Viewpoint by Allison Lau and Lauren Gonitzke *<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This article was produced by <\/em>Local Peace Economy<\/em><\/a>, a project of the Independent Media Institute.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n NEW YORK (IDN) \u2014 In mid-December 2021, South African comedian Trevor Noah used \u201cThe Daily Show\u201d to target China when he aired a segment titled \u201cWhy China Is in Africa\u201d. While this segment was advertised as an informed, nuanced overview of the complex international relationship between China and many African states, it mainly reinforced the debunked myth<\/a> of \u201cdebt-trap diplomacy\u201d to its American audiences, ending with a throwaway line about #StopAsianHate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The myth of \u201cdebt-trap diplomacy\u201d claims that China is using its financial resources to ensnare African countries, coercing them to hand over their natural resources at lower prices. In a recent interview with CODEPINK, Mikaela Nhondo Erskog<\/a>, an educator and researcher, explains why Noah had such a disappointing take: \u201cIt was [former U.S. Secretary of State Mike] Pompeo who coined the term, or popularized it, the Chinese \u2018debt trap,\u2019 and\u2026 it is disappointing that there was no effort to look into the multiple available sources who give extensive detailing of how this is a myth.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n As part of the Comedy Central roster, \u201cThe Daily Show\u201d describes<\/a> itself as \u201can Emmy- and Peabody Award-winning program that looks at the day\u2019s top headlines through a sharp, reality-based lens.\u201d Noah and \u201cThe Daily Show\u201d are part of a larger dynasty of late-night TV and satirical comedy in America. These shows gained traction<\/a> particularly during the Bush and Trump eras<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The COVID-19 pandemic has forced late-night shows to reformat<\/a> from a studio sofa to a living room sofa, and changing political contexts following the election of President Biden have posed challenges to the genre. Like many other liberal media outlets, they are experiencing an audience decline<\/a> following the ousting of Trump (and his easily targeted absurdities) from the presidency. For instance, in August 2021, \u201cGutfeld!\u201d\u2014Fox News\u2019 \u201cresponse to the left-leaning programming [of late-night television] on broadcast networks<\/a>,\u201d hosted by conservative Greg Gutfeld\u2014overtook Stephen Colbert\u2019s \u201cLate Show\u201d in viewers<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s not just the post-Trump era that has led late-night shows to adjust their formats. Young people are increasingly turning to social media for news<\/a>, and the organic growth of niche political spaces on TikTok<\/a> and the proliferation of political memes<\/a> from across the spectrum<\/a> have challenged conventional late-night comedy for entertaining political commentary. In summary: late-night TV no longer offers biting, edgy, or original analysis that draws viewers in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So what now? Is the pivot by \u201cThe Daily Show\u201d to the China issue symptomatic of a larger decline in late-night television, or is it more indicative of the liberal tendency to challenge the status quo only insofar as it helps grow their viewership?<\/p>\n\n\n\n This particular \u201cDaily Show\u201d segment carries water for the U.S. war machine by jumping on the bandwagon to paint China as a villain. It seems the producers and writers believe that mimicking Trump-era State Department talking points will reclaim lost viewers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whatever the intent, the results are abysmal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Noah\u2019s predecessor, Jon Stewart, changed the late-night game when he took over \u201cThe Daily Show\u201d and began to take an \u201covert stand\u201d<\/a> on the events and issues he presented, turning young viewers\u2019 attention away from traditional news and journalistic sources<\/a>. Other hosts such as Stephen Colbert, John Oliver, and Seth Meyers followed suit. The rise in late-night political commentary TV may be attributed to the decline in trust of the mainstream media<\/a> in a post-9\/11 era. They took the absurdities and tragedies of modern politics and made it funny, digestible, and easier to process\u2014an \u2018if I don\u2019t laugh I\u2019ll cry\u2019 moment. These commentaries often relied on satirical caricatures of presidents<\/a>, poking fun at their big personalities or scandals. This was especially the case for an already cartoonish Trump; he was a narcissistic sexual predator<\/a>, riddled by scandal after scandal, and inept<\/a> without a shred of self-awareness<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Underlying this political commentary, which has largely been liberal leaning<\/a>, is a moral posturing absent in the more apolitical late-night of yesteryear<\/a>. Such comedy has been reactive, defining itself against the conservatives such as Trump, George W. Bush and Fox News. During the Trump era, late-night TV could pose as progressive and even radical. Following George Floyd\u2019s murder in 2020, many late-night hosts<\/a>, including less political ones like Jimmy Fallon, paid tribute to Floyd and spent time elevating Black voices<\/a>, addressing white privilege, and challenging police brutality. They were critiquing oppressive systems, establishing themselves on the right<\/em> side of the conversation. Even in doing so, they were late to acknowledge and address this conversation, as the Black Lives Matter movement has been a public conversation for years now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And now that the manic news cycle of Trump has ended, it\u2019s easy to see how Biden seems downright boring by comparison within this late-night market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Biden is exactly like his predecessors before Trump. His promise to a \u201creturn to normalcy\u201d appealed to liberals because they wanted the U.S. to reclaim a veneer of \u201crespectability\u201d on the global stage, more concerned with the aesthetics of the presidency than the actual impact of the office and its policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The truth of the matter is that Biden has continued many Trump-era policies<\/a>, with only a clean-up of their branding. For instance, the conditions at the detention centers<\/a> at the U.S.