TDS 3.0: Season One Talk

[zxy556575]

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I'm not sure what you mean by 'playing along.' I think he was sincere about everything he said, but he understood this was a comedy show and Hasan's job was to make jokes.

Yeah, sorry. I meant that I wasn't sure if the Sikh guy did understand about the show being a comedy and that the correspondent would be acting the fool/asking dumb questions. He was so serious.

I usually skip those pieces so am probably not the best judge. They make me uncomfortable on behalf of the people being interviewed since the show often seems to be making them the butt of the joke, even if it's by just letting them speak.

[topanga]

On 4/26/2016 at 0:47 AM, lordonia said:

I loved Hasan's piece about Sikhs in America. "I work really hard at blending in. A third of my salary goes to New Balance and Patagonia."

 

As usual, I couldn't tell if the guy being interviewed was playing along or not. "Son, you need to lead with love."

That piece taught me a lot about Sikhs. I wasn't as bad as the people on the street (I knew they weren't birds), and I knew they weren't Muslim, but that's about it. 

And I loved Hasan's quotes about blending in. And when he did that head gesture and said he would totally throw a Muslim (which he is!) under the bus. 

[angora]

Random thoughts on this week's shows:

Loved Hasan's piece on Sikhs and Islamaphobia - as others have said, Hasan's blending-in efforts were great, and I adored the huge cheer from the audience when the panel said they wouldn't give the "not Muslim - nothing to see here!" deflection because they didn't want to throw another religion under the bus to make things easier on themselves.

Danielle Brooks is so great.  I didn't realize she's in The Color Purple.  I had a huge grin when she talked about how seeing the original production as a teenager helped inspire her to go into acting.  Aw...

I really liked the story on ex-felons and voting.  The show covered lots of different angles, all of them well IMO:  the urge to continue punishing people who've already served their punishment, the unnecessary politicizing of the issue, and, of course, the blatant racism.  That chart showing the sharp increase in laws stripping suffrage from ex-felons immediately following abolition was stark enough on its own, but then throw in the judge talking about "sneaky" Black crimes and "robust" white murders, and just... yechhh.  Key and Peele's ex-cons were super fun.

The most baffling thing for me in the whole "playing the woman card" segment (loved Trevor's prediction that Hilary will repeat her "deal me in" joke for ages, by the way) was Trump saying something like, "Now I know some people will say, 'You can't say that!  Women don't shout!'"  WTF?  Women don't shout?  And going "eww" about it?  Does his understanding of women come from turn-of-the-century charm school manuals?  So weird.  I liked Trevor pointing out Trump's own affinity for shouting, even in an empty room.

[ganesh]

I get that they don't want to be mean to others, but I don't think that, "I'm not muslim, actually, I'm sikh. We're not well known. This is what we believe," isn't necessarily throwing someone under the bus. 

[needschocolate]

15 minutes ago, ganesh said:

I get that they don't want to be mean to others, but I don't think that, "I'm not muslim, actually, I'm sikh. We're not well known. This is what we believe," isn't necessarily throwing someone under the bus. 

I agree.  Depending on the comment they are responding to, I believe it is possible to educate someone on your religion without making it sound that those belonging to another religion deserve to be feared/scorned/hated.  

[ganesh]

Unless it's a tenant of their religion. In which case, they should have explained that to Hasan and us.

[attica]

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 tenant of their religion.

Religions make such lousy landlords....

[GHScorpiosRule]

Frankly, I was stunned at the cluelessness of the people who don't know who Sikhs are. 

Edited April 29, 2016 by GHScorpiosRule

[ganesh]

I had it as tenent. 

[Delwyn]

100 eps tomorrow and I didn't think I would find myself more committed at this point than I was with Colbert's Late Show. But I am. All my love for Stephen, but as a white Canadian, I feel I have learned so much more about things outside my social sphere, no matter how diverse my friends are and how open my mind. 

[zxy556575]

Emmys all around for whoever did the research/wrote the lyrics for the Trump rap! Roy did a great job lip-rapping it, too.

I get that Trevor and other comics like Ricky Gervais may have a kind of shorthand way of speaking to each other, but it shouldn't be so opaque that it shuts out the audience. That was an interview about nothing.

[ganesh]

Ricky seems like one of those guys who is just going to go off on the rails. 

That video was sensational, and the MOZ with Trump talking about how hard it is to rant and rave and entertain anyone capped it off perfectly. 

[dusang]

I love that Roy greets Trevor as "African" when he starts his segments.  It's so perfectly inappropriate.

