Originally posted Monday, June 4, 2018 by RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com on his AJC Radio & TV Talk blog
Samantha Bee has been nothing but transparent about what her show "Full Frontal" has been about since it debuted on TBS two years ago.
As a comedic female political commentator, she has gone out her way to dig into topics that her male counterparts don't tend to address as deeply such as rape and abortion. She has heaped positive coverage upon Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. She has traveled to Iraq, Jordan and Puerto Rico to do segments. Her persona is one of a woman frequently outraged in the Trump era with hopes that the world will someday change.
But she received the type of attention no on-air commentator wants when she used a super offensive word last Wednesday targeting Ivanka Trump, one that garnered an angry response from the White House and calls for her show to be cancelled. She was angry that Ivanka did not appear to be actively convincing her father to be kinder to undocumented immigrants who are being separated from their children at the border.
As a result of this kerfuffle, her show lost a couple of advertisers but TBS stood by Bee after she released a statement apologizing for her use of that offensive word that I can’t even use with asterisks (AJC policy). TBS confirmed she will address the matter on her next new episode this Wednesday at 10 p.m.
She coincidentally received an award last Thursday from the Television Academy and told the audience, "Every week I strive to show the world as I see it, unfiltered," she said, according to IndieWire. (The event was closed to press but IndieWire was provided the speech by "a source.") "Sometimes I should probably have a filter. I accept that. I take it seriously when I get it right, and I do take responsibility when I get it wrong."
“We spent the day wrestling with the repercussions of one bad word,” she added, “when we all should have spent the day incensed that as a nation we are wrenching children from their parents and treating people legally seeking asylum as criminals.”
The timing made conservatives equate her actions to that of Roseanne Barr's racist Tweet a day earlier and called out a double standard. Donald Trump himself wondered why she was still on the air. And even some liberals believed she went over the line.
"Full Frontal" is in its third season. She is in a sensitive spot now because like any TV show in an ad-supported environment, she needs ratings. And her ratings are way down year over year, according to the Wrap, which looked at her Nielsens. She is down 29 percent in overall viewers and even more among younger viewers.
If TBS does end up cancelling her show, it may have to do with poor ratings. But Trump supporters will probably point to this incident as an inflection point and declare victory.
Jon Stewart, who used to run the "Daily Show" and helped launch Bee's career, was at San Francisco's Clusterfest on Sunday and lamented how Bee could be falling into what he sees as a trap, a double standard in his viewpoint.
“Please understand that a lot of what the right does, and it’s maybe their greatest genius, is they’ve created a code of conduct that they police, that they themselves don’t have to, in any way, abide,” he said.
His advice to Bee and others in the same boat: “Don’t get caught in a trap of thinking you can live up to a code of integrity that will be enough for the propagandist right,” he said. “There isn’t. And so, create your own moral code to live by, but don’t be fooled into trying to make concessions that make you think will mollify them.”
Kathy Griffin is a case in point. She wasn't exactly beloved by the right before she posted a photo of herself holding what looked like a bloody head of Trump. She lost sponsors and her CNN New Year's gig (plus her friendship to Anderson Cooper).
She apologized at first but then backed off. She is now embarking on a comedy tour that is selling well. She has already grossed more than $2 million on this tour and could tally up to $4 million, Forbes magazine estimates.
Her fan base, in other words, has stuck with her. Her haters? They just hate her more.
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