Apparently Jon Stewart Throws Scripts at Women—and Other Scary Shit from Late-Night TV
A piece on Jezebel yesterday tackles the lack of women at the Daily Show, revealing that, while Jon Stewart may positively lovable on air, one former executive describes the “huge discrepancy between the Jon Stewart who goes on TV every night and the Jon Stewart who runs The Daily Show with joyless rage.” Ouch.
In one oft-told story, apparently Stewart threw a newspaper or script at the show’s co-creator Madeleine Smithberg, because he thought her work sucked. But Smithberg doesn’t think Stewart is sexist. As she puts it:
“By the time [a person] get to the candidates of the Daily Show, the herd has been thinned by the larger societal forces.” Of the greater talent pool of comedians, “All that’s left are white men and Aziz Ansari.”
So Stewart may not be sexist, but clearly the system is.
-jessica