[The Luvly Junkie]

Damn, I've been away from the forum for a while, and after watching the Black Trump MV, I had to return and rekindle with my P.tv commentors. This MV deserves all the love, and even though there were many objectified women in the video, I ought to believe Klepper is Black Trump's closest bodyguard/tricked-up "bitch". :P

[Victor the Crab]

Best from the show this week:

Key & Peele participating in that piece about ex-felons in Virginia being allowed to vote. Even though their final show was in November, I miss those two already.

Roy using Drumph's actual words for a narcissistic, self indulgent rap song. Sheer brilliance!

Edited April 29, 2016 by Victor the Crab

[peeayebee]

Yes, LOVED the rap. So many of those quotes were just perfect.

I also loved the trailer for Lucifer in the Flesh.

[Queena]

I don't watch the show much, it was a slow start for me. However, that rap was made of magic. I will watch more often. I've been a fan of Roy's since his prank calls.... Barbara and her check....

[annabel]

The Trump rap was great, as was the Lucifer in the flesh trailer. And a few nights ago Trevor commented how Cruz's face could look so much like a mask and also be melting, which was so apt that it's all I can see now.

I don't care much for Ricky Gervais anymore.

Edited April 30, 2016 by annabel

[Arcadiasw]

Roy Wood Jr is quickly rising to be my favorite correspondent. That rap video with Jordan was perfection.

[ganesh]

*everyone* is playing that Fiorina song on all the shows. It's creeping me out.

[Temperance]

I loved Roy's line and bit during the rap segment  after Trevor read Trump's comments "That's cause you were reading it in your Australian accent."

[Victor the Crab]

I know a lot of people here hate soccer, but I'm hoping Trevor brings up Leicester City clinching the Premiership League title tonight. It's one of the most amazing sports stories in recent memory.

[brgjoe]

Agreed, VtC.  Although Trevor did send a tweet about Leicester City winning earlier in the day.  I saw where the odds were something like 5000-1 of them winning the EPL title at the start of the season.  Wish I lived over there and could have put a dollar, er, pound or two down on that one.

Normally I hate seeing YET ANOTHER piece on Donald Trump.  But hearing about some of those people who The Donald has working in his campaign are downright scary.  Almost as scary as the the candidate himself.  Yikes! 

Once again THIS is something the mainstream media should be digging into and asking questions to Mr. Trump about this.  Instead of giving their usual softball interviews with him.

[angora]

ITA, brgjoe - who hears the words "torturers' lobby" and thinks, "That's the guy for me?" (shudder) Trump really is making it easy for Trevor to keep giving us African dictator jokes.  It was the usual Trump-story mix of humor and dread (plus revulsion, with that old clip of Trump giving his BS "evidence" to say that girl wasn't raped.)  I liked Nikolaj Coster-Waldau's bit with Trump as the Mad King.

[needschocolate]

I just started watching this show a month or two ago.  I realize that it is a comedy, and assume the people the interview know it is a comedy.  However, I wonder if the interview segments (not the ones with Trevor) really happen as they are shown.  Are the questions they show really the questions that were asked?  They rarely show the interviewer's and interviewee's faces at the same time, which makes it very possible that the question might have been "So, if no one wins a majority of the delegates, the nominee could be picked by a small group of people, without regard to the number of votes received?" but then they dub/splice in the question "So the nominee could be picked by a roomful of monkeys with voting machines?" (not a real example from the show).  

If the interviews are exactly as we are shown, then I am very impressed with the interviewees' abilities to keep a straight face.   

[ganesh]

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Once again THIS is something the mainstream media should be digging into and asking questions to Mr. Trump about this.  Instead of giving their usual softball interviews with him.

Or, giving him literally free advertising time by letting him call in whenever he wants. The media has largely been atrocious overall.

Ronny's last few pieces have been good. It would be cool if they could get someone from 1976 because that was the last time there was a contested convention, and I'd really like to know how crazy it actually was.

I'm continually amazed at Trump supporters: he cares about the common man?

Edited May 3, 2016 by ganesh

[KerleyQ]

3 hours ago, ganesh said:

Or, giving him literally free advertising time by letting him call in whenever he wants. The media has largely been atrocious overall.

I hold the media responsible for how far he's progressed.  Everyone was so busy wanting to be in on the joke that they forgot to treat this like a serious campaign.  They just like the ratings and the page clicks they get for featuring whatever ridiculous thing he's said.  So few in the media are actually calling him out and pressing him for real answers on the real issues.  And they're letting him get away with steering the conversation when he's interviewed, likely because they're afraid they'll get the Megyn Kelly treatment if they don't fall in line.  So when they pose a question he doesn't want to answer and he says "you know this is a great looking group of people we have her, why doesn't everyone go around and introduce themselves" to avoid answering, they're actually going right ahead and introducing themselves and not pushing for an answer to the question he so clearly doesn't want to answer.  Sure, his absurdity can be an amusing distraction (at times) when he's one of a dozen or so, and you feel like he'll be dropping out before long, but when it's looking more and more like he's actually going to be the GOP candidate, and they're all still too busy playing along with the joke instead of actually doing their job and talking about how dangerous his rhetoric is, then they're complicit in whatever happens.  

