ve had to live with the knowledge that Jon Stewart is leaving The Daily Show, and most of the internet — ourselves included — have gone into full panic mode.

It’s understandable. Stewart was the backbone of this much-loved show for a whopping 16 years and in that time he helped define a revolutionary style of comedy that took political satire into the mainstream and helped inform an entirely new audience about serious issues in hilarious ways.

Much to the distress of every one of my uni tutors, it was legitimately the only kind of current affairs show that I watched for a long time in my life. And if you apply the old rule of thumb that it takes you half the length of your relationship with someone to get over them, we’ll still be mourning this loss in 2023.

Instead, let’s keep our chins up. There are still plenty of reasons which prove — despite popular opinion — that life is in fact still worth living.

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The Daily Show Could Get An Amazing New Host

Moments after Stewart’s eventual retirement was announced — he’s stepping down later in the year, ya vultures — Twitter started doing what it does best: wild speculation. As he hosted the show for 16 of its 19 years on air, people quickly began to question who could possibly fill his shoes.

Unsurprisingly, the standard was high.

And while some made serious suggestions of hosts from similar shows (read: anyone who’s ever hosted SNL‘s Weekend Update), the prevailing thoughts were that it should probably be someone who already works as a correspondent on The Daily Show — or someone who can add a new voice to the satirical comedy scene which has long been championed by a certain kind of person.

Roxane Gay was kind enough to throw her name in the ring, but now a favourite has emerged.

Please meet Jessica Williams.

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How can you not fall in love with this face?

Williams is a 25-year-old actress and comedian who has worked with Stewart on The Daily Show for a little over three years ago. Yes, she’s one of those heinous people who have ridiculously overachieved at a young age, but she’s also totally worthy of the role.

In her time on the show, she’s consistently picked up a huge amount of praise for her work. Here she is raising crucial questions about the idea of fetal personhood in new state legislature while simultaneously destroying bumbling old men shoving tiny baby dolls in her face.

Here she is interrogating male privilege and victim blaming in the arguments around sexual assault in American universities.

Here she is getting real about catcalling in a bit which will make you never want to go to New York City.

She’s also pretty great at the odd one-liner.

Williams hasn’t expressed an interest in the job yet — because frankly, that would be pretty uncool — but there’s a mounting campaign to put her there regardless. There are hundreds of tweets rolling in nominating her for the role, and someone’s even started a Change.org petition.

As Time note, it’s long overdue that a woman was granted a major hosting gig like this. With Jimmy Fallon taking The Tonight Show, Seth Meyers on Late Night, John Oliver starting Last Week Tonight, Stephen Colbert moving to The Late Show, and Larry Wilmore essentially taking over Colbert’s spot, the late night circuit is increasingly looking like a veritable cock forest.

With all her experience and overwhelming support from the public, Williams may well be the right lady to shake things up a little.

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Now Jon Stewart Can Do Something Else Great

Jon Stewart is a talented man. As well as being the host of The Daily Show, he’s also consistently worked as one of the show’s main writers, and all this came form a successful career in stand-up comedy.

Look! Look at him and his baby face doing an HBO special in the early ’90s.

IN THIS ONE HE’S WEARING SHOULDER PADS.

Even more than that, did you know the dude’s written a book? Actually, two of ’em.

In 2006 he published a fake high school text called America (The Book) Teacher’s Edition: A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction in conjunction with the writers from The Daily Show, and in 1999 he wrote a collection of essays about politics, religion and celebrity. It was called Naked Pictures of Famous People and it enjoyed a solid run on the New York Times’ bestseller list.

It was around this time that he started up his own production company. It’s called Busboy Productions in a reference to his first job — awww! — and it’s helped create a lot of things you like including The Colbert Report and Important Things With Demetri Martin.

Also, he recently became a director. No biggie. His first film, Rosewater, comes out on February 19.

There are some seriously good things to come.

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But That’s Not The Only Thing He Could Be Working On…

The timing lines up pretty well. That’s all I’m saying.

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