Wyatt Cenac disappointed but not surprised by Jon Stewart “excusing” Tony Hinchcliffe
No stranger to disagreements with his former boss, Cenac argues that comedians are more than clowns. Their words and actions matter.
Photo by: Matt Wilson/Comedy Central
Last week, many were surprised by The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart laughing off comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s explicitly racist joke about Puerto Rico (not to mention the cracks toward Black people and Jews). This writer even brushed it off, attributing Stewart’s handwaving of Hinchcliffe as another instance of comedians protecting their own. One person who was not surprised is former Daily Show employee Wyatt Cenac. He is no stranger to disagreements with Stewart, who reportedly told Cenac to “fuck off” following a dispute over whether or not Stewart should do a Herman Cain voice. But since leaving their relationship on an awkward truce, Cenac has jumped back into the fray of criticizing his old boss this weekend. In an op-ed by Cenac published on his Substack, the former correspondent lambasted Stewart for “excusing [Hinchcliffe’s] participation in a xenophobic rally as the fault of the organizers for booking a ‘roast comedian.'”
Cenac criticized Stewart’s history of protecting comedians despite, well, everything. Previously, Stewart had “defended” Joe Rogan, whom Spotify recently rewarded with a $250 million contract for years of spreading COVID misinformation, and Dave Chappelle, who has spent the last year reportedly buying a town in Ohio when he isn’t demonizing trans people on stage. He “feigned ignorance” over the Louis CK allegations, an open secret so open that Gawker wrote about it as early as 2012. So when Stewart guffawed at Hinchcliffe calling Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage,” Cenac was hardly shocked.
Ultimately, Cenac argues that the guy receiving a “lucrative” part-time schedule to return to being “America’s Most Trusted Newsman” is more than a clown. As Cenac notes, The Daily Show, in Stewart’s words, takes news “a little more seriously than the media did.” Stewart wasn’t “defending comedy as much as suggesting to racists maybe if their hate speech had made him laugh, he might have their backs too.” To Cenac, “defending comedy” would’ve included pointing out that Hinchcliffe wasn’t performing at a comedy club (though his Puerto Rico material died there, too—so much for the audience is always right). It might also include, as Cenac writes, holding Rogan to the same standard as other purveyors of misinformation like Glenn Back or Tucker Carlson. Alas, the failed comedians of the far right aren’t clowns; they’re the ones shaping culture, news, and beliefs.
“Like it or not, Joe Rogan is this moment’s Jon Stewart, but with content more in line with Alex Jones,” Cenac writes. “And the Jon Stewart that Rogan is emulating seems reluctant to challenge his friend out of respect to some comedy omertà.”