Weirdly, the people who are doing the best job at being journalists with regard to Trump are comedians.  

[angora]

I laughed at Starbucks giving Trevor a new name.

This whole thing about the draft is so crazy - I loved Trevor's crack about representatives promising to go to Congress to put forward sarcastic legislation, as well as the bit about Lincoln suggesting emancipation as a joke.  It's hard to believe this is how actual governance happens.

[ganesh]

I didn't find it surprising at all. The arguments against it were predictably ridiculous. Men will be so inflamed with passion that they won't be able to fight. Ok sure. Because dudes weren't messing around with other dudes since literally the first war ever. 

How awesome would an all female strike force be? They'd clean IS's clock in about a week. 

[nodorothyparker]

I may have seen the Trump rap video a half dozen or more times by now between various friends reposting it and deliberately seeking it out.  It's just made of so much win.  Between that and everything they've done with the Cruz/Fiorina sinking ship, the show has really been hitting all its marks lately in what's otherwise a pretty depressing election reality.

[peeayebee]

As much as I dislike Cruz, it was hard watching him endure the sarcasm and abuse right in his face from voters. "You look like a fish monster, and you're a terrible person." Wow. I laugh when Trevor compares Cruz to a blob fish, but it's different than doing that right to his blobby face.

Love Trevor doing his Trump impression regarding Fiorino's fall -- "Even I would have helped her! And she's a 4 at best!"

[Victor the Crab]

1 hour ago, peeayebee said:

As much as I dislike Cruz, it was hard watching him endure the sarcasm and abuse right in his face from voters. "You look like a fish monster, and you're a terrible person." Wow. I laugh when Trevor compares Cruz to a blob fish, but it's different than doing that right to his blobby face.

Couldn't happen to a more deserving blob than Ted Cruz. This is a guy who proudly tells millions that he spanks his two little girls. Is it no surprise that neither of them have been seen in public with smiles on their faces?

[ganesh]

Not hard for me either. 

[peeayebee]

Man, I LOVE Billie Jean King. Best part of this ep.

[zxy556575]

I was a little surprised Trevor went there again with the women's soccer inequities, but I love Hasan and Billie Jean is fabulous, so it was a good reprise of the problems. What a chump that male "expert" was.

[angora]

I liked it too.  Even though it  covered pretty much the same information as the original story, it was nice to hear it directly from the players with their "no, we are NOT kidding you with this shit" attitudes, and the BS arguments against paying them a fair wage were even more idiotic when made by that douchenozzle.

While watching all the "he's not going to be the nominee" assertions in the Trump story, it struck me that, although the show has done some of that "yeah, right, Trump?  Can you imagine?" stuff, it's also been contemplating the possibility of an actual Trump nomination/presidency for quite a while.  Even though they found Trump ridiculous then crazy then scary, they still recognized that it wasn't as impossible as so many of the pundits have been insisting.  Like KerleyQ was saying upthread, The Daily Show has been going, "No, but really, people, think about this," while a lot of news outlets still think it's just a joke. 

[attica]

Billie Jean King has been my hero since the 70s. I feel like she's never done anything to squander my goodwill (despite some of the publicity regarding her first marriage), and she just keeps on with the awesome. She's the single famous person that if I ever met in real life would cause me to burst into tears of fangurl and gratitude. Because it wasn't just because she was good at her sport and fun in public. She quite literally changed the world, and I directly benefited from what she wrought.

So, yeah, nice to see her on TDS rocking those rad blue specs.

[ganesh]

The only argument against total equal pay for the women's team is that the international field isn't really as competitive as the men. That's it. There's no excuse for not getting paid even if they lose. That's ridiculous. As someone who has played on both grass and turf, it's just wrong that they can't play on grass. There's long term injuries associated with turf.

On the other side of the argument, there is Billie Jean King. So she basically shuts it all down.

That bearded guy was joking around, right? Anyone who follows soccer knows the women brought in record ratings this WC. It was marketed great, as "revenge" against losing to Japan last time. How can you not name three guys if you are going to be talking about the subject: Howard, Dempsey, Bradley. 

For the interview, I agree that Minaj should do whatever she wants, but it seemed like they could have come up with a better example. 

