It seems to really bother Julia Reinstein of New York magazine's The Cut section that there could be even the slightest hint of thought diversity among the late night talk show hosts on television. Her ire on this matter was directed towards Jimmy Fallon, not so much because he demonstrated any sympathy for the Trump administration but because he seemed to exhibit insufficient hostility towards the President.
You can see Reinstein's irked attitude over Fallon's lack of perceived antipathy towards Trump right in the first paragraph of her story on Monday, "Jimmy Fallon Doesn’t Want to Be ‘That Political’."
Earlier this month, in one of the more alarming developments in our slow creep toward authoritarianism, Jimmy Kimmel was briefly suspended by ABC after making a mild joke about Charlie Kirk’s killer and Trump’s reaction to his death. In the wake of all that, Jimmy Fallon wants everyone to know that, actually, he feels his own late-night show has “never really been that political.” Okay, then!
As Alex Christy pointed out, Fallon's jokes still have a dramatically liberal tilt, with a little less animus. Reinstein then proceeds to list more of Fallon's Thought Crimes:
In an interview with CNBC on Tuesday, Fallon was asked what it’s like navigating his show in this fraught political moment. “Our show’s never really been that political,” Fallon responded, before suggesting that he doesn’t plan on changing up that vibe anytime soon. “We hit both sides equally, and we try to make everybody laugh, and that’s really the way our show really works,” he said.
Fallon went on to claim that his monologues on the show “are kind of the same” as they were when Johnny Carson hosted The Tonight Show between 1962 and 1992. “Really, I just keep my head down and make sure the jokes are funny,” he added, noting that he and his staff are “just trying to make the best show we possibly can and entertain everybody.”
Reinstein then went full snark on the accused Thought Criminal:
So brave. For what it’s worth, Fallon had a similarly tepid tone during Kimmel’s brief suspension, during which he called Kimmel “a decent, funny, and loving guy” but bewilderingly claimed he didn’t “know what’s going on, and no one does.” It doesn’t seem like he’s figured it out since then, which is probably not working in his favor — while cheering on Kimmel’s suspension, Trump said he hoped Fallon and Seth Meyers, “two total losers, on Fake News NBC,” would be next.
Finally Reinstein lashed out at Fallon for daring to not sit Shiva with the think-alike late night hosts mourning Jimmy Kimmel's incredibly brief suspension:
Meanwhile, Kimmel’s other late-night hosts — including Meyers, Stephen Colbert, and Jon Stewart — have been particularly vocal in their support for Kimmel, explicitly warning audiences about the rise of censorship and tyranny. Colbert called Trump an “autocrat” and slammed ABC’s decision as “blatant censorship,” while Meyers urged that it was a “big moment in our democracy” while the country is “rapidly devolving into repressive autocracy.” That might explain why Colbert and Meyers were hanging out with Kimmel onstage at BAM (where he’s hosting his show this week) sans Fallon. They not-so-subtly captioned their post, “Hi Donald!” Maybe Fallon’s invite got lost in the mail?
So it appears that being insufficiently TDS is not to be tolerated in the entertainment world.
