This week in late night, we’re wondering if there will be a next week. With Jimmy Kimmel Live! pulled off the air “indefinitely” and The Late Show With Stephen Colbert canceled, the already shrinking late-night comedy sphere is rapidly contracting. What was an already dwindling format has lost two of its strongest voices, due to what looks from the outside to be state censorship. Jimmy Kimmel was “canceled” (technically pulled from the lineup, but who knows how this will actually shake out?) for a joke. Not even a joke, the setup to a joke. FCC chairman Brendan Carr said he objected to how Kimmel associated Charlie Kirk’s alleged shooter with the MAGA movement, something that he only did as a brief tee-up to a clip package.
Vulture reached out to current late-night writers to see how it feels to be on one of the shows left standing. On the condition of anonymity, they shared their thoughts on trying to make comedy when doing so potentially puts a target on your back.
“It’s authoritarian bullshit.”
We had already wrapped when the news broke, so I don’t know how the room took it. But I’ll say we weren’t given any sort of new direction this morning when it came to joke writing. So, in that respect, it was business as usual.
It’s authoritarian bullshit. My hope is just that the backlash will be too loud to ignore. The one benefit to how transparent this all is is that everyone is rightfully outraged — not just the people who love Kimmel.
And, not for nothing, but didn’t Brian Kilmeade say mentally ill homeless people should be executed the other day? Pretty sure he got to keep his show.
“I don’t want someone else to take the fall because I wrote the wrong words for them.”
To be honest, I haven’t seen a lot of comedy writers or hosts choosing to censor themselves after watching our colleagues get literally canceled. It’s more that we’re horrified and embarrassed by the cowardice of the networks and the choices they’re making. The people who have the most money and power are the first to give up, and, frankly, that should be mortifying for them.
I should be clear that when I say we’re not censoring ourselves, I don’t mean that we’re out there just speaking meanly or cavalierly. In the places I’ve worked, we’ve always tried to make sure that our jokes have the right targets and we say what we mean. I feel especially obligated to be careful, because I’m writing for someone else. I don’t want someone else to take the fall because I wrote the wrong words for them. I’m terrified by the shutdown of free speech, but I can’t imagine how the right answer is to stop speaking.
“They told us they would do this.”
Everyone I am talking to is shocked and scared. I am not that shocked, strangely. I love the hosts who have been impacted by this. They are good guys. But they have benefited for a long time from a system that has rarely elevated anyone else besides white men. They are somehow these de facto leaders who are supposed to speak for us and speak to us, but they’re not really like the majority of us. Doesn’t mean they’re not funny as hell, thoughtful, smart, and generous to the people around them. Definitely doesn’t mean that they deserve to be punished for what is their constitutional right to free speech. I am just not shocked, because when your success hinges on corporate approval and a vehemently patriarchal societal structure, it will also be those same corporations and the upper echelon of the patriarchy that snatch your crown, because they can.
They told us they would do this. We have seen them do this to many others all along. I think it’s only shocking because white guys didn’t actually believe it could happen to them too. (Ultimately, I think they will both be fine and probably land streaming contracts more lucrative than their network deals — shows that might pay more money for a mere fraction of the amount of work it would take to continue their daily, year-round schedules. See Letterman and Mulaney on Netflix.)
“The president is a crybaby who can’t take a joke.”
The news came through just as the writers concluded reading through a script about the country’s developing free-speech crisis, so the day ended on a queasy note. Our show is not in a position to pretend nothing happened. I think some people who work here would feel safer not putting a target on their backs by commenting on it, which is the point of political censorship.
I’m more paranoid about my personal digital footprint. I haven’t liked or shared any political commentary on social media since Kirk’s killing last week. It all feels like I’d be manufacturing evidence to be used in bad faith for some future persecution. It’s really time for people to abandon these platforms outright. Having said that, when it comes to the work itself, I’m filled with cautious righteousness. It’s none of our problem that the president is a crybaby who can’t take a joke. No one should be scared of a private-school kid who has never changed a car tire.
Most writers at my show have worked on at least one other late-night show, so those of us with connections there texted JKL writers our shock and solidarity. I feel so bad for off-camera staff — the stagehands, the audio team, the wardrobe department, the HMU team.
The broadcast networks are beholden to Trump’s FCC in a way cable channels aren’t, but that’s hardly reassuring. I wouldn’t put anything past such a craven administration. To pull back from the immediacy of the situation, I think most late-night writers understand that linear broadcast television will be pulled off life support soon. Look at how sports have begun ducking out over to streaming. As the Nextars and Sinclairs et al. consolidate, traditional broadcast television will slowly transform into the magazine rack near the checkout at the supermarket: mostly clueless celebrity coverage and regurgitative “history” pieces about Elvis, but instead of sudoku books and diabetic recipe magazines, it’ll be game shows and low-res Gordon Ramsay content from 2005.
Every generation thinks that they alone are the last to experience a golden age. “TV” is likely over, but Trump can’t take credit for that. I like that Arundhati Roy quote: “Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”