All hail Jimmy Kimmel’s return! Fascism has been vanquished!
No, the brief suspension of the late-night host was not a threat to democracy.
Comrades, a glorious victory has been achieved! Our dear leader, the Walt Disney Company (Peace Be Upon It), has mercifully heeded the valiant heroes of the late-night comedy battlefield – Comrades Stewart, Colbert and O’Brien – and returned Comrade Kimmel to his rightful chair. Comrade Kimmel will return in triumph tonight, relieving the anguish of thousands – nay, hundreds of thousands – of Boomers who feared he had been silenced forever by the Bad Orange Man.
That’s right, yesterday, Disney, the parent company of the ABC network, announced that it would be reinstating Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the late-night talk show that was suspended not even a week ago after its star host, Jimmy Kimmel, made an inflammatory and factually incorrect statement about the man who allegedly gunned down conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Democracy has been saved! All hail the corporate executives and millionaire comedians! Nonbinary NPR-tote-bag-carriers across the United States are once again safe to go outside.
Now, last week, there were legitimate concerns that Kimmel’s brief cancellation had been the result of pressure from the White House. Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which licenses TV stations, heavily hinted that ABC could face regulatory pressure as a result of Kimmel’s monologue on Kirk. Yet surely we can now say these fears were overblown, given the speed with which Kimmel has been reinstated?
Still, listening to liberals this past week, you would have thought Kimmel’s suspension was as serious a threat to free speech as Kirk’s killing. Suddenly, every woke censor suddenly transformed into a hardened free-speech warrior when defending Kimmel’s satire.
The victory lap after his reinstatement was predictable. But even by the lowest of standards, it was pretty breathtaking to watch Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert spin this as the greatest of victories for free speech. Stewart spent a fair chunk of his Monday night monologue on Kimmel’s return basically fellating Disney. He name-checked a list of its ‘can’t miss’ shows and he praised his audience, addled by Trump Derangement Syndrome, for their activism: ‘That campaign that you all launched, pretending you were going to cancel Hulu, while secretly racing through four seasons of Only Murders in the Building, that really worked, congratulations. Wasn’t it interesting to try to figure out how many tentacles Disney has in your daily life?’
It was almost as if Colbert had got the exact same memo, because his monologue featured the exact same take. He just added some ultra-cringe whoops and hollers, as if he was the tough high-school football coach in some hardscrabble Rust Belt town. ‘Disney put Kimmel back on because you, the American people, were upset, okay?’
He continued:
‘Here’s why Disney folded. After Kimmel was suspended, Google searches for “cancel Disney Plus” and “cancel Hulu” spiked. Which explains why the other trending search was “How to entertain feral child without Bluey?”’
Did the late-night hosts all manage to turn the Kimmel / Kirk scandal into an advertisement for that corporation’s products? Stewart and Colbert aren’t even on Disney’s payroll! I guess corporate whores come cheap these days.
For its part, the Walt Disney Company explained Kimmel’s reinstatement in the following terms: ‘We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday.’
Allow me to translate: ‘We put Jimmy on the naughty step and made him think about what he had done. He has made us a pinky promise to be nicer to those weird Trump kids, so we will give him his allowance and his Playstation back.’
Whatever Jimmy says on tonight’s live show, however he addresses the scandal, at least we now know one thing. If the ‘fascist’ Trump regime really does want to silence late-night satirists, it’s not doing a very good job of it.
Jenny Holland is a former newspaper reporter and speechwriter. Visit her Substack here