foolish watcher

Our Tucker Carlson problem

Therese Odell
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Did you see this sweet story about a team who made special braces for a baby giraffe at the San Diego Zoo to help her walk and stand? I just learned yesterday that the husband of one of my middle school friends was on that team!

All Other TV News

It sounds like ABC is toying with the idea of Chris Rock hosting the Oscars next year. I mean, how can they possibly resist, right?

Sorry, alcohol companies and politicians, y’all will not be advertising on Disney+.

Jimmy Kimmel Live! will be heading back to Brooklyn for a week of shows this fall. He hasn’t been able to make the annual trip back home for the past two years because of COVID.

Wheel of Fortune is going on the road for the first time ever.

Samuel L. Jackson is NOT banned from Saturday Night Live. I repeat, he is not banned from SNL.

Neil Patrick Harris is sorry for making that meat cake that looked like Amy Winehouse one week after she died.

Martha Stewart doesn’t think the Pete Davidson/Kim Kardashian thing is going to last. 🙁

Dolly Parton presented the Peabody career achievement award to Dan Rather, and I love them both so much.

The layoffs at Netflix have begun.

I didn’t address the horrific mass shooting in Buffalo over the weekend yesterday, in small part because I don’t know that I have anything profound to add to the conversation. White supremacy is a cancer; weapons of war have no place on our streets; these monsters are not “crazy” or “lone wolves,” they are part of a violent fascist movement who is increasingly gaining power in this country, and I am legitimately terrified. It’s awful, but literally none of this is new.

But that last point — that this is part of a violent fascist movement — that’s what we should talk about here for just a moment. The killer posted an online manifesto claiming that he had been radicalized online by white replacement theory — the conspiracy theory that Democrats (and the Jews — because always the Jews) are intentionally flooding the country with people of color to maintain power and eliminate the white population.

But the real horror is that this radical conspiracy theory isn’t just lurking in the darker corners of the internet: in recent years, it has found a cozy home on Fox News’ most popular show: Tucker Carlson Tonight. Carlson has mentioned demographic replacement more than 400 times since 2016 and has repeatedly called for his audience to take action.

So, all eyes were on Tucker Carlson last night, to see how he would respond to the shooting and the allegations that his show encourages violence. It went exactly how you thought it would: he called the shooter “mentally ill,” claimed that the only reason anyone paid attention to this shooting and not the others that took place this weekend was because the victims were Black, that Black people made white people racist, and then tried to claim that he and his viewers are — as they always are — the real victims here.

It is awful and hateful and racist and nothing is ever going to change. Carlson is down to eight advertisers, the last ones who have stuck with him this long and are unlikely to respond to threats of boycotting. Fox News will never fire him, and the GOP will not even make the slightest effort to condemn white replacement theory or Carlson because the GOP is Fox News.

I mean, if we weren’t going to do anything about guns after a madman killed 20 first-graders and if we weren’t going to do anything about Tucker Carlson spewing hate after a white supremacist murdered 23 people in an El Paso Walmart, what’s going to change now?

#MeToo

Chris Rock’s take on the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard trial is bad.

Andy Dick was arrested, again, for felony sexual assault that took place on a YouTube live stream.

Sam Asi, a BBC Arabic journalist and member of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, who was placed on probation by the HFPA after he was accused of sexual misconduct is now suing the HFPA, claiming that he was sexually and racially harassed by its members.

Mario Batali was acquitted of groping a woman.

Let’s talk about Fred Savage.

Andie MacDowell spoke about having a panic attack on set following the 2016 election, when she was realized she was the only woman in the room. She also noted that since the #MeToo movement, there are more women on sets. Good.

So, the funniest thing happening on Twitter today is that king of the incels, Jordan Peterson, got mad because Sports Illustrated deigned to feature American model and singer-songwriter Yumi Nu on one of its Swimsuit Issue covers. Yumi Nu is the first plus-sized Asian model to make the cover and girlfriend is gorgeous. But apparently, she’s not to Peterson’s liking, which, you know, whatever. Except this dickbox, he claimed that featuring her is the result of “authoritarian tolerance.”

Then when people pushed back on his nonsense, Peterson announced he was quitting Twitter. That’s right: he insulted a stranger on Twitter for no good Goddamned reason, and then when other strangers insulted him, he got his fee-fees hurt and is running away. Christ, what an asshole.

Anyway, for no particular reason, this is what this Peterson guy looks like:

Renewals

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R.I.P.

Maggie Peterson, Andy Griffith Show actress

Kay Mellor, British TV writer and producer

WATCH THIS

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Mr. Mayor: Arpi and Neil head to the debate stage in the series finale. 7:30 p.m., NBC

Lovestruck High: A bunch of UK singles is brought to an American High School setting where they will “be fulfilling their teenage fantasies by entering the nostalgic picture-perfect world of an American High School,” and try to find love? And Lindsey Lohan narrates? What the actual hell? Premiere. Prime Video

Late Night:

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CW Superman & Lois
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FOX The Resident
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NBC Young Rock
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(new)		 This Is Us
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