Culture

Let’s Get Serious About Who’s Going To Replace Jon Stewart On ‘The Daily Show’

Finding the right person to build on Jon Stewart's legacy is a bigger deal than we're giving it credit for.

by Maddie James  23 February 2015

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After a year of new faces popping up in late night television desks everywhere – Stephen Colbert taking over for David Letterman, Jimmy Fallon replacing Jay Leno and Seth Meyers replacing Jimmy Fallon, Larry Wilmore getting Stephen Colbert’s old time slot, Craig Ferguson leaving, and John Oliver getting started at HBO – the dreaded announcement of Jon Stewart’s retirement after 16 years at The Daily Show has finally come. The most important seat in the biz has suddenly become available, and the question of who will fill it is a contentious issue. But there are a few issues with the way people are approaching this conversation, and it’s making it pretty toxic and unproductive.

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This isn’t just another late night chat show

The Daily Show is unique: where other shows play Pictionary with movie stars, this one talks about important issues with authors, politicians, and academics. It’s become an institution, informing people about current events and issues, highlighting hypocrisy, bias and bad journalism, and making jokes along the way to keep people listening. The pressure to maintain not just the ratings, but the legacy, would be overwhelming for anyone taking on the job.

Stewart himself is equally beloved. His appearance on Crossfire in 2004 has become the stuff of legends, with his criticism of the show cited by CNN executives as a reason for cancelling it. Surveys have found that people trust him more than major news organisations. His recent directorial debut Rosewater is about the imprisonment and torture of a journalist in Iran, whose appearance in a Daily Show sketch was used as evidence by Iranian officials accusing him of being an American spy. Purely being connected to Jon Stewart had real-world repercussions, because it’s clear how much of an impact he has on his audience.

So we can’t be approaching this as just another seat to be filled by someone funny. The criteria for a new host is overwhelming – someone with the comedy chops, the political knowledge to carry on the legacy, the personality to make interviews with intelligent guests entertaining enough so that the audience hears their message. Articles listing off comedians who are funny and have said vaguely political things in the past, like Aziz Ansari, Joel McHale, or even Chris Rock, are kind of missing the point. One article, talking about the possibility of Donald Glover hosting, even mentioned the slight drawback that “we don’t know if he’s any good at interviewing. Or interested in political topics.” Those are two things you’d probably want to check before recommending someone for the job.

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Diversity for diversity’s sake is not appreciated

Among the many articles published lately on who should get the job, some, like this one from TIME, are intentionally avoiding white men. Now I agree that late night television is nowhere near as diverse as it could or should be. When we’re talking about shows where the hosts interview celebrities and deliver monologues, a job that many, many funny women out there would be capable of, then it’s offensive that networks keep giving jobs to white, occasionally British men.

There’s no good reason why in the latest round of seat-swapping, no one decided to put a female voice in the mix. It’s worked before (Chelsea Handler), and it still could. DeGeneres owns daytime television. There are women like Fey and Poehler who, like Fallon and Meyers, got their start at the SNL Weekend Update desk, and are freaking hilarious. There are women like Sarah Silverman, and Ellie Kemper, and plenty more who, given the chance, would be excellent.

That said, this isn’t an opportunity for tokenism. It’s a hard job that comes with as much responsibility as it does power. Watch Jon Stewart’s first show after 9/11 and you’ll appreciate how hard it is to take bad news, and then put people at ease while saying something important about it. And with tragic news, it’s even harder to be funny.

There are pieces saying that the new host needs to be a woman.But I’d be surprised if every person who has been listed as a candidate wouldn’t resent being given a job like this for the sake of diversity. It would be nice to see some equality in the field, don’t get me wrong. It would be wonderful if a lady got the job. But it needs to go to the person absolutely, undeniably most qualified for it, regardless of the diversity boxes they tick. An extremely talented white guy would still be better than someone who represents a minority but doesn’t have the necessary attributes to meet the demands of an audience who has come to rely on The Daily Show to stay informed. If someone knew they didn’t feel qualified for the job, we should take that as a sign of respect for the institution, and not criticise them for failing to represent their minority.

Which is why it’s pretty ridiculous the way some people have been treating Jessica Williams.

