Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon and Other Late-Night Hosts Respond to the Paris Attacks
Reacting to the Paris terrorist attacks presented a particular challenge for America's ...
New York Times - 22 hours ago
Reacting to the Paris terrorist attacks presented a particular challenge for America’s late-night TV entertainers. On the one hand, their programs thrive on topicality, offering nightly national forums where current events are assessed in comforting, lighthearted tones. On the other hand, these shows are often careful to avoid tragic subjects where seemingly no comedy can be found.
But one by one, the late-night hosts on Monday added their voices to the chorus of commentary on the attacks, condemning the violence and its perpetrators while expressing solidarity with Paris and grief for the victims.
Over the weekend, NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” opened its broadcast with a respectful statement from the cast member Cecily Strong, who said in English and in French that “Paris is the City of Light, and here in New York City, we know that light will never go out.”
On Sunday, John Oliver took much the opposite approach on HBO’s “Last Week Tonight,” beginning his program with a gleefully obscene monologuein which he flung profanities at the attackers and their ideology. He defiantly added that “France is going to endure,” because, he said, the nation of Jean-Paul Sartre, Édith Piaf, Albert Camus and Gauloises cigarettes would never lose a war over culture and lifestyle.
On Monday night, Trevor Noah began his broadcast of “The Daily Show” on Comedy Central with remarks that were mostly somber but still found room to be tongue-in-cheek. The terrorists who attacked Paris, Mr. Noah said, sought to replace our everyday experiences with images of “death and fear.”
“We’re all afraid,” Mr. Noah added. “We replace that fear with anger a lot of the time. But I think what we should try to choose to do is not focus on the perpetrators, because every attack, whether it’s Paris, Beirut, Kenya, seems less about a specific group and more about an attack on humanity itself.”
Then, pointing to the many acts of compassion that followed the attacks — taxis offering free rides, people donating blood, Twitter users posting messages with the hashtag #PorteOuverte — Mr. Noah said: “To the people of France, we commend you. I will say you are ruining our cultural stereotypes, because the French are supposed to be cold and unwelcoming, and then you go and do these beautiful things. Who do we make jokes about now? Finland? Because we will. We will make jokes about Finland, if we have to.”
On his TBS show, “Conan,” the veteran late-night host Conan O’Brien dispensed with his traditional opening monologue altogether and made a simple heartfelt statement.
“We were looking through the paper today,” Mr. O’Brien said, “and I thought, maybe we should just start the show by saying, instead of doing jokes about the news, just say that our thoughts are with the people of Paris and France, and everybody who’s been affected by this terrible tragedy worldwide.”
Then more cheerfully, Mr. O’Brien added: “Obviously, we are here to do comedy tonight. We are in fact a comedy show, as of August.”
Stephen Colbert, who briefly discussed the Paris attacks at the end of “The Late Show” on Friday, returned to the topic at greater length on Monday’s installment of his CBS program.
Mr. Colbert’s broadcast opened with a performance of France’s national anthem, “La Marseillaise,” performed by his house band, Jon Batiste and Stay Human. The show’s opening credits, which usually display images of New York, were updated with street scenes of Paris.
Mr. Colbert also declined to perform his customary opening stand-up monologue, and began his show sitting at his desk, where he delivered a long speech that quickly morphed from seriousness to his customary wry humor.
“New York is a city that sadly knows too well the horror the French experienced on Friday,” Mr. Colbert said. “And we also know there are no words that can reach the depths of their grief and their shock. But we stand with the people of France as a friend and an ally, and offer the hope that there is a way through the unspeakable tragedy.”
He listed the various gifts that France has given the United States over the centuries, including: “Aid to General Washington in our fight for independence. Key intelligence on how to put potatoes in boiling oil. My favorite way of kissing. Half the continent at a bargain price — no takebacks, guys.”
