By Emily Cutler | Social Media | September 16, 2016 |
By Emily Cutler | Social Media | September 16, 2016 |
So this happened last night.
Oh, Jimmy. We know your thing is being the likable one. You’ve got your party games and you get celebrities to play flip cup or whatever. But this …
Yeah, man, that’s seriously disappointing.
Here's the thing, @jimmyfallon: Trump is an existential threat. Treating him like a regular candidate, legitimizing him, is reprehensible.
— Matthew Chapman (@fawfulfan) September 16, 2016
Jimmy Fallon messes Trump's fur. Aw! He's so funny! Remember when Maurice Chevalier pulled Hitler's moustache? pic.twitter.com/LJ8aMVETNz
— glenn o'brien (@lordrochester) September 16, 2016
I want to watch Jimmy Fallon's interview with Trump but with the camera on The Roots the entire time
— OneNiqueTofani (@OneTrickTofani) September 16, 2016
Jimmy Fallon is gonna ask Trump his favorite Saved by the Bell character and he'll be a tougher interviewer than Matt Lauer
— Bobby Big Wheel (@BobbyBigWheel) September 16, 2016
The only thing I'd rather watch less than Jimmy Fallon interviewing Trump is James Corden doing anything.
— Eric D. Snider (@EricDSnider) September 16, 2016
I have respect for entertainers who are bipartisan. I don't have respect for entertainers who humanize bigotry. Bad move, Jimmy Fallon.
— Charles Clymer (@cmclymer) September 16, 2016
Trump: "… the orientals must be enslaved & put to work mining for precious jewels"
— Pixelated Boat (@pixelatedboat) September 16, 2016
Jimmy Fallon *grinning hideously*: "Ha, that's great!"
Jimmy Fallon's brand is "Everything is Awesome!" which is great until "everything" turns out to include the rise of xenophobic fascism
— Arthur Chu (@arthur_affect) September 16, 2016
Hey Jimmy Fallon, did you ask him about the racism and the bigotry and the bribes and the lying and the doing business with criminals and th
— Bilge Ebiri (@BilgeEbiri) September 16, 2016
Trump says to @jimmyfallon that he knows nothing about Vladimir Putin. (Trump recited Putin's poll #'s recently.) pic.twitter.com/1B9DBXYi2f
— Sopan Deb (@SopanDeb) September 16, 2016
But if we’re being honest with ourselves, Mr. Nice Guy has always been Fallon’s thing. We probably should have seen this coming.
"I heard you were responsible for like 30 million deaths. That's crazy." Jimmy Fallon interviewing Stalin
— (((Andy Kindler))) (@AndyKindler) November 17, 2012
All jokes and Twitter reactions aside, and though we know it means very little in the grand scheme of things, we’re not OK with this. Trump has appeared before, but this is different. It’s less than eight weeks until the election, and Jimmy Fallon — the King of Late Night — has given a man who wants to ban Muslims from this country, who wants to build a wall to keep out Mexicans, and a man with a lengthy history of sexism, racism, and hate an opportunity to humanize himself, to normalize his bigotry in a mainstream setting.
That may not feel like a big deal to some of you, but to people who oppose the bigotry and hate that Donald Trump represents, it feels like a stab in the back. As TK writes, “I’m sorry, I get that his show isn’t exactly a news show, but goddamnit at some point the networks have to take a stand against oblivion. Trump isn’t just some other candidate with a few crazy ideas. He’s literally the potentially worst thing that could ever happen to this country. It’s time people stopped joking around with him.”
Consequently, at least until the election passes — or Jimmy Fallon owns up to this mistake and apologizes — we’re going to protest in the only way we know how: By refusing to feature any more of Jimmy Fallon’s videos. Reasonable people whose job is not to cover this election have an obligation, in our minds, to speak out against what Donald Trump represents — as NBC did when it fired him from The Apprentice for referring to Mexican immigrants as rapists — and Fallon not only refused to do so, he aligned himself with Trump by treating him like any other guest.
Donald Trump is not any other guest. Donald Trump is a threat to the lives and well being of millions of people not only in this country, but around the world. By normalizing the beliefs of a bigot, Jimmy Fallon has aided Donald Trump’s ability to carry out those threats.
For now, at least, Jimmy Fallon is dead to us.