【21+ Archives】

In an earlier1+ Archives better time, late night was the place where smart comics got to write mostly meaningless jokes about transitory crap.

Ah, what an era.

2017 didn't change all of that -- there will always, sadly, be space in our culture for James Corden sing-a-longs -- but it did force late night comics to lean in one of two directions. Either they could take the easy breezy hair-fluffing Jimmy Fallon road and be ridiculed by rose emoji on Twitter, or they could go the Jimmy Kimmel route and wonk it out on national television.

Most chose the latter, to the benefit of their profit margins and ratings and sometimes, even, get ready for it -- the American people.

SEE ALSO: Someone thought Jimmy Fallon singing Prince would be good for the Macy's Day Parade. Most did not.

It's important not to romanticize the influence of late night in 2017 and share painful "Jimmy Kimmel is a Christ figure" posts on Twitter. Late night comedy did get increasingly political in 2017. American viewers, forced to live under a totalitarian Diet Coke-slurping bigoted bunion, were also increasingly attuned to it.

Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah, Samantha Bee, and Seth Meyers were always trying to direct our attention to the stories that mattered. But it didn't matter, at least in the ratings games. A year ago, Stephen Colbert lagged behind late night king Jimmy Fallon by close to 400,000 viewers. Comedy Central's Trevor Noah and TBS' Samantha Bee bottomed out the list, each attracting less than a million monthly viewers.

That's since changed, as has been well documented and as the ratings will attest. Fallon, who's admitted he "doesn't care much about politics," lost close to 700,000 viewers over the course of a year. The always politically astute Colbert meanwhile gained 600,000 viewers in 2016, pushing him over Kimmel and making him the unofficial "king" of late night. By the end of February, Samantha Bee had beaten both The Tonight Showand Last Week Tonightto become the leading late night show for people aged 18-34, with over 4 million followers across platforms.

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Nowhere has this transformation been more dramatic than in Kimmel's coming-of-age story.

The comedian may have very well saved Obamacare earlier this year when he delivered a series of searing, Vox-approved monologues about the Affordable Care Act. It was empathy in its purest form, and it worked precisely because of its unexpected messenger. Few people could have expected that the former host of The Man Showhad something to say about err, anything (sorry Jimmy). Even fewer people, even in this amoral abyss of a historical moment, were willing to go after his baby.

We were used to Bee's extenda-a-rants and Noah's trenchant monologues. If Kimmel was upset, then something had to be terribly wrong.

His transformation translated into real numbers. By early October, Kimmel's viewership had gone up by 9 percent. Even more importantly, his standing among the coveted 18-49 year old demographic improved by 4 percent. Both Fallon and Colbert had lost viewers in this demographic, though Fallon's fall has been more dramatic and better documented.

And his story seems authentic. It's thoroughly possible Kimmel wrote this monologue with the singular intention of improving his standing among cash-rich millennials. I'm just skeptical of that cynicism, and not just because I have to write a consistent hot take, and I can't emotionally afford any more fallen heroes.

At the risk of proving Susan Sarandon correct, 2017 was a year that many Americans suddenly learned that America was in the hands of a very, very bad man and decided to "wake up." Some of these transformations were more painful than others -- is there anything more embarrassing than seeing Joe Scarborough emerge from his cocoon as some kind of resistance hero -- and yet all were equally important. It was critical that we hear Alyssa Milano speak out about net neutrality, and to an audience who could give AF about it. We needed John Kasich, who is clearly not a psychopath, to threaten to leave the Republican party. And as much as it kills to say this, it was I guess comforting to see Mitt Romney stand up to/tweet at Nazis and pedophiles, which is apparently necessary now in 2017.

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Sorry, I need a minute. That sentence was incredibly dark. Let's all stare at this Maxine Waters GIF until our chakras align again.

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There are few prohibitions more dangerous than the American taboo against "talking about politics," as if politics were something only Vassar graduates discussed over Thanksgiving, as if it were completely divorced from the way people live. It's part of the reason we have some of the lowest voter turnout in the Western world, and a big part of the reason we continue to reward milquetoast embarrassments like James Corden and Frederick Douglass revisionists like Sean Spicer.

Some of that changed in 2017, just not as much as the hot takes will have you believe. Quietly put aside your feelings. What we're watching is a shift, not a tidal wave. While Colbert, Kimmel, et al experienced an uptick in ratings and critical praise, artists who've chosen to defend the eroding middle ground continue to perform well. Fallon remains number two in the ratings game. Taylor Swift, master of the art of saying nothing about nothing, had a particularly stellar year. Her latest altogether solid album, Reputation, became a best-selling album within a week of its release.

It was a bad year for America, and a good year for some of the most powerful people in America, which includes our late night comics, to do something about it. There are few more powerful images than that of a grown, middle-of-the-road comedian sobbing on stage on behalf of his son and all the other sons and daughters who aren't as lucky as him. The best way to heal our growing national trauma, late night has learned, is to remind us that it exists.

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Topics Jimmy Kimmel Live The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon Celebrities