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Notes -
Jimmy Kimmel pulled indefinitely by ABC for Charlie Kirk comments.
Late night talk show hosts have waned from their glorious Letterman days, but boomers still care about then enough that they're still a scalp worth scraping off the skull. It's hard to think of a prominent figure on the right that would be equal in stature - Gina Carano? Piers Morgan? Roseanne Barr? nothing like him - if only for the fact that the entertainment industry is so aligned to the left. Indeed, even during the height of the progressive cancel culture era, it was liberal icons like Louis CK and JK Rowling that felt the heat.
If such a big figure can fall, who will be next?
With Colbert going off the air, and with the upcoming FCC hearings on Twitch, Reddit, Discord, and Steam, one can only anticipate the prizes that are coming. Destiny and Hasan are obvious trophies that the right would love to claim, but I have no doubt that the powerjanitors of Reddit are quaking in their boots. How many leftist/liberal commentators have made snarky comments on social media, as of late? This is the reddest of the red meat, dripping with blood, raw. The long march through the institutions has only just begun, and for the populist right base, it'll be a enjoyable hike indeed.
Once again, I'm seeing the center left Ryan Grim types run with "Jimmy Kimmel was fired for a joke! What, is comedy illegal now?"
I have to ask, what was the joke? What was the setup? What was the punchline? If this were a rant Tim Dillon were delivering, and the context is we are laughing at what a sociopath Tim Dillon is, and that he's saying shit no human being could possibly believe with a straight face, ok. Has that become Jimmy Kimmel's act? Was the joke that he's so retarded and Trump Deranged that this is funny?
Falling back on "It's just a joke" is the bully behavior of people who abuse you. When you get upset at being punched, called a faggot, and having you D&D books stolen, they go "It's just a joke, lighten up". "It's just a joke" is always the last defense of the bully when the bill finally comes due.
The quote above is the pre-amble for the actual "joke" -- https://x.com/suayrez/status/1968464780940673083 For those who don't want to watch, Kimmel shows a clip of reporters asking Trump how he is holding up and Trump saying "I think very good" then pointing to construction of the White House ballroom and boasting about it, to which Kimmel makes the actual "joke": "This is not how an adult grieves the murder of someone he calls a friend. This is how a four-year-old mourns a goldfish,"
To judge whether this is appropriate, imagine this in a more politically neutral circumstance. Imagine the quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys had just been murdered by a deranged Eagles fan. A journalist catches Cowboys owner Jerry Jones at some random moment and asks him, "how are you holding up?" and he says "just fine" and points to a new improvement to the football stadium. Would it be in the realm of appropriateness for a late-night comedian to take a shot at Jerry Jones for this response? No. People have all sorts of responses to grief, he might have just wanted to change the subject because he did not want to talk about it with the journalist, he might have been trying to put on a brave face. Telling a national audience that "this is not how an adult grieves his friend" and saying this man who just suffered a traumatic loss "is acting like a four year old" would be considered a terrible thing to say, far beyond the pale. Any broadcast channel comedian would have faced a suspension for a joke that off-base.
It was absolutely a cheap potshot by Kimmel, and it shows that Kimmel is a lot more concerned with taking potshots at Trump than he cares about the fact that the political climate is heated enough to produce this kind of assassination.
If I was in Trump's position, being publicly insulted and told I'm grieving like a four-year-old when my friend and ally was just assassinated would fill be with a hot rage and I would want to use every tool in my disposable to destroy the person who insulted me. George Washington had his seconds kill people in duels for less than this.
It is said that a republic requires a virtuous citizenry. Well, "don't make cheap and nasty insults at the leader when they are assassination the murder of their ally" is part of the virtue needed to maintain a republic where free speech exists.
How is it connected? I watched the clip until he started talking about the Emmys, and didn't notice anything that built off of that supposed setup. Let's go line-by-line:
How is "desperately trying to characterize [him] as anything other than one of them" supposed to be the preamble for a joke? Did I simply stop watching too soon?
Yes, you did stop too soon, actually. That's the quote that's been cited everywhere, but the bit is significantly longer with several cross-cuts. That's only the intro! This is probably the best text description of the segment if you don't want to watch it. I'm a text>video supremacist, but video does capture some nuance if you care: namely, the pacing and tone of his voice in that entire quote is literally just a lead-up.
The main bit is that Trump doesn't actually care about Kirk, and merely finds his death occasionally politically convenient. The specific laugh-line is about Trump grieving like a 4-year old grieves for a goldfish. And then another few clips the thrust of which is Trump when asked tends to change the subject away from Kirk quickly. Which, you can think of it how you like, you may even consider it cruel, but the whole thing is not being viewed contextually.
To put it again very clearly: the takeaway from this segment of a longer monologue is that Trump sucks as a person. The reference to Kirk's killer's motive is done in passing. It's wrong, obviously, and most people would agree it's wrong, but it's a comedy lead-in to a joke not a newscast and it was a day before the gold-standard evidence came out that put it all to bed. Remember, the FBI was super stingy with their evidence release cadence and most newscasters were going mostly off of scraps, often without even primary source attribution (e.g. Governor Cox claimed that the FBI found out that someone close to the shooter said _) so it was hard to tell in many cases which piece of info came from where. (And while Kimmel holds responsibility I wouldn't be surprised if the actual paragraph quote's copy was written by some overworked staff writer instead)
Let me repeat myself: I watched the clip until he started talking about the Emmys. I recognize everything you're talking about, and disagree with your characterization of it.
If you want to use a "comedy" defense, then you have to actually do comedy. That was just an isolated insult slotted into position. You will never have the respect of your peers, and your appearance frightens children. He didn't need to cite the gold-standard evidence. Heck, he didn't even need to be correct. All he needed to do was make a joke with it.
Without that connection, it's just an incredibly crass insult that's (unsuccessfully for me; successfully for you) taking cover from the format.
That concludes my counterargument where everything I said is tied together into the coherent thesis that you have misinterpreted Kimmel's monologue. I'm sure that you won't find any insults masquerading as arguments because every sentence is in its proper place.
(from @Dean below)
A two-part would be best, but I'm not that strict. It can be ironic, hyperbolic, or any other way to use it.
It’s a mean joke, I didn’t find it funny, but it absolutely is a joke. I’m not gonna go down that route and analyze it in depth unless I have to, but it follows enough of the rules of comedy that it counts, with the cadence I described. Much of comedy tiptoes a line of meanness, that’s not really new. To me a joke can be insulting, the two are not mutually exclusive at all.
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