How does a late-night TV comic approach an impending war in the Persian Gulf? Very delicately.
“I don’t think anyone can figure out my bent by listening to the monologue,” says “Tonight Show” host Jay Leno. “My job is not to give my opinion. My job is to entertain. When times are bad, that’s when you really earn your money.”
The shtick is much the same for the other late-night comics David Letterman, Conan O’Brien and Craig Kilborn. In the weeks leading to a possible conflict in Iraq, late-night humor–which often serves as a barometer of public sentiment–has waffled, reflecting Americans’ own ambivalence about the war.
The humor about the war has been absurdist or patriotic and sometimes even jingoistic, but rarely biting or politically loaded.
“Good news for Iraq,” Kilborn said on his show last week. “There’s a 50 percent chance that President Bush will confuse it with Iran.”
What’s more, while the war may be dominating the news at the moment, it’s just one item on the comic agenda.
In fact, from Jan. 1 through March 7, there were more late-night jokes about Bill Clinton on the four network talk shows than about Saddam, according to the Center for Media and Public Affairs.
“It’s always about ratings,” says Robert Lichter, the center’s president. “If people were aghast that Jay Leno was joking about Bush at all, he’d stop.”
Leno suggests that his limitations are fairly well defined and stringent.
“What we won’t do is question anyone’s patriotism,” he says. “We’ll never make jokes about our men and women in the field. You find out quickly what an audience will accept.”
The standards loosen as one moves down the TV food chain, from broadcast TV to basic and premium cable.
“The No. 1 thing the networks don’t want is people booing and writing letters,” says Bill Maher, host of “Real Time” on HBO. “But I think the networks and the media underestimate the appetite for contrarian points of view.”