While people around the world may feel unsure of how to support France, Mr. Colbert offered the following suggestion. “If it makes you feel a connection to the people of Paris, go drink a bottle of Bordeaux,” he said. “Eat a croissant at Au Bon Pain. Slap on a beret and smoke a cigarette like this. Go eat some French fries, which I am now calling Freedom fries in honor of the French people.”
“Anything that is an attempt at human connection in the world right now is positive,” he said. “Did you get up this morning and not try to kill someone? Then you’re on the right side.”
Unlike his fellow hosts, Jimmy Fallon did not begin “The Tonight Show” on Monday with a tribute to Paris, but instead opened the NBC program with monologue jokes about Saturday’s Democratic presidential debate. Then, at his desk, Mr. Fallon offered “a hello, and a hi, and a hug for all of the people watching our show in Paris.”
“What happened last Friday night changed us, and we are different people than we were at four o’clock last Friday,” he said, referring to the time that news of the attacks began circulating on the East Coast. “Those shootings and bombings were set out to destroy us and destroy humanity, but guess what? It backfired. Because instead those events brought us all even closer together.”
“From all of us here at ‘The Tonight Show,’” he added, “our thoughts are with the families and friends of the victims, and we want to let you know that we believe in you.” In closing, Mr. Fallon praised Parisians for “living their life without fear” since the attacks, and “showing us that the best way to mourn the dead is to live.”
On Comedy Central, Larry Wilmore, the host of “The Nightly Show,” also thanked France for what it had contributed to the United States, in opening remarks that required a couple of strategic bleeps.
“We want you to know that our hearts are with you,” Mr. Wilmore said. “Look, France, you are our oldest ally. You understand us more than anybody. You gave us our biggest emotions, bling, you even put up with us when we tried to change the name of your delicious fries. You have always had our back. If somebody [bleep] with you, they [bleep] with us, all right.”
Noting that his daughter was born on July 14, Bastille Day, Mr. Wilmore said: “I promised her when she was a girl, for her 18th birthday, I would take her to Paris. That birthday is in eight months. So do what you will Paris, do what you want, but that trip is still happening.”
Seth Meyers, the host of NBC’s “Late Night,” went to his desk on the show to express his regret that he could not speak to his viewers in French.
“My mother was a middle-school French teacher,” he said. “She was my middle-school French teacher. I was such a terrible student that about all I could do right now is list vegetables, colors and maybe a few days of the week.”
Observing that Paris is synonymous with love, Mr. Meyers said: “I’ve been there many times. I almost proposed to my wife in Paris. I should have. It would have made for a far less awkward, intense flight home.”
Mr. Meyers also noted that other global capitals had recently experienced terrorist attacks and that such violence would have wider-ranging consequences.
“I realize there are other places where things like this happen all the time,” he said. “Beirut also had a terrible bombing by ISIS last week as well, and I certainly was guilty of not paying the same level of attention to that atrocity. And when you think about the place where these terrible things are happening the most right now, it would be Syria, a place where the people who live there, who are trying to live normal lives, are so desperate to leave. And for those refugees, whose lives are so difficult right now, I think one of the many, and there are so many sad things about what happened in Paris, but certainly one of them is how much harder life is going to be for those refugees because of this.”
“So,” he concluded, “I would just spare a thought for all of the people who are affected by these tragic events. And hopefully, things will be just a little bit better tomorrow. Mardi, French for Tuesday. Nailed it.”
On CBS’s “The Late Late Show,” its host, the British actor and comedianJames Corden, echoed the sentiment of his peers. “It’s been a difficult and very sad weekend,” he said.
“It’s hard to put into words the feelings of sadness, anger, even confusion, we all feel at witnessing the horrific scenes that happened in Paris,” he said. “It’s a city that is full of beauty, of art, of culture — of life — and nothing will ever change that.”
Mr. Corden, whose comments were relayed through a transcript provided by CBS, said that as he was returning to Los Angeles from London over the weekend, “I could see from my window the lights of LAX, all lit in the colors of the French flag.”
“It was a wonderful thing to see,” he said. “It was a sign of the world unifying behind right over wrong — standing together with the people of France.”
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