Rolling Stone published a long, political interview with Stephen Colbert on Wednesday that will likely be reduced to his comments about President Trump in subsequent coverage. Indeed, the conversation dwells on Trump at length, and Colbert was characteristically eager to share his thoughts. But the comedian made an interesting observation about his own industry over the course of the interview as well.
Reflecting on the 2014 social media campaign to cancel his Comedy Central show, Colbert remembered thinking almost immediately that his career had ended. In response to Dan Snyder creating the Washington Redskins Original Americans Foundation, Colbert joked, “I am willing to show the Asian community I care by introducing the Ching-Chong Ding-Dong Foundation for Sensitivity to Orientals or Whatever.” After the network tweeted that line out, #cancelcolbert started to spread on social media.
“I was getting in a car to go home, and I saw that it exploded. And I went, ‘Uh-oh.’ What happened was, just that one line, absent any context, was tweeted out by someone who the week before had been an intern. There was nothing I could do; I wasn’t on the air for three days,” Colbert told Rolling Stone. “And I went, ‘I’ve lost complete control of the context of my joke, and maybe I’ve lost a 25-year career with a single line.'”
No comedian with an established record like Colbert’s should be that afraid of losing everything over one entirely reasonable joke pillorying someone else’s insensitivity, which was cleverly highlighting what his ideological peers perceive as racism. But given the Left’s heightened sensitivity to humor, it’s hard to blame him for having reacted that way, and it’s a statement on the power of contemporary political correctness that he did.
Interestingly enough, though Colbert seems to agree his detractors were wrong, he was also quite reluctant to really push back. Twice in the Rolling Stone interview, he chickened out and legitimized the complaints of his critics, even though he doesn’t seem to think their complaints are all that legitimate.
Regarding the founder of the #cancelcolbert hashtag, the late-night host said, “that young woman’s feelings about that joke, in context or out of context, are perfectly valid, even if I don’t agree. I didn’t apologize for what I said about the president and Mr. Putin. It doesn’t mean that people’s feelings about it are not valid. All you can do is control your intention, not people’s interpretations. Everyone’s feelings are valid, especially from any community that has been marginalized and has been told habitually their concerns are not valid. So I hold nothing against anybody who is offended by what I say.”
The Trump-Putin joke Colbert mentioned was a 2017 quip in his monologue that referred to Trump’s mouth as Putin’s “cock holder.”
“The thing I said about Trump and Putin, the thing that caused so much hurt when it was perceived as being homophobic? That’s an example of moving so fast that I hurt the intention of the work with the execution. In ways that are undeniable. If someone thought that was homophobic, who am I to say that it wasn’t?” Colbert asked Rolling Stone. “Especially to any community whose concerns have been brushed aside as being, ‘Oh, you’re just sensitive.'”
To answer his question, you’re the person whose expression is being misinterpreted. Being sensitive to groups that face discrimination is perfectly laudable, and so is Colbert’s openness to the possibility that he doesn’t fully understand their perspectives. But if he believes there’s nothing wrong with the joke, he should say that. This talk about everyone’s “feelings” being “valid” — a ridiculous idea, frankly, which puts emotion on the same level as reason — just fuels the same dark forces that made him fear unemployment back in 2014.
And by the way, if conservatives were offended by a joke, would Colbert still sincerely hold that “everyone’s feeling are valid” in interviews with the media?
Colbert, in the interview, was carefully arguing that something can be valid without being right. What does that actually mean? It’s a distinction without a point, designed to mollify rather than clarify. It is meant to signal to his critics that he’s woke and knows he needs to say he’s listening to their silly complaints. If he believes his jokes are harmless, and his critics are overly sensitive, Colbert might spare himself (and everyone else who will fall afoul of the mob) some anxiety for the future by being honest about that and taking a stand against the feigned indignation of his critics. Otherwise, he’s just enabling the backlash that he rightfully fears.