[sacrebleu]

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She's the single famous person that if I ever met in real life would cause me to burst into tears of fangurl and gratitude.

Hey attica, no shame in that. I was lucky enough to have met her a few years ago at the US Open, she autographed my friend's hat (I was too gobsmacked to even ask for an autograph) and it was before I had a smart phone so I didn't even get a picture. But she was totally cool.

[Victor the Crab]

I can name three members of the men's U.S. team that the bearded douche could not. There's Michael Bradley and Jozy Altidore, who both play for my team Toronto FC of Major League Soccer who make their season home opener this Saturday which I plan on attending. There's also Seattle Sounders' striker Clint Dempsey-is-a-douchebag whom none of us like. Your move, asshole.

 

And while we're on soccer, kudos to Nikolaj Coster-Waldau for bringing up Leicester City's unbelievable clinching of the English Premier League championship, like I was hoping would happen on Monday.

[nodorothyparker]

I loved the piece on trying to talk specifics on Bernie Sanders, although I'm wondering how they convinced Susan Sarandon to participate in it given some of her own recent Bernie or bust remarks.  It was pretty on the nose of what it can be like to attempt conversation on nuance or details with some of his supporters with distract, distract, change the subject, look away, something something Hillary, oh look a Gandalf meme, and I say that as someone who was going to be voting blue regardless and counts a lot of Bernie fans as friends. Loved that they completely shut the whole thing down when comparison inched uncomfortably toward supporters of a certain orange dumpster fire.

That's the pointed political commentary I'm tuning in for. 

[angora]

Agreed.  It was a great way to comment on that issue.  I especially loved Desi likening pissing off Sanders supporters to poking a hornets' nest with a lot of student loan debt and Ronny entreating them to send their threatening tweets to Trevor, not him.

I can't believe how easily I can believe that Trump's method of "endearing" himself to Latin@ voters is to tweet a picture of a taco bowl and the words "I love Hispanics!"  So ridiculous, so crass, so Trump.  Yechh.

I thought Ronny's piece on selfies was pretty good, and Ronny's coming into his own as a correspondent for me.  I've enjoyed his last few pieces quite a bit, and I feel like his humor is gelling more (dropping the dad jokes really helps.)  Does Snapchat expect me to believe that it never occurred to them why a feature that clocks your speed might cause problems?

[ganesh]

Sarandon can go away for a while please. 

Ronny's piece was the funniest of the show. I cannot *believe* that woman took a pic strapped to the gurney. Wow. 

Did anyone else like The Heavy? I've caught a few songs over the years (he's been around since iirc), and I always like his style. I never know any of the musical guests on the show, so I was psyched this time. He's been using that mic *forever*.

[Victor the Crab]

I wonder if they told Susan Sarandon what their actual plan on covering Bernie Sanders was. She seems to get all butthurt defensive whenever someone says anything critical of him. As far as Sanders is concerned, he's going to badly ruin his reputation among the people he's so desperately trying to reach out to if he continues this crusade of his all the way to the convention.

Selfies. Geezus! Self absorption at its worst.

[MrWhyt]

3 hours ago, ganesh said:

Did anyone else like The Heavy? I've caught a few songs over the years (he's been around since iirc), and I always like his style. I never know any of the musical guests on the show, so I was psyched this time. He's been using that mic *forever*.

Love The Heavy. Their first appearance on Letterman they blew the roof off the dump and Dave asked them for an encore, something you had never seen on late night TV.

[topanga]

I'm sorry I didn't listen to them. But I just can't do musical guests on TDS. I tune into the show to hear a funny perspective on the news. I don't mind the occasional celebrity interview, but I don't want to hear a band. I don't. Even if it's a band I like. 

[Gulftastic]

I was about to FF through the musical guest. I'd never heard of them, but for some reason I wasn't quick enough on the remote and once they got going I listened to their whole sing. They were very good.

[shok]

A mutant from a carrot juicing accident.

Best description yet!!!

[angora]

Sherman Alexie!  Love him.

So, at least Muslims aren't the only people who can be accused of terrorism for stupid reasons on a plane, I guess?  I laughed at Trevor's "we fear what we don't understand" jokes, and I loved the "C4=kaboom" thing.

I think the "Cancer/Perry 2016" campaign poster was my favorite part of the Trump story, along with Trump making Jeb Bush jokes on his deathbed.

I liked Desi's story a lot; the dragon took it to a really fun, absurd place, and the show made some good points on the issue.  The comment about "reading all your tweets about how I'm holding my baby wrong" was a great cap to the segment.

[ganesh]

I had no idea "mom shaming" was a thing.