Fremde Frau

Jessica is definitely at the top of my list for new hosts upon Jon's retirement. I used to think Larry Wilmore might take over one day, but things turned out even better for him. I think the only person better than Jessica would be Wyatt Cenac, were he to come back. He would bring a totally different vibe to the show, and it would be amazing. As to Jason, I'm starting to think that his Russia series was an aberration and this goofy, cringe humor is his usual style. Could any long-time viewers correct me? Speaking of Toronto: I'm not familiar with him, but Jian Ghomeshi will apparently be interviewing Jon this Sunday. (I can't find a reliable source, only these tweets.) He interviewed Maziar Bahari last year about his experience in prison. It's a really nice, 20-minute interview. (Damn, he has the perfect voice for radio. I want to listen to him forever.)

This last year for their partnership must be as magical as possible. They are falling woefully behind on that, but there's still time!

I miss Aasif. Jordan did a good job, but Aasif would have killed that bit. Also: now that I know what 4chan is, I wish I didn't... I had always thought it was just another message board.

This must stop. I've had it with your movie, Jon. (I'm just kidding. I wish you all the best with it. But seriously? Again??) You know what would make up for this, though? An hour-long Daily/Colbert farewell special on Stephen's last night. With some tosses in the interim.

@Chattygal, I'm not sure. I only saw that one clip.

You all will love this, from Jessica's Instagram page. God, I love them.

I kind of hope Jon drops by Fox again sometime soon, if only because it's always a pleasure to watch him say "go fuck yourself" in their home to their face and in the most cordial manner imaginable as their own production crew laughs with him. That said, I'm a little disturbed by O'Reilly. I can't tell if he's scared to death of Jon or if he's got some secret crush (or if he honestly believes that he wins all of their encounters). Hannity is intimidated by Jon, I think, and Kurtz... who even knows? Mostly, I think he just wants to score a dance. EDIT: Among other things O'Reilly had to say tonight was this nugget (emphasis his).

Jessica is so talented that it's inevitable that she will move on to bigger things soon. I'm hoping she takes over for Jon when he retires, but I'm not sure she would want that. In an interview a while back, she mentioned writing all the time and seemed to have a strong vision of the kind of show she'd like one day. Well, wherever she goes, I will follow. She's a star. One of my favorite sketches that showcased her chemistry with Jon is the one about Putin not giving a shit. It's perfection. (I'm not sure how to find a mirror for Canada.)

I'm making a separate post because these are all Rosewater-related. I hope that's okay. IndieWire (film festival coverage, with several videos): Watch: 'Rosewater''s Jon Stewart and Gael Garcia Bernal Talk Purposeful Inauthenticity (Exclusive) HuffPO (review): 'Rosewater': Jon Stewart as Auteur Dorkshelf (review): TIFF 2014: Rosewater Review

Same here. I'm not really one for cringe humor, which they both seem to love and lean on. Jason's segments where he's being more or less the straight man while interviewing a variety of characters (like his series in Russia or even that gerrymandering piece) are my favorites of his. Sam has been more miss than hit for me lately in her field pieces, but I generally enjoy her in-studio segments.

One thing I've never understood is the expectation of gratitude. Not only regarding catcalls and such, but the general culture of being expected to show gratitude for something that is unasked, unwanted, unneeded, and therefore uncomfortable. Sexual harassment is not necessarily always about appreciating the object in question but also about the feedback of reciprocal appreciation that the catcalling man feels when the woman reacts. There are power dynamics involved that I think a lot of men (and Fox talking heads) have a hard time understanding, even though they're affected by it, too. (Anthropologist David Gilmore did an interesting study on "machismo" once upon a time. I remember reading that study in class, and we discussed, among other things, how his perspective as a man affected his interpretation of how women responded to catcalls, etc. A female anthropologist may have written a different paper.) In any case, I think it's an experience that most women are familiar with, unfortunately. I'm not particularly attractive, but I think sometimes it's more about whether or not you're an easy pick, rather than the "best" pick in a given situation. A few years ago, I made friends in class with another student, and we met off campus once to study for a test together. Just once, and no shenanigans. Following that, he started to park next to my car, even when I parked in wildly different places around campus. The one day I borrowed my parents' car (out of desperation), he asked me in class, "Where'd you park?" I can only imagine that he felt seeing my car that one day when we studied together was an invitation to search for it and park beside it every day. One of the most difficult conversations I ever had--because I'm not naturally confrontational--was to tell him point blank after a few weeks of this that he was freaking me out and I'd rather he didn't search for me like that. He took the point and stopped, thankfully, but I was made to feel by acquaintances (both male and female) that I was ungrateful and should take it as a harmless compliment or romantic gesture. It was particularly stressful because I enjoyed his company and my impression of him as a good guy is unchanged, but all of a sudden, it was as though I'd turned on a "stalk me" light without realizing. I have such mixed feelings about it because I feel bad that I hurt his feelings, but I also feel angry inside that the onus must always be on the woman to either endure it or be seen as a cold bitch or ugly, ungrateful bitch (keyword: bitch). Experiences like these are why I hate stalker songs masquerading as love songs. Anyway, I really appreciate men (like you guys on here) who understand where we're coming from. On topic: Jessica killed it. She is such a joy. And I loved that she cracked Jon up. I couldn't care less about Eric Cantor, so his segment was kind of boring, but that last line was a fantastic closer.

