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| Image from HBOBinge.com |
Of course I know I’m way tardy on the John Oliver bandwagon.
I’m like that guy at a party who brings up a hot new band and insists everybody
listen to them, only to have everyone else say, “Tagal na kaya nila,” and then add a variation of “I like their
older stuff better” for good measure. But here I am now staying up way past my
bedtime writing a blog entry about how I can't get enough of an
American TV show. I’m hoping people give me a pass.
The first full John Oliver clip I watched was the one about
government surveillance, with a sit-down interview with Edward Snowden. I had to
see it as I’ve been following the whole Snowden saga since he flew from Hong
Kong to Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport over two years ago. It had all the
elements of a juicy but fictional spy novel, but there it was unraveling in
real life, and live on TV and social media. I found it intriguing that a
relatively unknown TV host (unknown at least to me) would fly all the way to
the Russian capital to get the chance to meet and interview such a divisive personality.
John Oliver tackles tobacco
The interview itself was insightful, provocative, and, above
all, funny. For the first time, somebody dared to inject humor in a
ridiculously complicated issue, and in the process, strip it down to make it as
understandable and relevant as possible to the man on the street.
I didn’t revisit Oliver again until a few months later, when
Jon Stewart stepped down from his show. I appreciated Stewart’s high-brow humor
(high-brow in this case is relative, but compare his show to comedy in the
Philippines and the level of sophistication might even reach stratospheric
heights), but I don’t think I can call myself a diehard fan. Oliver was at the
farewell show, paying tribute to his mentor, and that’s when it hit me. Of
course. Where else would the geeky British guy with a penchant for checkered
shirts come from than the satirical news show that started it all? I clicked on
one of those suggested videos on the right of the screen on YouTube, then
another, and then another. Before I knew it several days had passed and almost
all the thumbnails on the Last Show Tonight channel had a grey film over them
with the word “Watched.”
But what exactly makes Last Week Tonight so compelling? I
mean, it’s just a guy at a desk talking directly to the camera. Granted he had
a British accent, but it’s not like he’s the only one. For one thing, the show
is clear about what it is. Oliver has never claimed to be anything other than a
comedian, whose show just happens to straddle the line between hardcore news
and a stand-up routine with visual aids. Much has been said about how much Oliver
has so deeply assumed the role of a hardhitting journalist tackling serious
issues like the death penalty, transgender rights, and nuclear weapons, but in
interviews, the host has been adamant in saying that, as a comedian, his main
job is to entertain people. This, I think, is important because it immediately
dismisses any pretensions that the show sees itself as a traditional investigative
news program. Last Week Tonight is a comedy show whose material just happens to
be the stuff we see on the nightly news.
The show's episode about FIFA and the World Cup has 11 million views and counting
Criticisms that it’s nothing but a derivative of The Daily
Show are unfounded. You can tell, of course, that it takes much of the elements that made
Stewart’s old show great, but in the year or so that it has been on air, Last
Week Tonight has firmly established itself as its own entity. The writing is
incredibly sharp. I particularly enjoy the analogies and metaphors they use either
to explain tricky concepts or simply to get a laugh out of audiences. Consider these
gems:
In a story about tobacco:
“It’s an aging product that’s decreasing in popularity and
yet somehow, it just can’t stop making money. It’s basically the agricultural
equivalent of U2.”
In a story about the NCAA
“Paying college athletes with a top-level education is like
asking a full-time nurse to take trumpet lessons. There’s no salary for this
job, we’re just gonna give you trumpet lessons which you’ll be too busy to do,
but if you don’t learn to play the trumpet, you’re fired.”
In a story about marketing to doctors:
“Drug companies are like high school boyfriends. They’re
more concerned about getting inside you than being effective once they’re in
there.”
One of my favorite episodes is his takedown of the evil that is televangelists
The script is funny, sure, but equally impressive is the
amount of research that goes into each episode. Oliver is basically in a
one-sided conversation with his audience, but you can be sure every claim,
every study, every statistic that comes out of his mouth is backed up by
solid research. The comedy writers may concoct the sugar that helps make the
medicine go down, but the medicine itself is crafted by the show’s research
team, who are so good that they would make any traditional news agency proud.
Television is supposed to inform just as much as it should entertain,
but I don’t think anybody would argue that, over the last few
decades, it has become more of a vehicle for escape than a tool to increase
knowledge. Although some would argue that it is still, first and foremost, a
comedy show (including, most passionately, Oliver himself), Last Week Tonight
With John Oliver is perhaps the most concrete example of a TV show that does
not turn its back on its obligation to make us think even as it does its best
to make us laugh. And I, for one, cannot get enough.
