Trump's White House: All that glitters is not (comedy) gold

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Donald Trump's presidency has been a gift for comedians and writers, or so we thought.

Just as news media outlets struggle to keep pace with the controversies and personalities at Trump’s White House, comedy writers, producers, and talk show hosts have scrambled to process material that a year ago appeared to be a comedy gold mine, but which some no longer see as a laughing matter.

“People say, you comedians must be so happy about Trump,” said Miles Kahn, writer and producer on Samantha Bee’s “Full Frontal” television show on TBS, a unit of Time Warner Inc.

Promotional material for "Full Frontal" /Photo via vimeo.com

“I don’t think any of us are. We’re scared. We get very anxious, we’re kept on edge and when you’re anxious it’s really hard to concentrate and write something funny,” Kahn said.

“Full Frontal” is competing on Sunday for a variety talk series Emmy – the highest awards in television – in a tight race that includes late-night shows featuring Stephen Colbert, John Oliver and Bill Maher, who all have relentlessly attacked Trump and his policies.

Asked about the plethora of Trump material, Bee told reporters last week, “As citizens, we would actually ask for less. ... We have what we have, so we make what we can out of it.”

Stephen Colbert /AFP Photo

Colbert’s skewering of Trump sent ratings soaring for his “The Late Show” and helped win him the job of hosting Sunday’s prime-time Emmy Awards show.

After its most-watched season in 23 years, sketch show “Saturday Night Live,” got 22 Emmy nominations. Melissa McCarthy’s impersonations of former White House press secretary Sean Spicer brought her a guest actress Emmy last Sunday, while Alec Baldwin’s take on Trump and Kate McKinnon’s spoofs of Trump aide Kellyanne Conway are in the race this weekend.

A still of female comedian Melissa McCarthy impersonating former White House press secretary Sean Spicer /CGTN Photo

Still a laughing matter?

In a nation divided by the 2016 presidential election, comedy fills a vital role, even if laughter is sometimes being replaced by outrage, said Dannagal Young, associate professor of communications at the University of Delaware

“Comedy has a history of making light of tragedy. A lot of people are looking to these shows to make sense of the political world, to find some kinship with other people watching and in recognizing the insanity for what it is,” Young said.

TV comics like Bee, Colbert, Oliver and Seth Myers, host of “Late Night with Seth Meyers,” have been so hard-hitting that their material sometimes “comes close to being didactic, and not cheerful,” Young said.

(From left) Bill Maher, John Oliver and Seth Meyers /AFP Photo

In August, Meyers called Trump a “lying racist.” In May, Colbert said Trump has “more people marching against (him) than cancer.”

Source(s): Reuters