Here are some articles unrelated to Rosewater. HuffPO, regarding his criticism of Israel: "Jon Stewart's 'Daily Show' Represents the Best in Jewish American Thought And True Support for Israel" IndieWire, in comparison to Last Week Tonight: "TV Watch: How John Oliver Beat Stewart, Colbert, and Broadcast News at Their Own Games" PopMatters, a review of the new biography by Lisa Rogak: "The 'Angry Optimist' Is Clearly a Search-Engine Approach to Biography"

Wow. And now I've seen something by TDS that I didn't know I didn't want until I saw it. That kind of bumped Jason down for me. Can they send him back to Russia?

Here is a video of the Q&A and a nice, brief impression of the film by the person who uploaded the video.

Jessica and Sam had a short interview with Glamour a little while back.

I agree with your point as it pertains to people who make a deliberate show of acting like someone else's savior or whatnot or take on that mantle unasked, but I didn't get that vibe at all from the interview. This is just my interpretation, but he seemed to be supportive of Todd Glass' nerves from a personal, human standpoint, rather than it being anything to do with any real or perceived difference in professional status. (I agree with Wax Lion's take on what Glass was dealing with.) To your more general point: I have to disagree again. Support is not automatically the same as consolation, anymore than sympathy is automatically the same as pity. Isn't that one of the GOP's arguments against welfare and other government assistance programs, that such programs are a disingenuous and economically and/or socially detrimental exercise of liberal guilt meant solely for their own political gain? Anyway, you can support someone without consoling them, and you can console someone without supporting them. So I have to disagree with the notion that to be supportive of people who have less than oneself is necessarily the same as to be an egotistical douchebag whose ulterior motive is self-reward. Getting back to Jon, he seems to be exactly the opposite type: to not pat himself on the back for supporting people but to treat it as nothing praiseworthy. I remember reading about how nobody knew he was visiting soldiers for years until he was honored with the 2008 USO-Metro Merit Award for it. (Here's a hilarious NPR interview as Jon is driving to get the award.) Travon Free (one of the writers) has an interview where it came up (at 52:00) how several people have stories about how Jon helped them without any sense of ceremony.

That's great to hear, @ABay! It's nice to see that Maziar Bahari is there with Jon, since this is his story. I had no idea until I read the Q&A's and the article by THR and watched the DS interviews of Bahari that they had become friends and were in such close contact during the process of writing the book and then writing/planning the film. It seems to have been a collaborative process between two people whose perspectives and senses of humor just clicked. If anyone is interested, here are the two DS interviews of Maziar Bahari: 12/1/2009 and 6/6/2011 (an extended interview). @maculae, thank you. I finally watched the trailer, and it was quite good. Some of the criticism mentions that the film doesn't break any new ground, stylistically or thematically, but that seems to be hardly the point, anyway. I got so caught up being nervous for him because of the inevitable politicized criticism and because of the awards expectations being projected onto the film, that I ended up projecting a bit of that myself. Here are some more reviews and/or brief mentions of it: Complex, FirstShowing, HitFix, LATimes (includes quotes from Jon, Bahari, and Gael García Bernal), NY Times, RogerEbert.com, and a second review by IndieWire. They are generally positive. AwardsDaily, on the other hand, is positively effusive in its praise and has a rather nice write-up on Jon and Steve Carell, too. (The two photographs are of them smiling at each other. Carell looks as great as ever.)

