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| Jimmy Kimmel |
Produced by ‘Sway’
Jimmy Kimmel has used his late-night slot to call out Donald Trump and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene. But Kimmel says his jokes on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” aren’t about stoking partisanship — they’re about sounding the alarm on politicians who cross the line and amplify misinformation. And while Kimmel may find American politics bewildering right now, he says he still wants to hear from those he disagrees with — even “the media version of the Sackler family,” as Kimmel dubs Tucker Carlson. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to shut people up because I want to know where people are coming from,” he says. “I want to know what they think. I want to know if they have horrible thoughts. I want to hear them. I want to hear their confessions.”
In this conversation, Kara Swisher and Kimmel discuss whether cancel culture has come too far, Kimmel’s own evolution from pranks on “The Man Show” to political commentary on access to health care, and how Trump changed the comedy world. They also discuss his recent kerfuffle with Representative Greene, who says she filed a threat report with the Capitol Police after Kimmel joked about her on his late-night set.
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| Kathy Griffin. She go into trouble for a showing Donald Trump in a prop with his head cut off |
. I have seen worse things from other comedians and from her. One show which constantly;y goes off the line with jokes is NBC's the Saturday Midnight Show, "Saturday Night Live". But I thought maybe she might get a little flack because it was DONALD and even though Donald makes fun of reporters with disabilities, like on stage before giving a speech his people didn't care and who is going to take them on, No one.
Whether it’s Andrew Cuomo or Dave Chappelle, everyone these days, it seems, is blaming “cancel culture” for career problems. But five years ago, Kathy Griffin was a canary in the coal mine, being canceled for reasons she says were overblown. In 2017, a photo in which she posed with a mask styled to look like Donald Trump’s severed head went viral. She says it was clearly a comedy, yet she faced a Secret Service investigation as well as death threats from Trump supporters. She was also virtually blacklisted from her industry.
By 2020, with her career still stalled, Griffin had become increasingly reliant on pills. Eventually, she tells Kara Swisher, “I tried to kill myself.”
[You can listen to this episode of “Sway” on Apple, Spotify, Google or wherever you get your podcasts.]
In this episode, Griffin opens up about the cost of the experience on her career and her mental health. She and Swisher also discuss the way her cancellation has been conflated with the actions of “toxically masculine men.” And they run through a list of people who’ve recently been canceled — or are attempting to claw their way back.
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