美国国家公共电台 NPR How Late Night TV Addressed Charlottesville And This Week In Politics

 

DWANE BROWN, HOST:

With all the news out of Charlottesville, Va., over the past week, late-night TV shows have stepped up their game to try to help make sense and nonsense of the news. "Saturday Night Live" alum Tina Fey stopped by "SNL's" new weeknight version of "Weekend Update" on Thursday, joking about what would happen if neo-Nazis took to the streets of Manhattan.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "WEEKEND UPDATE")

TINA FEY: Part of me hopes these neo-Nazis do try it in New York City. Like, I hope they try and get the ham salad kicked out of them by a bunch of drag queens.

BROWN: OMG, that has to be RuPaul, right? Here to talk about how late night and entertainment TV is helping¹ us process all this is NPR TV critic Eric Deggans. Hey, Eric.

ERIC DEGGANS, BYLINE²: You can't go wrong with a RuPaul reference, you really can't.

BROWN: No, you can't. I mean, over-the-top?

DEGGANS: Not at all (laughter).

BROWN: Yeah. So Tina Fey, who is actually a graduate of University of Virginia, shared her personal connection to Charlottesville, Eric, but also did a comedic bit which actually went viral but also got some blowback. What happened there?

DEGGANS: Well, she came on and talked about how upset she was to see white supremacists marching through her old college town. And then she suggested, rather than incite³ violence by physically⁴ confronting them, that maybe Americans should just grab a sheet cake and eat it and then say all of the things that are upsetting them about the situation into the sheet cake, which was kind of funny. And she had a lot of great lines. But, you know, I think people criticized her, particularly online, for appearing to suggest that Americans can avoid this violence and stop counterprotesting against the neo-Nazis, which people kind of objected to.

BROWN: With all the news out there, it was a big week, though, for late night to respond. CNN.com had a piece this week saying the late-night shows have morphed into a new form - comedy outreach. Do you agree?

DEGGANS: Well, what I think is going on here is that late-night hosts have always had this weird⁵ role on television, which we saw particularly during David Letterman's time on the air. Most of the time, they're just trying to make us laugh. But when important, jarring, really socially important things happen, they also step up, and they help us figure out how to feel about it. And this week, you know, I saw a guy do that who we don't normally associate with that kind of talk - with political talk - Jimmy Kimmel on ABC. He spoke⁶ directly to Trump⁷ voters. And we've got a clip of it.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE!")

JIMMY KIMMEL: It's exciting because this was your guy. You picked a horse at, like, 35 to 1 and somehow it paid off. So now he's the president. So he gets in there, hires his daughter. He hires his son-in-law, demands an investigation⁸ of voter fraud even though he won the election.

(LAUGHTER)

KIMMEL: He calls the prime...

DEGGANS: Yeah, and this guy, he goes on for two minutes, listing all of these things that Trump did that seemed out of the ordinary that were very peculiar⁹ and odd. And Kimmel is this comic who always comes across as kind of an every guy, you know. He pokes¹⁰ a lot at political correctness and people who can't take a joke. So when he turns to a Trump voter and says they should admit deep down that they made a mistake, and they need to accept that Trump should leave office, that feels like something significant.

BROWN: And Kimmel heard from a lot of Trump voters, as well. He actually read some of those tweets the next day. But I can hear folks out there saying this is just entertainment. Is it possible we're expecting too much of TV shows that are mostly trying to get ratings and make people laugh?

DEGGANS: Well, you know, you can ask Sarah Palin how Tina Fey's impression of her, I'd say, kind of crystallized the public image of what she was about in a way that I think still affects her. But, you know, at a time when we've got cable news channels that are supposed to be 24-hour sources of information, devoting so much time to just having televised food fights? I think people need a more fun, less traumatizing way to process the day's events.

BROWN: That's NPR TV critic Eric Deggans. Thanks, Eric.

DEGGANS: Always a pleasure.

(SOUNDBITE OF LATYRX'S "LADY DON'T TEK NO")

1 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 incite   

v.引起，激动，煽动

参考例句：

• I wanted to point out he was a very good speaker, and could incite a crowd.我想说明他曾是一个非常出色的演讲家，非常会调动群众的情绪。
• Just a few words will incite him into action.他只需几句话一将，就会干。

4 physically   

adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律

参考例句：

• He was out of sorts physically,as well as disordered mentally.他浑身不舒服，心绪也很乱。
• Every time I think about it I feel physically sick.一想起那件事我就感到极恶心。

5 weird   

adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的

参考例句：

• From his weird behaviour,he seems a bit of an oddity.从他不寻常的行为看来，他好像有点怪。
• His weird clothes really gas me.他的怪衣裳简直笑死人。

6 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

7 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

8 investigation   

n.调查，调查研究

参考例句：

• In an investigation,a new fact became known, which told against him.在调查中新发现了一件对他不利的事实。
• He drew the conclusion by building on his own investigation.他根据自己的调查研究作出结论。

9 peculiar   

adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的

参考例句：

• He walks in a peculiar fashion.他走路的样子很奇特。
• He looked at me with a very peculiar expression.他用一种很奇怪的表情看着我。

10 pokes   

v.伸出( poke的第三人称单数 )；戳出；拨弄；与（某人）性交

参考例句：

• He pokes his nose into everything. 他这人好管闲事。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Only the tip of an iceberg pokes up above water. 只有冰山的尖端突出于水面。 来自辞典例句