There's no evidence that Jon thinks he's better than other comedians who aren't as rich and famous as he is, and, as far as I know, only Marc Maron has explicitly, if jokingly, said that he was/is jealous of Jon. It feels like a bit of a reach to assume Jon is being slightly arrogant or self-involved if he's appears to be supportive of a friend who seems nervous--for whatever reason that friend feels nervous. If nothing else, Jon is always a gracious host who tries to put everyone at ease, from rightwing assholes to little-known authors and directors to new correspondents doing their first bit. This is so much so that Jon's behavior only really stands out when he is not a gracious host, like with Jennifer Love Hewitt, Chris Matthews, or Jim Cramer. If Jon is making an effort to appear supportive--as in, putting on a show of supportiveness--then it's the same effort that he's given just about everyone he's invited onto the show. Anyway, I believe that all of us get to where we are not only through our own hard work and talent but in great deal due to the support and influences of people around us and to how we fall within institutionalized systems of privilege. Jon is no more perfect than anyone (there are still moments where this or that joke lands poorly due to internalized biases that he probably hasn't consciously examined; same with Colbert and Oliver), but he does seem like someone who well understands that the same systems that are be beneficial to him are oppressive to others. In any case, you can be supportive of a friend who hasn't been as fortunate as yourself (financially or otherwise) without it being a power trip; the two are not necessarily linked, thank goodness. If that's even what was going on between them during that interview. Same here. I'm younger than he is, but I still feel like there are chunks of my life that could have been lived more meaningfully.

In the Hollywood Reporter article, John Oliver cited two days in particular when the news stories had been particularly rough on Jon. I think the clips below are what John's talking about. March 5, 2007: They spent the whole episode on the Walter Reed clusterfuck: M*E*S*S, Bad Hospitality, Dodge Caravan, and the Bob Woodruff interview, during which it came up briefly. (The episode ended on a lighthearted note: a cute toss after Stephen won a Man of the Year award.) December 1, 2008: Mumbai Tragedy (Why is this still so relevant today? They could re-air this segment, and it would be perfectly attuned to current events.)

Thank you, @stacey! @maculae, that article by THR was like chicken soup to me. I loved so much all of the comments by others who know him, as well as all of the insight from Jon himself on the film and on some of the issues whirling around him lately. I just love him, that's all. I just love the whole DS team and their sense of family. Reading Stephen and John's comments on Jon just made my heart smile. (Except for that part about how much certain stories have a noticeable, draining effect on Jon.) EDIT: I particularly loved this quote from Jon, regarding the reaction to his coverage of Gaza and Israel. And this, which made me think of John Oliver's comment about his favorite Louie episode: Oh, fuck it. I loved the whole thing. I'll just stop now. That poster is nice, too. (I'm struck by nerves on his behalf, though, and can't watch the trailer. Argh.)

Of their 14 writers, four are female. I think two of the writers are new additions since the last Emmys. Anyway, that's the highest percentage in late night, it seems, at 29%. (Source: Slate had an article on the diversity of the writing staffs for Last Week Tonight and Late Night with Seth Meyers. Daniel Radosh, one of the DS writers, corrected their numbers, and in the same Twitter thread, Steve Bodow (EP) pointed out that TDS has been doing blind writer submissions since 2008. The point being that it's more accurate to say that DS is not trailing behind new, diverse shows but has been improving itself quietly throughout the years and is actually leading the pack in some regards. I wish someone would write an article about that, instead of just adding a correction like Slate did. Instead, they're often just being thrown up as the old guard that is put to shame by new shows and could use serious remodeling in order to stay relevant. TDS is hardly perfect--for example, I wish they would listen to criticisms of their transphobic jokes and be more precise in the direction of their punchlines in the future--but I wish the writers of recent articles would at least be fact-based in their criticism. So many negative articles now--and I don't mean the ones by rightwing nuts, which go without saying--rely on such a lazy, incomplete portrayal of TDS (and TCR) to make their point. It's really bugging me.) EDIT: The first detailed reviews of Rosewater are out! (Do we need a separate thread for all Rosewater-related news?) Variety: The Wrap: The Hollywood Reporter: Another review from Indiewire. I'll stop quoting because this post is too long already, but the general consensus seems to be that it's a good enough, sincere film but not a great, award-winning film.

What an excellent episode last night. I love that he dropped the humor and spoke from the heart towards the end of it. I wish that it didn't take a white voice to stir up the kind of reaction that segment got, but given how that is so fucked up in our society, I think it's a good thing to have Jon, Stephen, and John in the current public sphere, using their platforms for good. I can't wait for Larry's show and for a time when he won't feel the kind of pressure he's described to be a perfect black host in a white landscape.

A nine-year-old girl "lost control" of the Uzi she was firing and killed the shooting instructor. Thank you, Jesus, for freedom.

Oh, that's too bad about TIFF, Victor the Crab, but I hope you enjoy your vacation in Chicago!

For @Victor the Crab and anyone else in the Toronto area: here is some more information on Jon's appearance at the Toronto International Film Festival. Apparently, he will have a "Mavericks" conversation onstage at 3:15pm on Sunday, September 7th. (I wish everyone who can attend a wonderful time!)