I have not watched Jimmy Kimmel in his current incarnation as broadcast late night variety show host. But I did watch some episodes of the Man Show so I’m not entirely unfamiliar with the man’s career.
That one unremarkable but sort of likable dude can jump from hosting segments about girls on trampolines to a national broadcast host with political opinions is somewhat impressive and also bleak.
If I had to give mono-causal explainer as why millennial women seem split into two distinct political camps when it comes to modern American politics, absolutely over it or absolutely irate, I think the continued existence of Jimmy Kimmel’s career would be as fine an explanation as any other.
This guy gets promoted over and over for just being the worst and what do we get? We get scolded no matter what we do. Of course some women are screaming banshees and the rest are like mmm shrug. Who has freedom and who has responsibility has always been a polite fiction.
Being subjected to years of increasingly sexualized entertainment featuring bouncing boobies, mentally unstable underage pop stars and the men who were paid to ogle them professionally probably had some downstream influence on our current political climate and the shitty state of entertainment.
The backlash to the backlash to the backlash as it were has happened and we just don’t care anymore. I’ll fight for your right to be perverted but I won’t lie to you and say it hasn’t negatively affected me in anyway.
I’ve always been acutely aware of where popular culture derived a women’s value. Jimmy Kimmel had a career and Britney Spears had a breakdown. And now you want me to fight to keep this twerp on the air because of our proud democracy and its culture of promoting speech and expression? Fuck off.
I genuinely believe girls on trampolines has inherent entertainment and artistic value. Almost everyone has an appreciation for the female form.
I’m unclear if warmed over political takes on broadcast television delivered by a middling broadcaster at midnight is more or less valuable an art form or as political expression. Maybe the FCC needs an overhaul for this new era or maybe we get pirates wires.
I’m neither a satirist nor comedian. I watched the Man Show because I had a boyfriend in a fraternity but I am not watching Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue now and neither are you.
And that’s all that matters to the business of entertainment. Slapping speech and politics on it is a reach that now middle aged millennials can’t manage. Maybe if we spent more time on trampolines.
Elite competition skirmishes over who controls the airwaves of broadcast television are barely interesting except to the absolutely irate. And these days we are all too busy to remain irate unless we’ve got luxury signaling to do. Which I don’t need to do because no one is coming for my blog.
I don’t see how anyone can turn a microwaved soggy ready meal remake of the people versus Larry Flynt out of Jimmy Kimmel.
Who wants to fight for that? Hustler had some inherent entertainment value and Larry Flynt had “readers.” It was speech and it wasn’t on public airwaves with a boss in Washington DC. Maybe you didn’t like what he did but were you prepared to fight for it? Lots of people were. Who wants to fight for Kimmel?
Jimmy Kimmel was never anything more than the guy who read cue cards between the dopamine hits of girls on trampolines. Stuffing your politics into his pie hole doesn’t really change that.
Bob Iger knows it. I know it. The guy had dwindling ratings, an expensive contract and not nearly enough common sense to keep his mouth shut if one of his staffers was out of touch. If I were in charge of Disney that would be my excuse and I’d dump that Jimmy for literally anything else. I bet a swearing parrot would test better. Hell I know it would.
That’s why it’s so damned exhausting to care about the free speech that literally nobody asked to be said. Does anyone who genuinely cares about free speech feel like they can rally the cause to a bobble head spouting opinions that aren’t even his own? Doubtful. I’d sooner fight for Illinois Nazis. Shame about the ACLU innit?
Americans would rally for boobs though. If someone wanted to get the FCC to allow the return of the Man Show and place it on ABC after dark maybe then we’d have a worthy sequel to Larry Flynt.
But nobody is going to bat for Jimmy Kimmel unless it’s backed up with boobies. And there isn’t a perky tit in sight. No one is going to make a political meal out of this. I doubt even the Swanson’s heir could heat this frozen turd.