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 Not wanting the job isn’t something to be criticised for

In the midst of everyone yelling about who should take over from Stewart, a clear frontrunner emerged. Jessica Williams is a 25 year-old Daily Show correspondent, and in her three years at the show has managed to say some incredibly smart and funny things, about sexual assault on college campuses, and stand your ground laws, and cat-calling in city streets. She’s also the Senior Beyonce correspondent. People are so behind her taking over that there’s a change.org petition to Comedy Central. She started off appreciative and humble.

 

She’s excellent, but again, she’s 25, and would be the youngest host ever. By a lot. Before he hosted, Jon Stewart had a pretty decent stand-up career, and hosted not one but three different shows.

She’s also not just being modest.

Williams has done everything she can to politely appreciate your support, and help you avoid disappointment. She doesn’t want to do it. This is someone I adore, who says what I think but better and funnier, and that’s clearly how many others feel. But she’s also 25 and maybe doesn’t want to get locked into this kind of job, or wants to wait until she knew how to make it her own, or maybe she has a good explanation that is none of our business. Regardless, she isn’t interested, and that should have been that.

But it wasn’t. An article from The Billfold called her polite refusal “bullshit.” “All Williams needs is a pep talk. Get Luvvie in a room with her, and Jazmine, and Amy Poehler and Lena Dunham. Get Paul Feig in there too, and Ta-Nehisi Coates, and George R. R. Martin. Get her the best Lean In group of all time. She will emerge as from a funeral pyre, naked and coiled in dragons, ready to lead.” The article also suggested she was suffering from ‘imposter syndrome’, a condition that makes people believe they are frauds not worthy of what they achieved, the beneficiaries of luck and good timing. Williams did not appreciate this.

 

 

But that story wasn’t alone, both in regards to criticising Williams for saying no, and for being followed up by Williams on Twitter. Among the pieces calling Williams a victim, or talking of her obligation to represent minorities, there was a nice change of pace from Mikki Kendall, who upon hearing Williams wouldn’t host, “let out a little sigh of disappointment – and then I got the hell over it.”

“Why is it so hard for everyone else to give her that control over her own life? Why are we hellbent on forcing people to surrender their autonomy to the fickle flow of where we want to place them in service to our own wants? We like Jessica Williams. We want her to host The Daily Show. So who cares what she wants? Let’s just assume, if she doesn’t do what we want, that she is scared, insecure, misguided, and a victim of internalized devaluation forced on her by society. What in the actual fuck, you guys. Maybe she just doesn’t want the goddamn job.”

We’ve gone from collectively encouraging someone we admire, to publicly criticising them for having a different view of what career choices they should make, and accusing them of having a mental disorder common among high-powered women just because she doesn’t feel ready? What kind of feminism is that, where a woman respected by many for her intelligence and strong stance on issues, makes a decision that doesn’t mirror ours and gets publicly criticised for it? The very fact that she doesn’t want to do it makes her not the right fit right now. It’s all good to have fun, but when someone takes themselves out of the running, it’s not an opportunity to ask why. In an article. Posted online. Where millions of people can read it. Jessica Williams has been understandably pissed on Twitter lately.

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It’s not up to you anyway

I don’t know where this idea came from that Host of The Daily Show is a public office to be filled by a candidate chosen by the people. We didn’t get to pick Jon Stewart. He wasn’t elected, he was promoted, and managed to turn the show into his own (with the help of a large writing staff and multiple correspondents). It has to be someone with a history with the show, and Colbert, Oliver and Wilmore are all out. As is Williams. But there’s a whole host (ha!) of other correspondents who have been around for a while, and maybe it’s their time to shine.

My pick is Samantha Bee. She’s the longest-serving Daily Show correspondent, beating Colbert’s record back in 2012, and delivers every time. I haven’t heard anything yet about whether she wants it or not, but if she did then she’d be an excellent choice. She has the experience, comedic voice, and intelligence to carry the show into its next chapter.

And that’s what Stewart wants from his replacement, speaking at a New York comedy night recently: “What I want to see is the next iteration of this idea. I feel like the tributaries of my brain combined with the rigidity of the format. I feel like I used every permutation of that I could possibly use… I would love to see the next iteration of that, like John Oliver was able to apply our process to a more considered thing, and it’s exciting to watch it evolve and see it mutate and change and fill different gaps and different ideas. That’s the part I’m looking forward to seeing.”

We can dream, but we should be talking about the right kind of people for the right reasons, we shouldn’t be blaming them for not having the same dreams as us, and at the end of the day, we should realise that what we say probably doesn’t have any impact on the people choosing anyway.