John Oliver Is Finally Ready to Take on Donald Trump
And the rest of the presidential election in season three of Last Week Tonight.
In
June 2015, Donald Trump announced his presidential bid to the
immense amusement of the national media, which promptly launched
into weeks of talking-head debates on 24-hour news networks. Over the
next seven months, Jeb (!) Bush became the frontrunner, then the
loser; Ben Carson bumbled his way up to serious-candidate status; Trump
became the joke, then the frontrunner; Cruz rose from the muck to win
Iowa; and thirteen other Republican candidates jockeyed below them in
the polls. Meanwhile, John Oliver ignored this enormous wealth
of comedic gold, instead focusing on subjects like transgender rights,
mental health, refugees, and the dark world of Internet bullying. He
never touched the presidential election on his Sunday night HBO show Last Week Tonight. He made a point not to.
"No
part of me thought it would be great to cover this massively overblown
occasion," Oliver said at a media breakfast at the HBO offices in New
York on Wednesday. "There are all the ways to get lost in the general
campaign ephemera where nothing is happening of significant consequence.
We were much happier concentrating on other things that seemed a bit
more relevant last year."
Things
like interviewing Edward Snowden, government surveillance,
televangelists, and the uselessness of pennies. Throughout the season
Oliver—who, like his mentors Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, does not
identify himself as a journalist—brought attention to key stories that
the public and the media were all but ignoring. But now, as the show
kicks off its third season on February 14, Oliver won't ignore the
election any longer.
"It's
finally appropriate," he says, "But I think we'll do more stuff that
has to do with the process and the personalities. I don't think we'll do
too much on the daily dramas of the campaign."
Such pointed skewering is needed now more than ever. Trevor Noah's The Daily Show is following in Stewart's giant steps and is still finding its footing, to mixed results. "Jon
Stewart: That is a massive, massive figurehead leaving. The show is in a
rebuilding mode," said Oliver, who admits that he doesn't watch Noah's
iteration. That leaves viewers hungry for the withering political satire
they once relied on Stewart to deliver.
And Oliver might just be our man. As it's always done, Last Week Tonight will look
for underreported trends. The extended segments for which it's
known don't cover the viral stories, they become the viral stories
(though Oliver mentioned his disdain for the "Oliver Eviscerates," or
"Oliver Dismantles" headlines that inevitably pop up each Monday
morning). But that also means that Oliver will have to take on
Trump—who's called the show "very boring," a quote which they've placed
on their posters.
"I
don't think that you can claim that he doesn't exist, no matter how hard
your mind tries," Oliver said. But is he worried that Trump might be
our next president? "I don't think that's going to be a problem that we're going to have to deal with...I'm less interested with what he is saying than what is happening underneath."
Oliver
said he's landed at the perfect place to do this, because HBO doesn't
care about what he does so long as it's smart and insightful. "'You can
do whatever you'd like.' You get told that a lot. And you presume HBO is
lying, and then it just happens where they don't say anything and they
let us do everything."
For
example, Oliver's now-famous interview with Edward Snowden, which came
as a surprise not just to viewers but to HBO executives as well. Without
telling anyone but a few close associates, Oliver planned a meeting
with the government whistleblower—and international fugitive—with a
small crew in Russia. "From a U.S. perspective, you're not really
supposed to do it. It's like basic level parenting. Don't stare directly
at the sun and don't meet fugitives," Oliver said. "It was a panicky 36
hours there, so we split the tapes between us in case any of us got
stopped."
Oliver and his staff—some of which come from New York Times Magazine, ProPublica, CNN and MSNBC—have
been hard at work on the new season, researching, reporting, and fact
checking stories. "It doesn't sound funny, that's for sure. The funny
comes later," Oliver said. "You have to make sure you're structurally
sound first. You can write jokes late. That's my only job. Structuring a
story is different. If the elements of a story collapse it takes all
the jokes down with it."
Though it sounds like an investigative unit, Oliver will be the first to assure you that it's not. This is comedy.
end quote from:
| Esquire.com | - |
As
it's always done, Last Week Tonight will look for underreported trends.
The extended segments for which it's known don't cover the viral
stories, they become the viral stories (though Oliver mentioned his
disdain for the "Oliver Eviscerates," or ...
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