Strict orthodoxy sinks late night

This was painful to write because I was a huge Jon Stewart fan in college:

Then there was the sneering superficiality of Stewart’s treatment of a medical scandal I’ve studied closely, which he framed as the brave “new dawn of gender and sex complexity, where those who don’t fit into a simple binary are meant to be seen with humanity”. Stewart studiously avoided asking any of the obvious questions about the sudden profusion of (often objectively laughable) gender identities — despite his usual commitment to asking the obvious questions — and then mocked a caricature of that which he had not bothered to understand. The more I watched, the more the laughter in the studio sounded canned. Or maybe it was just hard to imagine anyone responding so enthusiastically to what Stewart had to offer. 

As someone who grew up watching The Daily Show, Stewart’s trajectory over the past few years has been painful to observe — and not just in the way that any bombed comedy set pains the audience. Stewart’s return to comedy raises some uncomfortable personal questions. Did I change? Did he change? In other words: what was I laughing at all those years? Was Stewart always so righteous and insufferable? Had I failed to see it because I’d been righteous and insufferable in just the same way? Were his interviews always so predictable? Somehow, the man whose show I couldn’t miss became the man whose every monologue I could have scripted had I been bored enough to try. 

But whether Stewart changed or I did, the times certainly have. It turns out strict orthodoxy is bad for comedians and other living things.