I’m commenting a year later - wonder if the author has changed their thoughts on this. It is not really an issue with Ziwe’s show but with the media corporation that touts their (or any television programming) can be an antiracist tool for dismantling white supremacy. thats the issue with white culture is how black art is framed as a learning objective for white people to sit through to become better people. I’m black and ziwe’s show is just funny to me but obviously its psychotic for any white person to watch it and have the magical thinking that her minimally controversial showtime show is an anti racist antidote to white supremacy.
I think this is a fair comment and I have changed some of my thoughts on this in the past year. If I were to write this now, I’d keep the first half of it and change the second.
In the first half I explored a fissure I’d noticed that other people weren’t talking about yet — namely that the “Karens” Ziwe interviewed were light-years apart from the murderous women she contextualised them as in the intro. Bringing the women in to dunk on them felt opportunistic, and proved a pretty good template for a show that deploys the language of confrontation while eliding any real risk that could result from it (which I think comes up later in the interviews with Andrew Yang, when she grills Chet Hanks for the patois while avoiding the abuse allegations, and does the same with Charlamagne.) This isn’t a crime by any respect, but it’s basically an edgier version of what Colbert does. Effectively it’s the next iteration of corporate TV.
I don’t think Ziwe’s evil, bad, or that her show should be canceled (not to say that you were suggesting I think that.) And I promise I certainly don’t expect her to “solve” racism, or want to hold her to an exceptional standard. I just don’t think she has the conviction or moral authority to pull off the kind of interviews she’s trying to engineer anymore and I didn’t see any other publication writing about that. Basically, I was like “I don’t think you’re entirely on the level with all the social justice rhetoric you’ve been using to market yourself.” I think she’s a radically self-interested performer who very much wants to be famous, but that unlike other talk show hosts, she built her Twitter and IG brand largely on a type of leftist rhetoric that she doesn’t believe in anymore. Now, she’s having trouble threading the needle between being a bloodletting interviewer and a company woman. I also think her show suffers for it — she leans on an assumed ethical superiority she doesn’t have anymore, as she’s not willing to take the risks she took in her much more interesting IG live interviews to maintain it.
I think she’s got a number of talents: her set design and costuming is great, she’s hardworking, and she’s clearly very meticulous about detailing and fine tuning the work she puts out. I think if I could give her one piece of good-faith criticism, though, I’d tell her: “drop the leftism.” She’s not a leftist and she doesn’t believe in the social justice principles she got famous espousing enough to use her TV show to push for them. That’s okay—she shouldn’t have to—but it’s disingenuous to try to capitalise on leftist sentiment if you’re going to dodge every possible opportunity to contribute to it so you won’t upset Amazon Studios execs or your new famous friends. I think her show and creative work would be better served if she started exploring new ideas instead of trying to replicate the pointed IG interviews that her corporate buy-in now precludes her from sharpening. Tl;Dr: I think her position changed when she took the Showtime deal to turn her into a mononym, and her interview work has yet to adapt or catch up (maybe she’ll find her footing in fiction, though—her Amazon drama could end up being great for all I know.)
Anyway, I hope this was a satisfactory response—I think you make a good point and I wanted to flesh out a fair criticism you and others have gestured at.
I’m commenting a year later - wonder if the author has changed their thoughts on this. It is not really an issue with Ziwe’s show but with the media corporation that touts their (or any television programming) can be an antiracist tool for dismantling white supremacy. thats the issue with white culture is how black art is framed as a learning objective for white people to sit through to become better people. I’m black and ziwe’s show is just funny to me but obviously its psychotic for any white person to watch it and have the magical thinking that her minimally controversial showtime show is an anti racist antidote to white supremacy.
I think this is a fair comment and I have changed some of my thoughts on this in the past year. If I were to write this now, I’d keep the first half of it and change the second.
In the first half I explored a fissure I’d noticed that other people weren’t talking about yet — namely that the “Karens” Ziwe interviewed were light-years apart from the murderous women she contextualised them as in the intro. Bringing the women in to dunk on them felt opportunistic, and proved a pretty good template for a show that deploys the language of confrontation while eliding any real risk that could result from it (which I think comes up later in the interviews with Andrew Yang, when she grills Chet Hanks for the patois while avoiding the abuse allegations, and does the same with Charlamagne.) This isn’t a crime by any respect, but it’s basically an edgier version of what Colbert does. Effectively it’s the next iteration of corporate TV.
I don’t think Ziwe’s evil, bad, or that her show should be canceled (not to say that you were suggesting I think that.) And I promise I certainly don’t expect her to “solve” racism, or want to hold her to an exceptional standard. I just don’t think she has the conviction or moral authority to pull off the kind of interviews she’s trying to engineer anymore and I didn’t see any other publication writing about that. Basically, I was like “I don’t think you’re entirely on the level with all the social justice rhetoric you’ve been using to market yourself.” I think she’s a radically self-interested performer who very much wants to be famous, but that unlike other talk show hosts, she built her Twitter and IG brand largely on a type of leftist rhetoric that she doesn’t believe in anymore. Now, she’s having trouble threading the needle between being a bloodletting interviewer and a company woman. I also think her show suffers for it — she leans on an assumed ethical superiority she doesn’t have anymore, as she’s not willing to take the risks she took in her much more interesting IG live interviews to maintain it.
I think she’s got a number of talents: her set design and costuming is great, she’s hardworking, and she’s clearly very meticulous about detailing and fine tuning the work she puts out. I think if I could give her one piece of good-faith criticism, though, I’d tell her: “drop the leftism.” She’s not a leftist and she doesn’t believe in the social justice principles she got famous espousing enough to use her TV show to push for them. That’s okay—she shouldn’t have to—but it’s disingenuous to try to capitalise on leftist sentiment if you’re going to dodge every possible opportunity to contribute to it so you won’t upset Amazon Studios execs or your new famous friends. I think her show and creative work would be better served if she started exploring new ideas instead of trying to replicate the pointed IG interviews that her corporate buy-in now precludes her from sharpening. Tl;Dr: I think her position changed when she took the Showtime deal to turn her into a mononym, and her interview work has yet to adapt or catch up (maybe she’ll find her footing in fiction, though—her Amazon drama could end up being great for all I know.)
Anyway, I hope this was a satisfactory response—I think you make a good point and I wanted to flesh out a fair criticism you and others have gestured at.