When comedian Craig Ferguson stepped down from his role as host of the late-night talk show, The Late Late Show on CBS, the comedy world buzzed in anticipation of his replacement. Would he be young or old? Black or white? Male or female?
So it turns out Ferguson’s replacement, British comedian James Corden, fits the bill for just about every other late-night talk show host. RE: white male. It also turns out there was no reason to worry about whether or not the host would be female in the first place, because according to a CBS executive, considering a woman host was never an option for CBS.
Kathy Griffin, comedienne of My Life on the D-List and various other catty comedy shows, contacted CBS executives to express her interest in filling Ferguson’s spot, only to be told “they’re not considering females at this time.”
“I walk into the (meeting) room thinking, ‘I’ll give it a shot,’” Griffin told The Associated Press. “I leave the room thinking, ‘I never had a chance.’ We could be looking at 40 or 50 years until a woman is hosting a network late-night talker. Here’s the deal: We’re screwed.”
Although CBS has denied her claim, entertainment commentators and feminists alike are stirring nonetheless. Because the truth is, in this post-Joan Rivers world, there are no women hosting late-night talk shows, and few people can conclude a decisive explanation for the vacancy.
Sure, there was Chelsea Handler’s Chelsea Lately on E!, which ran off of Handler’s raunchy and sometimes cruel sense of humor. At its peak, the show attracted an average of 563,000 people between the ages of 18 and 49, with 369,000 of that number being women between 18 and 49, according to Nielsen Co. ratings. Clearly, this show was geared more toward the female demographic. The show ran from 2007 to 2014 before its cancelation, and although seven seasons seems like a solid run, compare that to The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, which enjoyed a 30 season run and ended only because Carson chose to retire.
Why are there no female late night talk show hosts? There are certainly capable women rocking the comedy world. Tina Fey, Amy Poehler and Kristen Wiig, all three veterans of the Saturday Night Live cast, have enjoyed immense success in both television and cinema since leaving SNL, but never in a late-night setting. Fey especially stands out as the sweetheart of the comedy world. Hilarious, intelligent and a shrewd businesswoman, Fey is a strong role model for so-called funny ladies, but late-night she is not. Fey’s sense of humor never crosses into the realm of raunchiness that characterizes late night shows such as Jimmy Kimmel Live!
Considering men exclusively host these shows, one may think they make up for a large majority of viewers. Surprisingly, this is not the case. In 2013, Jimmy Kimmel’s program averaged 1.4 million female viewers and 770,000 male. Similarly, 1.9 million women and 1.5 million men comprised the viewer demographics of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, according to Nielsen Co. ratings.
Does the problem lie in the prejudices of the network executives or the demands of the viewers? Recently deceased comedic legend and one-time late night talk show host Joan Rivers attributed some of the blame to the demands of female viewers.
“They had surveys at NBC, and the surveys were that women would rather watch a man at night, which is what they’re always throwing up in your face,” River said in a 2013 interview with the AP.
Although that is certainly a large part of the problem, women (and men too) can’t entirely be blamed for expecting a certain type of host when that prototype white male comprises the majority of hosts they’ve seen on late night. Society may have progressed from the culture that existed in the 1950s, where women stayed home and men went to work, but television hasn’t.
Daytime talk shows are hosted largely by women and are geared toward women as well. Yes, important topics are discussed on shows such as The View, but so are the female-oriented topics like baking, shopping and yoga. Meanwhile, late-night talk shows are more male-oriented, and the humor often leans toward the misogynistic and crude. The expectation? Women watch the female-oriented shows while they perform household chores in the morning and afternoon, and men come home from work and watch the late-night ones. Although plenty of women work full-time jobs, rendering this model obsolete, the television world has yet to evolve.
With so many funny women making waves in comedy, there has to be a place for female late-night hosts. However, if the Boy’s Club of Late-Night Comedy continues to persist, Kathy Griffin’s unfortunate prediction may ring true after all.
nah women aint funny.