-Mexico border remain horrific, but upon Biden taking office, the media started calling them \u201cmigrant holding facilities.\u201d Anti-China rhetoric, which escalated massively during the COVID-19 pandemic under Trump, is now being followed with policy under the new administration. The U.S. Innovation and Competition Act (USICA)<\/a> is a Frankenstein\u2019s monster-like combination of several targeted anti-China bills\u2014including the Endless Frontier Act, the Strategic Competition Act of 2021, and the Meeting the China Challenge Act that passed with bipartisan support in the Senate in June 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When the main fodder for your show is taken out of office and banned from Twitter<\/a>, where do you go? How do you maintain an audience\u2019s attention span as a new generation of young people shift from traditional television to social media for entertainment? Perhaps Noah\u2019s China segment can give us a clue. As one of the leading voices in late-night TV for social justice and racial equality, Noah\u2019s take was disappointingly pedestrian at best, and reinforced bipartisan elite propaganda at worst.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the same CODEPINK interview<\/a> as with Nhondo Erskog, Congolese activist Kambale Musavuli suggests it is likely the latter; \u201cWhat Trevor Noah put in his video was definitely an equivocation, and it should not be taken as fact. He has access to this recent information, but he chose not to present it, he chose to skew the information to join the group of those who are pushing anti-Chinese sentiment around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Liberal satire (not unlike that of any other political persuasion) thrives off of making fun of chaos and ineptitude, whilst positioning itself as being on the \u2018right side\u2019 of the dialogue. There always has to be a construction of a larger-than-life, one-dimensional enemy to laugh at. Ronny Chieng playing a character representing all of \u201cChina\u201d battling Noah as the continent of \u201cAfrica\u201d draws a parallel to other caricatures, such as Alec Baldwin\u2019s Trump on \u201cSaturday Night Live<\/a>,\u201d or Jordan Peele\u2019s Obama on \u201cKey and Peele.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n If we make it ridiculous, it\u2019s less threatening, and gets views. However, as Nhondo Erskog points out<\/a>, these satirical characterizations have real-life impacts for real-life people: \u201cThis is a moment in which to be sensitive around how we talk about China in relation to the Chinese diaspora that continues to experience extremely brutal forms of violence and abuse is a bit saddening as a person who comes from a context knowing what racism is, and how racism destroys families and destroys lives and destroys communities.\u201d Not only does this contribute to already heightened sinophobia and racism against Chinese Americans<\/a> (and other Asian Americans more broadly), but it also reinforces narratives by American elites that build popular support for U.S. aggression against China, and militarism in the Asia-Pacific that is destroying communities and ecosystems<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Does it even matter whether late-night TV portrays accurate information? One month before the 2020 election, the Guardian<\/a> summed it up best: \u201cThe shows do, after all, retain huge audiences, with institutional legitimacy and social media platforms that reach millions.\u201d Even in the lean post-Trump years of late-night audiences, these shows still have the potential and ability to shape public perception and reinforce imperialist beliefs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Perhaps late-night TV was once the alternative to mainstream news programs for millennials, but it has lost its relevance in the social media era. These comedians are unable to capture younger audiences who have differing senses of humor and crave not only sharp critique, but meaningful analysis that doesn\u2019t shy away from confronting U.S. imperialism and the empire. [IDN-InDepthNews \u2013 02 February 2022].<\/p>\n\n\n\n * Allison Lau<\/strong> is the coordinator for CODEPINK\u2019s <\/em>China is Not Our Enemy<\/a> campaign. She earned a bachelor\u2019s degree from McGill University in political science and psychology, and a master\u2019s in international development from the Global Development Institute at the University of Manchester. She currently volunteers her time as director of operations at Queer Toronto Literary Magazine<\/a>. Lauren Gonitzke<\/strong> is the campaign assistant for CODEPINK\u2019s China is Not Our Enemy<\/a> campaign. She earned her bachelor\u2019s degree in English literature with a focus in creative writing alongside minors in both Chinese and Asian American studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has worked in communications, community building, and education.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Image credit: Daily News, Tanzania.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Viewpoint by Allison Lau and Lauren Gonitzke * This article was produced by Local Peace Economy, a project of the Independent Media Institute. NEW YORK (IDN) \u2014 In mid-December 2021, South African comedian Trevor Noah used \u201cThe Daily Show\u201d to target China when he aired a segment titled \u201cWhy China Is in Africa\u201d. 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