The raise of woke culture should present the late night comedians a golden mine of joke material given the absurdities it presents, but instead they chose to focus on the reaction. ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel did just that on his Thursday show as he told Fox News, “you're embarrassing yourselves” by reporting on the latest progressive cause.
Teeing up a montage of Fox News and Fox Business personalities, Kimmel had a suggestion, “Instead of constantly bitching about these products, make your own things. Nobody's stopping you. Make your own homophobic potato dudes or your angry white guy breakfast cereals, or your little plastic bricks to build a wall around a sombrero, do whatever you want because I have some Fox News for you, you're embarrassing yourselves.”
Kimmel then played 32 clips to try to argue that Fox is obsessive over a topic that does not matter, but the rapid fire nature of the montage meant that viewers didn’t get a chance to see what is really going on.
For example, Jake Deangelis lamenting that “Microsoft Word is the next one to go woke” sounds silly in isolation, but it is missing the context that Word was rolling out a new future that deems words like “mankind” to be problematic.
Similarly, Ashley Strohimer is shown at one point declaring that “Wordle is going woke” because the game banned words like “slave” and “whore.”
Other examples include Harris Faulkner on the Cambridge Dictionary rewriting the definition of a “man” and “woman” and Tucker Carlson lamenting the National Hockey League doing the same.
Not only does Kimmel joke about the reaction to absurdity rather than the absurdity itself, he also ignores these are ideas with real society consequences.
After a final clip of Ainsley Earhardt decrying cross-dressing Muppets, Kimmel wrapped up the Fox bashing portion of his monologue, “Oh, not Kermit too. That's a -- they're right, things are a mess.”
They are a mess, just not in the way Kimmel thinks.
This segment was sponsored by Mercedes-Benz.
Here is a transcript for the February 23 show:
ABC Jimmy Kimmel Live!
2/23/2022
11:45 PM ET
JIMMY KIMMEL: But that's how it goes. And guys, here's an idea. Instead of constantly bitching about these products, make your own things. Nobody's stopping you. Make your own homophobic potato dudes or your angry white guy breakfast cereals, or your little plastic bricks to build a wall around a sombrero, do whatever you want because I have some Fox News for you, you're embarrassing yourselves.
GERRY BAKER: These corporations have gone woke.
STUART VARNEY: Disney is going woke.
AINSLEY EARHARDT: Our healthcare system is going woke.
EDWARD LAWRENCE: Investments going woke.
BILL HEMMER: The famed French cathedral going woke.
JACKIE DEANGELIS: Microsoft Word is the next one to go woke.
CARLEY SHIMKUS: One of America's favorite candies is going woke.
VARNEY: Victoria's Secret is going full woke.
HEMMER: U.S. Census Bureau, apparently, it's going woke too.
WILL CAIN: Pizza Hut has gone woke.
VARNEY: Walmart is going woke.
STEVE DOOCY: The NFL is going woke.
TOMI LAHREN: Baseball is going woke.
TUCKER CARLSON: The National Hockey League has apparently gone woke.
HARRIS FAULKNER: Cambridge Dictionary, they're going woke.
TODD PIRO: Google going woke.
SHANNON BREAM: A.I. programs have gone woke.
LAURA INGRAHAM: The Army is going woke.
CAIN: My Little Pony is going woke.
BENJAMIN HALL: Captain America going woke.
CHERYL CASONE: Minnie Mouse is going woke.
ASHLEY STROHMIER: Wordle is going woke.
SANDRA SMITH: Video games going woke.
INGRAHAM: Woke media.
JOHN KENNEDY: Woke agenda.
JOHN CRIBB: Woke algorithms.
RACHEL CAMPOS-DUFFY: Woke universities.
TODD SPITZER: Woke prosecutors.
JESSE WATERS: Woke Pentagon.
VIVEK RAMASWAMY: Woke religion.
JEANINE PIRRO: Woke apocalypse.
EARHARDT: Guess who's going woke? The Muppets.
KIMMEL: Oh, not Kermit too. That's a -- they're right, things are a mess.
