When Jon Stewart leaves The Daily Show, he will be replaced by contributor and South African comedian Trevor Noah. When the announcement of Stewart’s replacement hit the news, it had a lot of people scratching their heads ,asking themselves “Trevor who?”
GQ magazine is here to prepare the public for acceptance. But first, writer Zach Baron must admire the glorified liberal castle that’s now preparing for a new king.
The Daily Show! Probably the most beloved modern comedy institution this side of Saturday Night Live. And Comedy Central is turning it over to a 31-year-old kid who most Americans haven't even heard of. Ask Comedy Central president Michele Ganeless how she feels about this turn of events and she will not bother to spin you: "I will not lie. Yes: I have moments of great anxiety."
Not only is that a problem for Trevor, but the fact that he’s going to be blamed for a poor understanding of American culture – particularly black American culture – is going to be a big hill for him to climb.
Baron found an old Leno routine with Noah made him cringe: “Maybe you would've needed to grow up here to understand how certain jokes about American black culture—about the names people choose, about the way people speak—have long served as a comic veil for unvarnished white racism.”
Noah made fun of black names like “Tanequa” as coming out of a Scrabble game and mocked how blacks speak with “no regard to punctuation whatsoever! Just cruise through sentences like poetry. I don't even understand half of it, but it sounds great.” The writer noted “you can see Leno and that evening's guest, Glenn Close, dying, two older white folks bent over with laughter.”
Noah still defends this bit, but only to a point. "I look back on it and I go, ‘Had I known, I would've done it differently.' Because when you come from a different place, you don't realize the minefield you're walking into," he says. "I do know this: I continued doing the Leno bit after I'd done it on Leno. But the way I did it slash would do it today is completely different. I've now learned how to be emotionally aware of how people may use your joke in a negative way. And that's something that you're always trying to navigate in comedy. You know, Dave Chappelle talked about it as well—if you're not careful, someone can use your words to hurt somebody else."
He says he particularly regrets one joke in that routine that was addressed specifically to African-Americans. "I said: ‘You're not African, but we play along.' " The problem was, "I had given some people ammunition to oppress those who had already been oppressed." Now he feels that he'd taken the wrong side. "I hadn't fully understood the African-American experience. I hadn't read the books; I hadn't met the people; I hadn't traveled the country."
Now, he told GQ "I may not be American, but I am black," Noah says simply. "It's not like I had to learn how to be black."
It’s like Baron is treating Noah as the comedic Obama, the bi-racial outsider who needs to learn to fit in with African-Americans. But Baron casually glosses over how Noah’s “comedy” tweets” mocked Jewish people, white women, fat women, and the LGBT community. He’s an equal opportunity offender:
On Jewish people:
Almost bumped a Jewish kid crossing the road. He didn’t look b4 crossing but I still would hav felt so bad in my german car!
Messi gets the ball and the real players try fould him, but Messi doesn’t go down easy, just like jewish chicks. #ElClasico
Behind every successful Rap Billionaire is a double rich Jewish man. #BeatsByDreidel
On women:
I like women that don’t wear make up. For me they’re like pizza-still great the next morning!
Oh yeah the weekend. People are gonna get drunk & think that I’m sexy!” – fat chicks everywhere.
A hot white woman with ass is like a unicorn. Even if you do see one, you’ll probably never get to ride it.
On the LGBT community:
Looking at how successful all the Kardashian women are, I don’t blame Bruce Jenner at all.
I’m watching Olympic women’s hockey. It’s like lesbian porn. Without the porn. #InLove
Trevor tries to “make good” on his controversial jokes, blaming it on a “young version” of himself – even though these jokes were make two-three years ago:
“You show me half my jokes from even two years ago, three years ago—I hate them. Because you see, like, a young version of yourself. You’re like, ‘Why would you say that? You idiot! That makes no sense.’ Or, ‘That’s just stupid.’ Or, ‘Ahh, I can’t believe I said that about a woman.’ You should not like what you did back then, because that shows that you’ve grown. If you’re still doing it, that’s a scarier place to be,” Noah says.
Trevor hasn’t grown. He’s utilizing the art of backpedaling and butt kissing in hopes of gaining a fraction of the glory poured out on Jon Stewart for the past 16 years as host of The Daily Show. They’re right to be nervous.
