Seth Meyers did a big round of promotional interviews about his gig hosting the Golden Globes awards on Sunday nights and how he’ll address “the elephant in the room” of sexual harassment in the entertainment industry. One easy sign of how soft every single interviewer is: No one asked Meyers about NBC’s Matt Lauer. Obviously, not on NBC's Today on Friday, and not on the Ellen DeGeneres show, and not from AP, People, Us, The Hollywood Reporter, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and Vanity Fair.
Everywhere he went, Meyers claimed he would strike a balance of sympathy for the victims and mockery of the perpetrators. But Meyers pal Amy Poehler told Dave Itzkoff at The New York Times that Meyers is a sensitive male who knows “what his privilege permits him and what it denies him.”
Whether in Late Night monologues that satirize the Trump administration or in bits that yield the stage to his writers, Ms. Poehler said Mr. Meyers is always thinking about what his privilege permits him and what it denies him.
“He is unraveling that in real time, in front of his audience,” she said. “The sensitivity is a current that runs through his stuff.”
She added: “You can just sense it with Seth. He has strong relationships with women and a very clear sense of himself. You don’t just get to decide you have that before the Globes. He’s been depositing that in the bank for a long time, and there’s a security in that for him.”
Sensitivity is NOT what Hollywood wants when it comes to Donald Trump. But get this -- he claims maybe he can find a "middle ground" with Trump voters:
As of a few weeks ago, Mr. Meyers was hoping his portions of the Golden Globes could be free of the pointed political humor — generally at the expense of Mr. Trump and his administration — that has become a trademark of his Late Night show.
More recently, Mr. Meyers came to realize that may not be possible. “We were optimistic, as with most of the country, that we would roll quietly into the new year,” he said. “That has not been the case so far.”
“Last year I thought it was totally fair for there to be a focus out,” Mr. Meyers said of the Golden Globes, “where this year it seems more fair to focus in. Especially because the industry that is celebrating itself has a lot to answer for.”
In that respect, he said, “I hope this is a night that Trump supporters and I can find middle ground.”
Now deposit that comment in the "bank," and bet Meyers won't be able to avoid kicking Trump, hard.
Meyers insisted to People that Trump could behave differently, as if behaving more like a Bush would mean the comedians would stop making jokes? “He holds the keys to us not talking about him, which would to be to just behave differently,” Meyers says of Trump. “But while he continues on this path, we’ll continue on ours.”
The Los Angeles Times applauded Meyers for pledging to avoid getting drunk during the Globes (what a high bar):
That kind of dogged commitment to detail has elevated Meyers to a position of prominence and trust — certainly, for left-leaning viewers — far removed from the inauspicious beginnings of his late-night show in February 2014. Meticulously reported segments like the show’s signature “A Closer Look” and the recurring “Jokes Seth Can’t Tell,” created by writers Amber Ruffin and Jenny Hagel as a means to mock a wider array of subjects, have made “Late Night with Seth Meyers” essential viewing for anyone left bothered and bewildered by Donald Trump’s presidency.
“He’s coming at the news from a place of outrage, and yet he presents it in an unflappable manner,” says Sal Gentile, the supervising writer on the “Closer Look” segments. “Hearing these things from someone else might be off-putting. Hearing it from Seth, it’s like you’re just talking about the news with a friend.”
Several colleagues pointed out this interview:
USA TODAY: Has Trump fatigue set in on Late Night?
MEYERS: If our goal every day was, ‘Here’s what we don’t like about Trump,’ fatigue would have set in. Our approach is, ‘Here’s what Trump did today. Here are the consequences.' We try very hard to move on with him. But I think it’s as fatiguing for us as it is for him. We just golf less to get through it.
Last week, NPR Fresh Air host Terry Gross replayed an interview with Seth Meyers in June before an audience to celebrate her 30th anniversary as a national public-radio show. Everyone laughed about the idea that Meyers mocking Trump at the 2011 White House Correspondents Dinner may have motivated Trump to run for president. Among his jokes (which NPR replayed) were "Donald Trump has been saying that he will run for president as a Republican, which is surprising since I just assumed he was running as a joke." And: "Donald Trump often appears on Fox, which is ironic because a fox often appears on Donald Trump's head."
GROSS: Some people say that the reason why he decided to make a serious run for president was 'cause he was so offended by the jokes that you and President Obama told that night. Do you think there's any truth to that?
MEYERS: Well, it was funny. In the lead-up to the election, there were some pieces that were written that said as much. And many of those pieces left me out of it and just talked about President Obama's jokes. And I was very confident at the time that Donald Trump was going to lose. And it hurt my feelings that I was left out of being one of the people that tricked this man into running for president. And then as soon as he won, I realized it was Obama's fault. (LAUGHTER)
But I don't know. I really don't know. It's very hard to get inside Donald Trump's brain, and I don't want to try. So I don't know the answer to that. But I will say I don't have any regrets about it or anything I did in the lead-up to the election. I think the regrets I would have would be if I had done less, if I had pointed out less. And it was a really fun night.
Typically, Gross gushed all over the latest in her litany of liberal comedian-saints: "I think you are so great. And I really enjoy your show." Which reminds me....Al Franken is one of Terry's favorite people. Will Meyers do any Franken mockery?
PS: To imagine what won't come up on Sunday night, Christian Toto at The Washington Times looked ahead to the leftist tilt of the Globes:
Screenwriter and novelist Andrew Klavan fears another evening filled with stars pounding their progressive messages for all to hear.
“There’s something so offensive about the most privileged community in America pausing in the midst of giving themselves awards to lecture the rest of us on what’s right and true in politics,” Mr. Klavan said. “Did the light of wisdom dawn on them during their third divorce, or while they were in rehab, or what?”
Mr. Klavan zeroed in on Meryl Streep, who used her Cecil B. DeMille acceptance speech last year to excoriate Mr. Trump.
“Ten minutes of honest self-reflection would tell Meryl Streep that maybe it’s not her place to explain to an out-of-work factory hand in Michigan how he can most wisely use his vote,” he said.
Like many other industry observers, Mr. [Roger] Simon expects the Golden Globes ceremony to be political. He wonders if one news story will get the recognition it deserves, particularly at a time of female empowerment.
“Are they going to mention the women of Iran who are getting outrageously courageous” against the regime’s dictatorial ways? he asked.
