By Jaleesa Johnson
The final episode of “The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore” aired last Thursday and all three of its fans are devastated. When The Nightly Show first aired on Jan 19th, I was excited about another beautiful chocolate man holding down a prime-time slot. However, ultimately, The Nightly Show left much to be desired. For a late-night political talk show–especially in the old Colbert spot–expectations were high. Comedy Central decided to give Nightly Show the boot after just eight months of air time and I have a personal theory as to why.
Upon getting word of the show’s sudden cancellation, Wilmore commented, “I’m saddened and surprised we won’t be covering this crazy election or ‘The Un-blackening’ as we’ve coined it. And keeping it 100, I guess I hadn’t counted on ‘The Un-blackening’ happening to my time slot as well.” And that is precisely the reason I believe the show tanked: he made everything a race issue, even when it had nothing to do with race! Don’t get me wrong–I love a great racial joke as much as the next guy. However, Viacom statistics show that Comedy Central ratings dropped by double digits primarily among 18-24 year old viewers. That’s right–The Nightly Show failed to connect with young people, not white people. Yet, Wilmore is often compelled to play a “victim of The Man.” That’s not to say that black people are not victims of many social injustices. However, young viewers are old enough to realize that the show’s cancellation is not so much an “un-blackening” issue as it is Wilmore just being “un-funny.”
The timing of the show’s cancellation also speaks volumes to how little the show resonated with young viewers. It’s perplexing how The Nightly Show was so disconnected from the 18-24 demographic that it couldn’t even survive the greatest election season since George Washington vs John Adams. College students were extremely y attentive to Comedy Central throughout the last two presidential elections–which, keep in mind: a black man won. And here we are now, being handed the most comedic performance by any political candidate ever, and Wilmore drops the ball by crying “everything wrong with America is race-related.” Even with all of the current racial tension in America and recent police brutality incidents, the kids are just not convinced that a daily political talk show should be 99% race-driven and I agree. It’s a gravely important discussion to have, but certainly not the only one.
Not to mention that The Nightly Show set back panel shows on Comedy Central for the next 15 years. A perfect example of this is the Bill Nye episode where Wilmore and his panel of fellow comedians berate one of the greatest scientists of our time for “daring” to suggest Americans care about Mars. That episode made it official for me: The Nightly Show was harder to watch than the 11 o’clock news. Colbert’s former slot had lost all credibility for me. What made Stephen Colbert so great was that even though he had a smile on his face, you felt the anger and rage behind his bits.You knew that, no matter what, every punchline was preaching right versus wrong. Colbert was a comedian driven by his political views, whereas Wilmore comes off as a misplaced political host driven by his jokes. Given that the show was on a comedy network, it definitely stood a chance. It’s just that when you opt for comedy over cause, you’ve got to at least make the comedy–you know–comical.
In my three years of performing comedy, I’ve learned this much: There are comedians who make great political points through the form of a joke, and there are other comedians who force a joke into a political discussion where it has no business. One inspires me, while the other is frustrating and often counterproductive to the discussion at hand. All-in-all, Wilmore’s obsession with playing the victim wasn’t funny or passionate enough to successfully pull off. I just hope that the next late-night Comedy Central host–who may happen to be of color–learns from Wilmore’s mistakes. Because, frankly, if we’re “keeping it 100,” sacrificing fact for “funny,” or even fear made The Nightly Show no better than the very people they intended to expose.
