Tanner Jones
The standing that comedians and Late-Night Show hosts are taking on the wildfire crisis in the Western United States? is that of a jokiness with a serious undertone, although the seriousness varies depending on who you watch. Although they are paid to expose the truth while making light of everything, they are very aware of how serious the situation is.
In one segment airing on January 11, 2020, Late-Night host Stephen Colbert of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert chose to discuss how people are trying to help with the Australian fires. He made jokes about people knitting homes for the animals that have lost their habitats, and models selling their nudes to help raise money for the country and those impacted. Colbert also discussed the reunion of the original cast from the children’s show The Wiggles and makes several jokes before moving on. In a different installment of the show, airing on November 12, 2018, Colbert discussed how President Trump somehow made the wildfires political. He refers to several tweets by the President, as well as tweets from people who responded to these tweets. [LW2] Of course, Colbert gets a few good jokes about Trump, referring to how flammable the president is. He also makes jokes about one of the people who responded to the President, and then responds to the budget cuts that affected the Forest Services and wildfire fighting initiatives by $350 million combined. While keeping it light-hearted and funny, Colbert does a good job of keeping his viewers informed of the social and political impacts that the recent wildfires have caused.
Another host, Trevor Noah of The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, talks about the 2019 fires in California on a much more serious note in his installment on October 29, 2019. Though he makes jokes as well, he has a much more serious tone when informing people of the urgency of the evacuations . Although he makes jokes, he uses actual news clips. After every joke, Noah is sure to restate how important evacuations are throughout the show. He also discusses the strange things that people do when they are faced with disaster. Noah refers to a couple that took their wedding photos with the glow of the fires behind them. Noah praised the firefighters that had to fight these fires, as well as gives a nod to all the firefighters that came in from other states to help. Of course, he makes several more jokes, referring to the fact that the fires took place in October, and there were bound to be many decorations out, as well as the firefighter costume craze that happened last year (Noah, 2019). All in all, Noah does a good job of informing the public while keeping such a serious topic lighthearted, but he does a very good job of letting people know about the severity of the disaster as well.
Though there surely is some out there, it is difficult to find a right-leaning comedian or Late-Night host that has touched on the wildfires that have been running amuck in recent years. This could be for several reasons, but one of the largest that comes to mind is the fact that President Trump, a Republican, has been put through the wringer based on his responses to the fires, and right-leaning comedians do not find as much satire and humor in that. In an article by Massimo Pigliucci of Psychology Today, “Conservatives Lack a Sense of Humor, Study Finds,” published in 2009, Pigliucci talks about the statistics of a study referring to the difference in humor between conservatives and liberals. In the article, he talks about how conservatives statistically believed that a Late-Night host, Stephen Colbert was not genuinely joking and truly meant what he was saying in his show. Conservatives also believed that Colbert — on his show The Colbert Report — disliked liberalism altogether. The liberal audience however believed that Colbert was using satire and saw the comedy in the show. Whereas the conservatives didn’t think that Colbert was throwing jabs at them but laughing with them.